Southern Historical Art

~ Original charcoal and graphite pencil drawings ~
~ Colonial scenes, plantation scenes, and the antebellum Old South ~
~ Portraits of Confederate soldiers, officers, & ancestors ~

These drawings are based on my own photographs of historical reenactments
(except for General Lee and the ancestral portraits, which are based on photos taken during the subjects' lifetimes).

Antebellum Planter (Reenactor), North Carolina, 2011. Black and white charcoal, 6 1/4" x 9 3/4". $95.
Available in my Etsy shop

Children with Spinning Wheel on an Antebellum Plantation in South Carolina, 2011. White charcoal on black mat board, 5 3/4" x 6 5/8".
Original drawing available in my Etsy shop: $175.
Greeting cards available in my print shop.

black Confederate soldier, charcoal drawing

Black Confederate Soldier, 2011. Charcoal on paper, 9" x 12".
Original drawing available in my Etsy shop: $145.
Giclée prints & greeting cards available in my print shop.

girl writing a letter with a quill pen on a Carolina plantation, pencil drawing

Girl Writing a Letter with a Quill Pen on a South Carolina Plantation, Early 1800s, 2000.
Pencil on paper, 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". $150 - Sold.

sisters making ginger cakes on a Carolina plantation, pencil drawing

Sisters Making Ginger Cakes on a South Carolina Plantation, Early 1800s, 2000.
Pencil on paper, 5 3/4" x 4 1/4".
Original drawing: $175 - Sold.
Greeting cards available in my print shop.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee, 1863.
2000, Pencil on paper, approx. 9 x 6". $95.

Portraits of Ancestors

Portrait of George Washington Gilbert, pencil on paper

George Washington Gilbert (1852-1930) of Georgia, 2000. Pencil on paper, 6 x 4 1/2". $95.

Portrait of George W. Malcom, pencil on paper

George W. Malcom (1791-1864), Georgia planter & minister, 2000. Pencil on paper, 8 x 6". $145.
Available in my Etsy shop

Portrait of Sallie Haseltine (Crawford) Ruark, pencil on paper

Sallie Haseltine (Crawford) Ruark (1852-1941) of Georgia, 2000. Pencil on paper, approx. 5 1/2 x 4". $95.

Portrait of Leila Gertrude (Bolen) Odom, pencil on paper

Leila Gertrude (Bolen) Odom (1893-1983) of South Carolina, 2000. Pencil on paper, approx. 6 x 4". $95.
Available in my Etsy shop

Portrait of Laura Dwight (Kennerly) Bonnett, pencil on paper

Laura Dwight (Kennerly) Bonnett (1848-1920) of South Carolina, 2000. Pencil on paper, approx. 5 1/2 x 4". $95.

Flag image courtesy
of Ken Oxenrider

"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished."

--Confederate General Robert E. Lee

"The sole object of this war is to restore the Union. Should I become convinced it has any other object, or that the Government designs its soldiers to execute the wishes of the Abolitionists, I pledge you my honor as a man and a soldier I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side."

--Union General Ulysses S. Grant,
in a letter to the Chicage Tribune, 1862.

"The slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline and thus be made unfit for slavery."

--Confederate President Jefferson Davis

"The American people, North and South, went into the war [Between the States] as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects... And what they thus lost they have never got back."

--H.L. Mencken

"My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it."

--Abraham Lincoln,
in a letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, on Aug. 22, 1862.

"The North has adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed on the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North."

--S.C. Senator John C. Calhoun, 1831

"The error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States...formed the compact, acting as sovereign and independent communities."

--S.C. Senator John C. Calhoun

"In that part of the Union where the Negroes are no longer slaves, have they become closer to whites? Everyone who has lived in the United States will have noticed just the opposite. Race prejudice seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists, and nowhere is it more intolerant than in those states where slavery was never known."

--Alexis De Tocqueville (1805-1859),
in Democracy in America

"All that the South has ever desired was that the Union -- as established by our forefathers -- should be preserved, and that the government -- as originally organized -- should be administered in purity and truth."

--Confederate General Robert E. Lee

"A nation which does not remember what was yesterday does not know where it is today."
--Confederate General Robert E. Lee

Interesting Reading

"Not Yours To Give" by Davy Crockett

"The Civil War Wasn't About Slavery"
by Walter Williams, economics professor & syndicated columnist

"Black Confederates and the Casualty of Truth"

"A Layman's Look at the Communist Manifesto"

"In the Land of Cotton: An Immigrant to Dixie Examines the 'Lost Cause'"

"The Dumbing Down of America"
An 1895 8th-grade final exam from Salina, Kansas, shows that "...the average Joe was much more well-educated 100 years ago -- before government secured its virtual monopoly grip on schooling in America."

America's Caesar: The Decline and Fall of Republican Government in the United States of America

"The South and Southern History"
by Clyde Wilson (professor of history at the University of South Carolina and editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun)