“The Story of Ludwell Brown, the Lost Cause, and the Myth of the Black Confederate “

Less than a month before his death on November 18, 1937, the Union Star newspaper published an article celebrating the Virginians still receiving pensions for their service to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Ludwell Brown was amongst those pensioners. Yet, unlike the vast majority of Confederate veterans who were white soldiers, Brown was one of only 67 formerly enslaved Virginians listed on the pensioners’ roll that year. Born at Red Hill in 1841 and compelled into service as a child, likely by John Henry’s son, Confederate Captain Thomas Stanhope Henry, Brown’s life sat at the crossroads of racial subjugation and veneration by Southside Virginia’s Lost Cause celebrants. 

Join us to learn more about Ludwell Brown’s life and legacy.