M.A. Kleen

The 12-ton, 60-foot-tall bronze equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, was sculpted by French artist Jean Antonin Mercié and unveiled in 1890 as the city’s first and largest Confederate monument. Following a series of legal battles, the state removed it on September 8, 2021 after extensive vandalism during the 2020 protests.

After construction workers removed the 131-year-old monument’s cornerstone, they uncovered a large time capsule containing 71 waterlogged objects that had lain undisturbed since 1887. Conservators from Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources carefully removed and cataloged the contents.

The Buried Cause, edited by Katherine Ridgway, Christina Keyser Vida, and Elizabeth Moore, is part autopsy and part polemic, as well as an attempt to explain the context surrounding Monument Avenue, the Lee statue, and the items placed in its cornerstone.

Check out my review of this interesting but ultimately eye-rolling book, now up at Emerging Civil War: The Buried Cause: Unearthing Hidden History in the Lee Monument Cornerstone