RICHMOND, Va., July 12 (UPI) -- A priceless trove of letters from Confederate Army Gen. Robert E. Lee is on display at the Virginia Historical Society after being hidden for almost 85 years.
Two trunks belonging to Mary Custis Lee, the general's oldest daughter, sat unnoticed in a Richmond, Va., bank vault until a bank official discovered them and called his friend, Gen. Lee's great-great-grandson, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Rob E.L. deButts Jr. said he brought a cache of keys -- and the first one he tried fit the lock.
The trunks contained 4,000 items, including Lee family letters, photographs, documents and memorabilia.
The collection includes postcards Mary Custis Lee gathered in Paris, Egypt and Atlantic City, N.J., as well as knickknacks she gathered on her world travels. There's a list of 266 slaves owned by an ancestor in 1766 and letters her father wrote to her during the Civil War.
"He's a marvelous letter-writer -- expressive, lusty, funny, charming," said Elizabeth Brown Pryor, author of "Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters," which was published this spring. "You have a very real, emotional person who's writing these letters."
