As a child, the author’s imagination was titillated when her parents referred to the ornately carved chest with domed lid and iron hasps as the Spanish mission chest, which conjured up the Spanish Empire with its distant Pacific possessions, the Philippine Islands.

The sandai chest traveled with the author’s grandfather, Charles Kilbourne, around the world throughout his distinguished military career. The hefty chest carried his essentials and had, his granddaughter eventually discovered, a secret compartment.

The rose medallion Canton tea set traveled in its own padded basket, and travel it did — a lifetime being shipped from military post to military post, coming to rest at last at the Kilbourne home in Lexington, Va.

In 1963, the author’s grandfather, retired Gen. Charles Kilbourne, visited Washington, D.C., where he was greeted by President John F. Kennedy. Six months later, only days apart, both men were dead, both given Full Honors Funerals with Black Jack, the riderless horse.

The author’s grandfather, Charles Kilbourne, on horseback in Germany after World War I. The photo is inscribed, “Bendorf on the Rhine, Jan 1919, CE Kilbourne – 3d Brigade, 2d division.

The pistols in the book’s title were revealed by the author’s mother to have been owned by Aaron Burr — but she made clear they were not the pistols used in Burr-Hamilton duel.

The armchair from which the author’s grandfather, Gen. Charles Kilbourne, held court after his retirement in the house in Lexington, Va.

An ashtray is more than just an ashtray when it is fashioned from the base of an artillery shell and stamped “Corregidor,” the Philippine island ingrained in the family’s history.