Surrender of a Confederate Soldier is an 1873 painting by Julian Scott in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.[1] The painting depicts an injured soldier of the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865) waiving an improvised flag of surrender.[2] The soldier is accompanied by black man and a woman holding an infant: the black man is presumed to be the soldier's slave, and the woman and infant are presumed to be his wife and child.
| Surrender of a Confederate Soldier | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Julian Scott |
| Year | 1873 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Location | Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. |
| Owner | Smithsonian Institution |
Imagery and interpretation
editSmithsonian curator Eleanor Jones Harvey included Surrender of a Confederate Soldier in her 2012 exhibition The Civil War and American Art. In her catalog for the exhibition, Harvey asserts that the painting is part of a genre of images, painted in the Union states of the North, that showed the dignified surrender of the Southern soldiers as a way of depicting the emotional trauma of their defeat, the uncertainty of their social and economic future, and the possibility of a peaceful long-term reconciliation between the North and South. The artist served in the Union army and was a Medal of Honor recipient.[3]
References
edit| External videos | |
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 Podcast: The Civil War and American Art, Episode 6, Smithsonian American Art Museum[4] |
- ^ "Surrender of a Confederate Soldier". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
- ^ Silkenat, David. Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. ISBN 978-1-4696-4972-6
- ^ Harvey, Eleanor Jones (2012). The Civil War and American Art. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-300-18733-5.
- ^ "The Civil War and American Art, Episode 6". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved February 15, 2012.