The Buried Cause: Unearthing Hidden History in the Lee Monument Cornerstone

Casting a modern light on memories and artifacts of the Civil War

In December 2021, a copper box filled with artifacts that had been buried beneath the statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, for 134 years was opened with great ceremony. Newspaper articles from 1887 had dubbed these mementos of Lee and life in the capital during and after the Civil War ＂cornerstone contributions.＂

In The Buried Cause, historians, curators, preservationists, and other experts from across the commonwealth come together to analyze these individual contributions, which include Masonic and military calling cards, copper coins gathered by the young sons of a Confederate veteran, a photograph of a memorial window in the Confederate Memorial Chapel, Southern bonds and currency, muster rolls and medals and reunion programs, and more. The essays also uncover and reveal to readers the lives of the people who donated the objects, the ceremonies that enshrined them, as well as the communities disregarded and unaccounted for in this material snapshot of the past.

Katherine Ridgway is State Archaeological Conservator at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Christina Keyser Vida is Elise H. Wright Curator of General Collections at the Valentine in Richmond, Virginia. Elizabeth Moore is State Archaeologist at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.