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]. The painting depicts an injured soldier of the Confederate [States Army] in the American [Civil War] waiving an improvised flag of surrender. The soldier is accompanied by black man and a woman holding an infant: the black man is presumed to be the soldier's Slavery in [the United States|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 . 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.