The Collections

The Museum of the Confederacy maintains the world’s most comprehensive collections of artifacts, manuscripts and photographs from the Confederate States of America. While the Museum is best known for its military collections, it also holds significant collections of domestic objects and decorative arts, personal papers and diaries, postwar memorial period materials and museum archives. The object collections total approximately 15,000 items. Among these are:

• 1,500 decorative arts objects featuring rococo revival-style furniture from the Confederate White House;
• 1,000 memorial period artifacts including badges and ribbons from postwar veterans Confederate Uniforms reunions and souvenirs of monument dedications throughout the South;
• 550 flags, including non-regulation oil-painted silk flags and government issue national colors;
• 300 edged weapons and 177 firearms representing Southern wartime manufacture and European imports;
• 215 uniforms including prewar militia uniforms, plantation-made garments, late-war issues from the CSA’s Richmond depot and the uniforms of well-known officers;
• 3,000 military accoutrements and 1,000 military buttons;
• 150 paintings featuring a series of 31 oil-on-board paintings of Charleston Harbor by Conrad Wise Chapman, E.B.D. Julio’s heroic painting, “The Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson,” and wartime paintings by William D. Washington;
• 25 sculptures including busts of Jefferson Davis and “Stonewall” Jackson by Frederick Volck and work by Moses Ezekiel; and
• 5,000 domestic items featuring wartime “ersatz” goods such as plantation wooden shoes and homemade soap, slave-woven coverlets and baskets, and articles associated with the employment of women in government bureau.

The Museum of the Confederacy fulfills its mission by collecting, displaying and preserving historic objects associated with the Confederate States of America including military and civilian items related to the secession of Southern States and the subsequent war; post-war activities of Confederate veterans organizations; the White House of the Confederacy; the Confederate Memorial Literary Society (CMLS); other Confederate memorial and descendants organizations; and social, cultural and political history of the Confederate States of America. The Museum has continued to build its world-class collection through generous donations from people who wish to have their Confederate objects, photographs, and documents preserved and displayed for posterity. If you would like to inquire about donating an artifact or item to the Museum collection or if you have questions about specific items in the Museum’s collection, please email us a message or call us at (855) 649-1861.

Learn more about our Artifacts.

Learn more about our Archives.

Learn more about our Photographs.