Confederate Reunion and Flag (1917)

The following images capture scenes from a Confederate Veterans' Reunion held in Washington, D.C., in 1917. In the first image, two Civil War veterans proudly pose with a tattered and threadbare Confederate battle flag, which by 1917, was both an emblem of the Confederacy and a symbol of the Lost Cause view of the war. The subsequent photograph shows a line of North Carolina veterans in uniform marching behind standard bearers carrying the United States flag and the Confederate battle flag. In the final image, veterans parade past a reviewing stand in front of the White House. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, holding his top hat to his chest, can be seen among the spectators. At the head of the Tar Heel contingent depicted here is a marcher carrying the First National Flag of the Confederacy; its thirteen stars in the canton represent all the Confederate states plus the secessionist factions of Missouri and Kentucky. These glass-plate negative images were made by the Harris & Ewing studio in Washington, D.C., a firm that specialized in news photography.