Correspondence, journal, notebooks, drawings, personality studies and school work of Leland Jr., and condolences to Senator and Mrs. Stanford regarding the death of their son. The correspondence and journal relate primarily to family travels in Europe and activities at home in San Francisco and Palo Alto, to his interests in archeology and collecting (including a scrapbook of commemorative Civil War envelopes), and to his education. Also includes correspondence between Jane Lathrop Stanford and William T. Ross, one of Leland Jr.'s tutors.

Consists of correspondence (including one letter from Ambrose Bierce to a family member), photographs, maps, field notes, receipts, dispatches, telegrams, newspapers, and printed material. Material chiefly about the Civil War career of Bierce as a surveyor as well as his extended family in Indiana, especially sister Almeda Sophia Bierce Pittenger (the original source of this collection), father Marcus Aurelius and brothers Albert and Addison Bierce.