Bill Eckberg writes:

Two old steamer trunks sit in the rare-book room at the Virginia Historical Society, looking worn and forlorn. The smaller one was once red but the paint has faded to a dullrust. The larger one is brown with a piece of tin patching a hole. On one side, a name is stenciled: "M. LEE."

That's Mary Custis Lee, Gen. Robert E. Lee's adventurous eldest daughter. In 1917, she stored these wooden trunks in the "silver vault" in the basement ofBurke & Herbert Bank & Trust in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Va. A year later, she died at 83. Her trunks sat in a dusty corner of the vault for 84 years,unclaimed, until Hunt Burke, the bank's vice chairman, discovered them in 2002.

Burke called his high school classmate Rob E.L. deButts Jr., Robert E. Lee's great-great-grandson. Together, the two men descended into the vault. Burke carried a basket ofold keys.

"The first one I pulled out was a perfect fit," he said.

The trunks were stuffed with Lee family papers: a priceless cache of 4,000 letters, photographs and documents. DeButts carted them here to the Virginia Historical Society,which houses the world's largest collection of Lee papers. He spent a week there, picking out treasures and trash from Mary Custis Lee's trunks.

Buried deep in one trunk was a letter that former slave Selina Gray wrote to Robert E. Lee's widow, the woman who'd once owned her. It's one of several letters toreveal the complex relationship between the Lees and African Americans.

"Mrs Lee, I received your letter and was happy to hear from you," Gray wrote in 1872, "and I was hoping to see you once more at Arlington."

Arlington had changed since Mrs. Lee had last seen it in 1861, when the Union Army occupied her family home.

To read the complete article, see:
Daughter's trunks tell much aboutLee (https://www.heraldextra.com/lifestyles/daughter-s-trunks-tell-much-about-lee/article_7efeaef5-f4b7-54d3-a292-57ccff90c698.html)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
SAVING THE WASHINGTON FAMILY FORTUNE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n01a23.html)