Surrender of a Confederate Soldier

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
ArtistJulian Scott
Year1873
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions49.2 cm × 39.4 cm (19 3/8 in × 15 1/2 in)
LocationSmithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
OwnerSmithsonian Institution
Websitehttp://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=84149

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
External video
Podcast: The Civil War and American Art, Episode 6, Smithsonian American Art Museum[4]
  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
  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.
  4. "The Civil War and American Art, Episode 6". Smithsonian American Art Museum. | accessdate= February 15, 2012}}
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