''Surrender of a Confederate Soldier'' is an 1873 painting by

Julian Scott Julian A. Scott (February 14, 1846 – July 4, 1901), was born in Johnson, Vermont, and served as a Union Army drummer during the American Civil War, where he received America's highest military decoration the Medal of Honor for his actions a ...

in the collection of the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

. 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.Silkenat, David. ''Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. The soldier is accompanied by black man and a woman holding an infant: the black man is presumed to be the soldier's

slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

, and the woman and infant are presumed to be his wife and child.

Imagery and interpretation

Smithsonian curator

Eleanor Jones Harvey Eleanor Jones Harvey is a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Career Eleanor Harvey was born in Washington, D.C., and earned a B.A. with distinction from the University of Virginia, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale Un ...

included ''Surrender of a Confederate Soldier'' in her 2012 exhibitio
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.

References

{{reflist American Civil War in art American paintings Paintings of African-Americans Paintings in the Smithsonian American Art Museum 1873 paintings