TIMELESS TREASURES

Researchers Crack Open Second Time Capsule Found Beneath Lee Statue

They were delighted to find that the contents appear to correspond with an 1887 list of items.

When conservators at the Department of Historic Resources in Richmond, Virginia began sifting through the time capsule discovered Monday beneath Robert E. Lee’s statue, they were delighted to find that the contents appear to correspond with an 1887 list in a newspaper detailing what was allegedly buried beneath the monument. A Confederate button, bylaws of Camp Lee, and a bullet lodged in a piece of wood were among the antiquities first pulled from the copper box. The much-desired original photo of Abraham Lincoln lying in his coffin, however, was not found. Instead, the team found a photo of the mourning scene that was only a copy from a Harper’s Weekly magazine. A $1 Confederate note, a genealogical tree of the Lee family, a history of First Battle of Manassas, and a shell fragment from Fredericksburg are other listed items on the 1887 list.