Civil War Artifacts in the Smithsonian
The museum collections house many items from the Civil War, including photographs, uniforms and personal diaries
- By Smithsonian.com
- Smithsonian.com, March 04, 2011
(National Museum of African American History and Culture)
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Among a group of 19th-century daguerreotypes that recently came to the National Museum of African American History and Culture is one of an unknown soldier. “What I like about those 19th-century images is that the person is looking directly into the camera, and almost as if they were standing in front of you. The detail is so rich,” says collections specialist Michele Gates-Moresi. “It kind of brings the history alive in a way that other things just don’t.”
This image, which shows a black man from the waist up, dressed in a button-down cap and holding a rifle against his left shoulder, is undoubtedly of a Union soldier. An estimated 180,000 black soldiers served in the Union Army—10 percent of its total soldiers and 13 percent of the black population. “We know that so many of those soldiers were very young, quite ordinary, probably farmers, possibly illiterate, but we don’t know anything about him,” says Gates-Moresi.
History does tell us that blacks had to fight just for the right to participate in the war. Blacks attempting to enlist were rebuffed at every turn, prompting antislavery orator Frederick Douglass to petition President Lincoln to allow blacks to fight. Additional political pressures, mounting Union casualties and the realities of war eventually helped change Lincoln’s policy, but it wasn’t until Congress passed the Militia Act in 1862 that free blacks and ex-slaves were allowed to take up arms.
Black soldiers, who fought in segregated regiments, were not paid as much as white soldiers and were, for a time, prohibited from becoming officers. The most famous of these units was the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, led by Col. Robert Shaw, and immortalized in the 1989 film Glory.
And then there are the stories that we don’t know. These photographs seek to give a face to the experience of the black soldiers who served in the Civil War, whose stories, while unknown, are just as important. “If we’re only telling the story about people whose stories we know about,” says Gates-Moresi, “then we’re doing a disservice to the experience of most people.”
by Arcynta Ali Childs
Comments (16)
In Picture 12/20, there is a black civil war soldier titled "Daguerreotype of Unknown Black Civil War Soldier" with the description "a black man from the waist up, dressed in a button-down cap and holding a rifle against his left shoulder, is undoubtedly of a Union soldier." It appears that he has what looks to be a buck tail on his hat, just like the famous Pennsylvania regiments that were nicknamed "The Bucktails." I had never heard of any African-American units using the same symbol and I was wondering if there was a connection there at all. I tried to Google image search the picture, but to no avail. Anyone know anything further?
Posted by Bryce Hartranft on March 19,2013 | 09:31 AM
These were Federal Dead, not Confederate dead. Which is really rare for Battlefield death pictures.
Posted by Alden Woodside on August 2,2012 | 07:44 PM
These were Federal Dead, not Confederate dead. Which is really rare for Battlefield death pictures.
Posted by Alden Woodside on August 2,2012 | 07:44 PM
Could this diary ever be made into a book, to be read by the public?
Posted by Barb Crawford on March 4,2012 | 01:52 PM
Wasn't that the table Phil Sheridan gave to George Custer as a present to Libbie? If so, was it she who donated the table to the Smithsonian after her husband died at the Little Big Horn?
Posted by Alan R. on March 2,2012 | 07:16 AM
It always amazes me how technology and medical advancements blossom during war, aviation being a prime example.
With medicine, it is at the time we are destroying limbs and lives that we do the most to restore and save.
Kinda sad, and yet hopeful...
Posted by Julius on August 22,2011 | 12:29 PM
The Lincoln cartoon shows what looks to be Lt. Gen. W. Scott in the picture on the wall.
Posted by Ray Simons on August 9,2011 | 08:21 AM
I suggest the caricature shows Lincoln not as a Don Quixote-like figure but almost certainly Hamlet, Prince of the Danes, the dark, mad, morally corrupt and doomed Shakespearean figure well-known to Americans in the mid-19th century.
Posted by Scott on June 30,2011 | 10:01 PM
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to view and read the pages of Adam Francis Plummer's Diary as a link to this slide show. I personally think it would add alot to this online article/pictorial.
Posted by A Genealogist on May 3,2011 | 11:28 PM
Due to it being President Lincoln's hat there is no doubt it was made of the finest beaver short hair. When the pelt was processed, they used some type of a combination comb & cutter to remove all the longer more coarse hair from the beaver pelt. When finished with the complete more elaborate process all that remained was the short, very fine, and softer under hair. I don't know if top-hats where made of any other materials but no respectable gentleman would wear one not made of beaver. This style was fashionable all over the world with the upper-classes for many years, putting a huge demand and value on beaver’s pelt. The demand for these valuable pelts, led to the exploration and eventual settling of the Western and North Western territories of North America years before it would have taken place otherwise! If the wealthy had worn hats made of a different material, it could have been many more years before any of the gold rushes! The only thing that saved the beaver from extinction was, they where just as busy about there reproduction as they are about everything else and unfortunately the top-hat fell out of style! Japanese dignitaries were probably the last peoples to figure out the top-hat was no longer in style, as they still sported them proudly until the late 1940’s!
Posted by Christopher Guinn on April 16,2011 | 12:29 PM
Not all slaves were forbidden from learning to read and write. Just because the majority of them were kept illiterate does not mean they all were. Some needed to be able to read, write, and do sums simply because their duties necessitated such. Some, and these were the fortunate few, were children of the house slaves were able to learn as the children of the plantation owners did if they had a private tutor who taught them in their early years so the child had someone to learn with. There were as many different situations as there were plantations.
Posted by P. Hanlon on April 15,2011 | 12:14 AM
I'm curious about how and where Mr. Plummer gained his literacy. Slaves were forbidden from learning to read and write.
Posted by Nancy Montgomery on April 12,2011 | 02:25 PM
Consider this as a poster for fundraising. Powerful piece! ( D. of Unknown Black Civil War Soldier )
Posted by Christie Newman on March 24,2011 | 08:14 AM
beautiful calligraphy!
Posted by Douglas Gardner on March 13,2011 | 10:54 PM
Mosby's hat is fur felt, probably beaver from the belly of the skin. The band and binding is grosgrain ribbon.
Posted by beverly keenan on March 12,2011 | 09:25 PM
Does anyone know what this hat is made of?
Posted by Diane Bean on March 9,2011 | 04:50 PM