Museum of the Confederacy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| White House of the Confederacy | |
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| (U.S. National Historic Landmark) | |
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| Location: | Richmond, Virginia |
| Coordinates: | Coordinates: |
| Built/Founded: | 1861 |
| Architect: | Unknown |
| Architectural style(s): | Early Republic, Other |
| Added to NRHP: | October 15, 1966 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 66000924[1] |
| Governing body: | Private |
The Museum of the Confederacy is located in Richmond, Virginia. The museum includes the former White House of the Confederacy and maintains a comprehensive collection of artifacts, manuscripts and photographs from the Confederate States of America and the American Civil War (1861-1865).
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[edit] White House of the Confederacy
The White House of the Confederacy is a gray stuccoed neoclassical mansion built in 1818 by John Brockenbrough, who was president of the Bank of Virginia. Designed by Robert Mills, Brockenbrough’s private residence was built in early nineteenth century Richmond's affluent Shockoe Hill neighborhood, and was two blocks north of the Virginia State Capitol. Among his neighbors were U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall, Aaron Burr defense attorney John Wickham, and future U.S. Senator Benjamin Watkins Leigh.
Sold by the Brockenbrough family in 1844, the house passed through a succession of wealthy families throughout the antebellum period, including U.S. Congressman and future Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon. Just prior to the American Civil War, Lewis Dabney Crenshaw purchased the house and added a third floor. He sold the home to the City of Richmond, who in turn rented it to the Confederate government as its Executive Mansion.
Jefferson Davis, his wife Varina, and their children moved into the house in August 1861, and lived there for the remainder of the war. The house was abandoned during the evacuation of Richmond on April 2, 1865. Within twelve hours, soldiers from Major General Godfrey Weitzel’s XVIII Corps seized the former Confederate White House, intact. President Abraham Lincoln, who was in nearby City Point (now Hopewell, Virginia), traveled up the James River to tour the captured city, and visited Davis' former residence for about two hours.
During Reconstruction, the White House of the Confederacy served as the headquarters for Military District Number One (Virginia), and was occasionally used as the residence of the commanding officer of the Department of Virginia. Among those who served there were Major Generals Edward O.C. Ord, Alfred Terry, Henry Halleck, and Edward R.S. Canby. When Reconstruction ended in Virginia, (October 1870), the City of Richmond retook possession of the house, and subsequently used it as Richmond Central School, one of the first public schools in postwar Richmond.
When the City announced its plans to demolish the building to make way for a more modern school building in 1890, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society was formed with the sole purpose of saving the White House from destruction.
[edit] History of the Museum
Opened as the Confederate Museum on February 22, 1896, it was housed for many years in the former White House of the Confederacy. The Museum of the Confederacy was founded by influential Richmond society ladies, including Isabel Maury, Ann Crenshaw Grant, and Isobel Stewart Bryan. Ms. Maury was a cousin to Matthew Fontaine Maury, the naval officer and scientist credited as the father of modern oceanography. Mrs. Grant was the sister of Lewis Crenshaw, who owned the house just prior to the war, and was married to James Grant, a wealthy tobacconist who also lived within the neighborhood. Mrs. Bryan was the wife of Joseph Bryan, a wealthy businessman and publisher, whose family is still associated with the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
By the centennial anniversary of the Civil War, the Museum's governing board determined that it wanted to see the Museum evolve from a shrine to a more modern museum. In 1963, the CMLS hired its first museum professional as the executive director, and in 1970, changed the name of the institution to "The Museum of the Confederacy."
The Museum houses the largest and/or most comprehensive collection of artifacts, personal effects, and other memoriabilia related to the Confederacy. Among the thousands of other pieces found there are items owned by Jefferson Davis, Robert Edward Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, John Bell Hood, Thomas Jonathan Jackson, Simon Bolivar Buckner, J.E.B. Stuart, Joseph Wheeler, Lewis Armistead, and Raphael Semmes.
A newer building to better preserve and exhibit the Museum's collections was built and opened in 1976 immediately adjacent to the White House, on its remaining 3/4 acre (3,000 m²) property. The anchor of the first ironclad warship, CSS Virginia which fought the USS Monitor in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, is prominently displayed in front of the Museum.
The White House was closed in 1976, to be fully restored to its wartime appearance. The milestone restoration project was completed in 1988, gaining high marks from the preservation community for its accuracy and richness of detail. Reopened for public tours in June of that year, the White House featured extensive reproduction wall coverings and draperies, as well as significant numbers of original White House furnishings from the Civil War period.
Since the Museum opened in 1896, it has been visited by roughly five million visitors from all over the world. Only about one in five is from Virginia. Among the many famous world leaders who have visited the Museum are U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and even the leader of the 2006 military coup in Thailand, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin. It is also a popular attraction for many celebrities who visit Richmond, including actors Robert Duvall and Sam Neill, musicians from Bob Dylan to The Black Crowes, and sports figures such as NASCAR driver Sterling Marlin and former Winston Cup champion crew chief and current NASCAR on Fox commentator Jeff Hammond, among others.
Notable past and present exhibitions include: The Confederate Years: Battles, Leaders, and Soldiers, 1861 – 1865; Women in Mourning; Before Freedom Came: African-American Life in the Antebellum South; Embattled Emblem: The Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag, 1861 – Present; A Woman’s War: Southern Women, Civil War, and the Confederate Legacy; R. E. Lee: The Exhibition; The Confederate Navy; and Virginia and the Confederacy: A Quadricentennial Perspective.
[edit] Location near Virginia State Capitol
The Museum and White House of the Confederacy are located two blocks north of the Virginia State Capitol, and within walking distance of several other museums and historic sites, including the Executive Mansion of Virginia, Monumental Church, St. Paul’s Church, John Marshall House (an APVA property), and the John Wickham House (Valentine Richmond History Center).
It is, however, completely surrounded by and its view is cut off from those sites by the VCU Medical Center (formely the Medical College of Virginia hospitals) of Virginia Commonwealth University. The neighboring and expanding hi-rise medical facilities stirred debate in 2005 about the possible relocation of the Museum and the historic White House building. In 2006, Museum officials announced that the White House of the Confederacy, a National Historic Landmark (1963) and Virginia Historic Landmark (1966), will not be moved.
Critics of the Museum of the Confederacy's leadership in recent decades note that it previously owned the very land on which the new hospital construction is taking place, and sold it to VCU to help finance the very museum building now purportedly threatened by the hospital's expansion on the site.
[edit] Plans for a Future Museum System Unveiled
The Museum announced plans, in September 2007, to build a system of new museum sites around the state of Virginia. Citing diminishing returns on visitation to the original site, the concept for the “Museum of the Confederacy System” is to exhibit its vast collections in strategically located, high-traffic, tourist destinations that are also significant Civil War sites. Current plans are to build museums in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the Chancellorsville battlefield; in Appomattox County, Virginia, in or near the town of Appomattox; and in Hampton, Virginia, “inside the moat” at Fort Monroe. The White House of the Confederacy will remain in the care of the Museum, and will be interpreted at its current, original site. The Museum plans to maintain a corporate headquarters and its research and preservation facility in Richmond, perhaps at the current site of the Museum. While Museum officials recognize that the plan for implementing this bold, new initiative is aggressive, they plan to complete the bulk of it in time for the sesquecentennial (150th) anniversary of the Civil War, in 2011.
The new plan has attracted a fair share of criticism from long-standing supporters of Confederate history, who see the museum's abandonment of its Richmond environs as the first step in what many in the heritage commuinity believe is the museum's desire to break free from its "Confederate" moorings and transform itself into a more generic museum of the Civil War.
Others object to the breakup of the current collection across several proposed smaller museums, contending that much of the Museum of the Confederacy's cache comes from its ability to display so many high-value items in one location. The satellite museum plan, they argue, effectively ends the entire rationale for a "Museum of the Confederacy."
[edit] External links
- Museum of the Confederacy, official website
- Richmond Times-Dispatch story about location adjacent to MCV Hospitals
- Washington Post story about the current problems besetting the museum 04-04-07
- St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia, website, church where Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and other Confederate leaders worshipped
[edit] References
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2008-04-15).
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