Archive: R. E. Lee Camp, No. 1, Confederate Veterans (SC-21)

This series is comprised of publications created while the camp was still in operation, including a rare guest register from 1912-1914. The thousands of guest signatures include some well-known figures such as J.C. Penny, Minnie Sky Eagle and Chief Red Eagle of the Great Sioux Nation, and Sam Rayburn. The highlight of the book is a complete page signed by ten members of the Blackfeet Nation, including four chiefs. The contigent of Blackfeet leaders from Glacier National Park were likely in nearby Washington, D.C. on tribal business, and signed the register on May 19, 1914 with their pictographs: Chief Eagle Calf (also known as John Ground), Medicine Owl, Two Guns White Calf (Chief and best known as a model for the “Buffalo Nickel”), Lazy Boy (Chief), Mrs. Medicine Owl, Frank White Quiver, Fish Wolf Robe (Chief), Mrs. Two Guns White Calf, Mrs. Bird Rattle, Bird Rattle.

This series is comprised of two extremely rare artifacts, reunion ribbons that provide material testimony to the reconciliation efforts of Confederate and Union veterans only twenty years after they faced each other as enemies during the Civil War. The ribbons were creates to commemorate the reciprocal visits of the veterans organizations – Seward Post, No. 37, GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) and R.E. Lee Camp, No. 1, CV (Confederate Veterans) – first to Auburn, NY, and then to Richmond. Each organization spared no expense or outlay of effort to wine, dine, and celebrate their counterparts. Among the festivities in Richmond was a special lunch given for the Union veterans at the Soldiers’ Home. Only the year before, GAR posts from all over the country were instrumental in helping to raise funds to establish the Soldiers’ Home.