Surrender of a Confederate Soldier

External video
External video
	Podcast: The Civil War and American Art, Episode 6, Smithsonian American Art Museum

*Surrender of a Confederate Soldier*
Surrender of a Confederate Soldier
Artist	Julian Scott
Year	1873
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	49.2 cm × 39.4 cm (19 3/8 in × 15 1/2 in)
Location	Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Owner	Smithsonian Institution
Website	http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=84149

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.

Imagery and interpretation[]

Smithsonian 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[]

^ "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. | accessdate= February 15, 2012}}

[Smithson-1] "Surrender of a Confederate Soldier". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 15 February 2013.

[2] 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

[Catalog-3] Harvey, Eleanor Jones (2012). The Civil War and American Art. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-300-18733-5.

[smithvid-4] "The Civil War and American Art, Episode 6". Smithsonian American Art Museum. | accessdate= February 15, 2012}}

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