Browse Items (18 total)

The use of Robert E. Lee and his camp slave to sell washing machines in the early twentieth century points to the popularity of the Lost Cause and the memory of the loyal body servant beyond the former Confederacy.

Few people who lived during the war years were confused about the roles that enslaved people played in the Confederate army. They performed a wide range of roles, but they were not remembered as having served as soldiers. In this scene, camp slaves…

Civil War artists capitalized on the popularity of the black Confederate myth. In the Grim Harvest of War, Bradley Schmehl features a “black Confederate” cradling a Confederate officer as Stonewall Jackson looks over the battlefield.

Journal article on the myth of the black Confederate soldier

Camp slaves performed vital functions for their masters in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield. They also provided entertainment, as depicted in this 1862 drawing by Frank Vizetelly.

Article about the history of Confederate camp slaves and the myth of the black Confederate soldier.

In 1914 the United Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated a monument on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. The design by Moses Ezekiel included the image of the loyal “Mammy” figure as well as a uniformed camp slave marching off with…

The presence of African Americans at reunions reinforced the Lost Cause even as late as the 1940s. Dr. R. A. Gwynne, seated center, attended the final Confederate veterans’ reunion in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1944. He would have been roughly ten…

Former camp slaves attend a veterans’ reunion in Tampa, Florida, in 1927. Steve Perry (“Uncle Steve Eberhart”) is fifth from the left and holds a Confederate flag, while Louis Napoleon Nelson sits on the far right with his bugle. The individual in…

Depiction of enslaved people working on Confederate defenses on James Island, near Charleston, South Carolina in 1863