Confederate Veterans
W.C. Round, Confederate veteran, half-length portrait, standing, facing slightly left, wearing badge during celebration at Bull Run, 1911
Tonight, I searched the phrase “confederate veteran” in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. We don’t often think of former Confederate soldiers, or really much about the aftermath of the Civil War at all, so the small treasure trove of photographs of early old, bearded men in the early 20th century allowed me to think about this history in a different way.
A couple of the following photographs are from 1911, but most of the images in the LOC database come from the Confederate Veterans Reunion that was held in Washington, DC in 1917, the first time it was ever aloud to be held in the nation’s capital. The event took place almost 60 years after the end of the war, World War I was raging, and Woodrow Wilson, a Southern Democrat and devout racist who re-segregated the Army, was in the White House. This article from a 1915 edition of the New York Times explains how the Reunion came to be held in the capital.
The images link to bibliographic information and higher res versions of the images.
D.W. Daw, Confederate Veteran, 1917.
Celebration at Bull Run: two Confederate veterans shaking hands, 1911.
Confederate Veteran Reunion, Washington, DC, 1917.
This image was made in 1922, several years later, on the grounds of Warren G. Harding’s White House.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:48 am
What inspired this search?
October 27th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I’ve been reading a lot about the civil war this year and was interested in some visuals.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Great post but you shouldn’t be “aloud” to post without reading it through once for obvious errors.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:42 am
yeah well your face has obvious errors.
May 10th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Interesting images. Did you manipulate them in any way? Looks like they were sharpened up and had some contrast adjustments. Nice work!
May 12th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
i didn’t manipulate them, though i don’t now that they weren’t manipulated by someone else before i found them.