Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm82017558
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The Custis-Lee Family Papers were assembled from sixteen separate collections that had been acquired by the Library from various sources, circa 1906-1968. Additions were received in 1985, 1990, 1991, and 2015.
The papers of the Custis-Lee Family were arranged and described into a single collection in 1984. The collection was assembled from sixteen separate collections that had been acquired by the Library through more than eighty separate purchases and gifts. The material that now comprises the Custis-Lee Family Papers originally included two collections of papers of Charles Lee and separately titled collections of papers of Anne R. McCarty Lee, Arthur Lee, Mrs. H. I. Lee, Henry Lee, Ludwell Lee, Mary Custis Lee, Mary Anne Randolph Custis Lee, Richard Bland Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Lee, William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, William and Hanna Philippa Ludwell Lee, and the Custis family. The collection was expanded and revised in 2000. The finding aid was revised in 2007. Additional material was processed by Andrea J. Briggs in 2019, and the finding aid was updated to reflect the addition.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of the Custis-Lee Family Papers is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Custis-Lee Family are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Custis-Lee Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The Custis-Lee Family Papers consist of sixteen previously separate collections formerly in the Manuscript Division's Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection. They span the period 1700-circa 1928, with the bulk of the material produced between 1770 and 1870. The papers include correspondence, transcripts and photocopies of letters in other repositories, facsimiles, financial records, genealogies, indentures, letterbooks, newspaper clippings, notebooks, photographs, poems, and reports. The papers are arranged in the following series: Letterbooks, Correspondence, Transcripts and Photocopies, Financial Records, Miscellany, and Oversize.
The papers document the activities of several generations of the principal members of the Custis and Lee families of Virginia, who as diplomats, statesmen, politicians, planters, and military officers, achieved prominence and power during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The collection contains information on a variety of subjects, including family affairs, military activities during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, agriculture in Virginia, slavery, mercantile and financial affairs, United States relations with France, and politics during the early republic. Prominent correspondents include John C. Breckinridge, William Grayson, Nathanael Greene, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Joseph E. Johnston, Timothy Pickering, Mary Pinckney, William C. Rives, Winfield Scott, Samuel Harrison Smith, and Louis T. Wigfall.
A letterbook, 1700-1825, of Richard Bland Lee includes correspondence of his grandparents, Henry Lee and Mary Bland Lee. Among the subjects discussed are family finances and business, trade with France, slavery, outfitting of troops during the Revolutionary War, founding of the new government, and the writing of the Constitution.
A group of Custis-Warden transcripts, 1811-1831, consists of copies of letters between David Bailie Warden and Elizabeth Parke Custis Law. The Maryland Historical Society has custody of the originals. Warden was United States consul in Paris from 1811 to 1814, and the correspondence with Custis describes relations with France, naval and military affairs during the War of 1812, and social life in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia during the early nineteenth century.
Robert E. Lee's correspondence, 1830-1868, relates to his long military career, beginning with his early work as an engineer and continuing with his service in the Mexican War and his role as general-in-chief of the Confederate armies. The Civil War correspondence is especially illuminating because it documents important military battles, the movement of troops, and the devastation and destruction caused by the Union Army.
Family matters are the focus of Mary Randolph Custis Lee's correspondence, 1837-1872. After the death of her husband, Robert E. Lee, she planned to build a memorial church for him, and numerous letters describe that effort. Two notebooks, 1823, contain information on the educational standards for young women in the early nineteenth century. One of the notebooks contains an essay that she wrote, "Some of the Principal Epochs of the Life of Buonaparte and of the French Revolution."
A letter from Arthur Lee to Nathanael Greene, 6 April 1784, received in 1985 has been added to the Arthur Lee correspondence. A letter from Robert E. Lee to Albert Miller Lea, 20 May 1862, received by the Library in 1990 has been added to the Robert E. Lee correspondence. A copy of a letter from Charles Lee to President John Adams, 7 Jan. 1799, was received in 1991 and has been added to the Charles Lee correspondence. Letters written by Mary Custis Lee likely to Elizabeth McCall Symington of St. Louis from 1871-1872 were received in 2015 and have been added to the Mary Custis Lee correspondence. A letter from George Washington Custis Lee to General William R. Boggs, 14 Jan. 1876, was received in 2015 and has been added to the George Washington Custis Lee correspondence.
This collection is arranged in six series:
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm82017558
Letterbooks of John Custis and Richard Bland Lee.
Arranged chronologically.
Correspondence of several generations of the Custis and Lee families.
Arranged alphabetically by name of family member and chronologically therein.
Transcripts and photocopies of correspondence of several generations of the Custis and Lee families.
Arranged by type of material and chronologically therein.
Account books, bills, invoices, ledgers, and receipts.
Arranged alphabetically by name of family member and type of material, and chronologically therein.
Facsimiles, genealogies, indentures, newspaper clippings, notebooks, photographs, report on Fielding Lewis, photocopy of Robert E. Lee's will, and a tribute to Ann Randolph Meade.
Arranged alphabetically by type of material and chronologically therein.
Correspondence and an indenture.
Arranged according to the series, containers, and folders from which the items were removed.