The American Civil War Museum

So, have the artifacts, flags, manuscripts, paintings, etc. of the former Museum of the Confederacy been re-distributed among the various locations?
I'd like to add my question to these. I visited the American Civil War Museum in Richmond about three years ago, when it was located across the street from the White House of the Confederacy. Coincidentally, I am wearing a t-shirt that I bought there that day. I was particularly happy to see Gen. Sterling Price's presentation sword that day. I thought the collections were very well presented and the overall space was very well designed. Many of you know that the exhibits included a large space depicting civilian life during the war, and a few displays which I gathered were probably not very "modernized" since they were featured in the original museum. The whole experience struck me as very fairly presented and very interesting.

I was aware of the Tredegar Iron Works, but did not go there. I'm now aware that a newer museum has opened there. We have seen some photos of it on threads here on our forum.

Has the museum I saw been completely closed and moved? Or is it still open? IF so, are its collections still intact, or have they been redistributed, as @Dave D also wonders?
 
I'd like to add my question to these. I visited the American Civil War Museum in Richmond about three years ago, when it was located across the street from the White House of the Confederacy. Coincidentally, I am wearing a t-shirt that I bought there that day. I was particularly happy to see Gen. Sterling Price's presentation sword that day. I thought the collections were very well presented and the overall space was very well designed. Many of you know that the exhibits included a large space depicting civilian life during the war, and a few displays which I gathered were probably not very "modernized" since they were featured in the original museum. The whole experience struck me as very fairly presented and very interesting.

I was aware of the Tredegar Iron Works, but did not go there. I'm now aware that a newer museum has opened there. We have seen some photos of it on threads here on our forum.

Has the museum I saw been completely closed and moved? Or is it still open? IF so, are its collections still intact, or have they been redistributed, as @Dave D also wonders?

I used this website for our itinerary, Pat.

https://acwm.org/visit/our-locations/

Bill
 
Nice photos - thanks for sharing them.

I visited the original Museum of the Confederacy, next door to the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond back in 2006 - held some very remarkable artifacts; I was able to make an appointment to view the battle flag of the 50th Virginia Infantry (my gr grandfather's regiment) which they brought out of their flag collection storage and spread on a large table for me to see.

Some years later, if I understand it correctly, the MOC was merged with the Tredegar Iron Works and was eventually renamed the American Civil War Museum. From time to time I read various news items about the possibility of the Museum being relocated to various places outside of Richmond, including Lexington, Lynchburg, Danville, and Appomattox. Now it looks like the American Civil War Museum is the parent organization of the former Museum of the Confederacy, the White House of the Confederacy, the Tredegar Iron Works, and the Museum of the Confederacy at Appomattox.

So, have the artifacts, flags, manuscripts, paintings, etc. of the former Museum of the Confederacy been re-distributed among the various locations? Any idea who keeps track of all these things? There now are people who clearly do not care about the preservation of Confederate artifacts ( e.g., the burning of the Goodlett library at the U.D.C. Memorial Building in 2020).
That's a great question. I visited the museum in Appomattox this year. I was in Richmond on the same trip but I found parking difficult near the museum and elected to go to Pamplin Park and Appomattox instead. I visited the WH of the Confederacy virtually.
I will write to the museum in Richmond and ask this question. They have a website https://acwm.org/
 
Nice photos - thanks for sharing them.

I visited the original Museum of the Confederacy, next door to the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond back in 2006 - held some very remarkable artifacts; I was able to make an appointment to view the battle flag of the 50th Virginia Infantry (my gr grandfather's regiment) which they brought out of their flag collection storage and spread on a large table for me to see.

Some years later, if I understand it correctly, the MOC was merged with the Tredegar Iron Works and was eventually renamed the American Civil War Museum. From time to time I read various news items about the possibility of the Museum being relocated to various places outside of Richmond, including Lexington, Lynchburg, Danville, and Appomattox. Now it looks like the American Civil War Museum is the parent organization of the former Museum of the Confederacy, the White House of the Confederacy, the Tredegar Iron Works, and the Museum of the Confederacy at Appomattox.

So, have the artifacts, flags, manuscripts, paintings, etc. of the former Museum of the Confederacy been re-distributed among the various locations? Any idea who keeps track of all these things? There now are people who clearly do not care about the preservation of Confederate artifacts ( e.g., the burning of the Goodlett library at the U.D.C. Memorial Building in 2020).
I would say that anyone burning a library in any building is not interested in history, never mind that it was a UDC building that was targeted.

When I went to the American Civil War Museum and asked them some questions (the one at Appomattox) they didn’t seem like they were hiding anything. They had plenty of buckets in the gift shop that were filled with Confederate flags for sale. However, they are also not going to engage in any conspiracy theories - not saying you are saying that - but the lead person there, when I was asking some hard questions, told me that some families who had originally loaned items to the museum, when they were displayed at the White House of the Confederacy, asked for their things back when they moved - and they gave them back.

In fact, when I was there asking questions, they asked if I was a reporter or from any particular groups because they weren’t going to keep talking and refer me to their lawyer. She obviously was worried about being entrapped and when I assured her through various means I wasn’t trying to do anything to embarrass her or the museum she was very open and honest about how they conserve and that they honored family’s wishes who wanted stuff back because they were upset about the move.

The flags and things are at the new museum but are being conserved in low light and in special drawers you can pull out and look at them. Some of them are just no more than pieces smaller than your hand and can’t be identified to any particular unit.

There is a simply magnificent uniform of Robert E. Lee that is on full display with a presentation sword. Plenty of small items from mourning beads to ladies gloves to gauntlets that cavalry officers wore.

Believe me, they are keeping track of the stuff.
 
I would say that anyone burning a library in any building is not interested in history
Book burning is anti-intellectual and shows hostility to any field of learning. It isn't simply Confederate artifacts that are under siege from philistines, it's any relic of the past--and if we can't learn from the past, we don't have much of a future.
 
The flags and things are at the new museum but are being conserved in low light and in special drawers you can pull out and look at them. Some of them are just no more than pieces smaller than your hand and can’t be identified to any particular unit.

There is a simply magnificent uniform of Robert E. Lee that is on full display with a presentation sword. Plenty of small items from mourning beads to ladies gloves to gauntlets that cavalry officers wore.

Believe me, they are keeping track of the stuff.
Thanks for the first person information. For a while back between 2010 and 2016 there seemed to be a lot of stories about moving or closing or merging or renaming the Confederate Museum and various other historic Confederate buildings - it was hard to keep track of the various developments. And then the anti-Confederate monument fights, feuds, and riots started to take over the headlines and it wasn't clear what was happening with the museums. It's good to know that the artifacts are being maintained under responsible curation.
 
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Robert Hancock <[email protected]>​

10:25 AM (8 minutes ago)
to me


I received this email in response to my question about what happened to the Museum of the Confederacy items.



Thank you for your email and interest in the museum. The old Museum of the Confederacy object collection was moved in its entirety to our new location at Historic Tredegar. We have three sites in which to display portions of the collection: Tredegar, The White House of the Confederacy, and the American Civil War Museum at Appomattox. Our manuscript, map, and rare book collections are housed at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture where they are being re-cataloged, digitized, and made available to researchers through the VMHC's Civil War research library.

For more information on our locations, exhibits, and collections, you can visit our website at ACWM.org. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact me.
 
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