A new exhibit, Memories of the Blue and Gray: The Civil War in East Tennessee at 150, will be on display at the Museum of East Tennessee History from April 27 through October 18, 2015. Image courtesy of the Museum

KNOXVILLE — The Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 may have legally ended the Civil War, but it did not end East Tennessee’s bitter internal war. As Union and Confederate veterans returned home, fierce partisanship and settling of old scores often continued. Some Confederates, feeling unwelcome in their own homeland, left the region, many never to return. Yet, as the months and years passed, the vast majority on each side began to work together to mend their differences and to rebuild their war-ravaged lives and communities. The new exhibit, Memories of the Blue and Gray: The Civil War in East Tennessee at 150, will be on display at the Museum of East Tennessee History from April 27 through October 18, 2015. The exhibition will explore early attempts at reconciliation and how we as East Tennesseans continue to remember the Civil War 150 years later.

The exhibition will feature more than 125 artifacts from the collections of ETHS, Gerald and Sandra Augustus, Drs. Anthony and Jill Hodges, and others, highlighting reconstruction, reunions, the Sultana disaster, cemeteries and monuments, commemorative art, educational institutions, collecting of artifacts and memorabilia, and state and local preservation efforts. Clothing varying from period gowns to a Ku Klux Klan uniform to a Confederate reunion frock coat will be on display, alongside a brush believed carried by a soldier who survived the explosion and sinking of the Sultana, a piece of furniture made by the former slave Lewis Buckner, and the diaries of Ellen Renshaw House. Featured Civil War Reunion memorabilia will range from 1881 to 2013 with the 150th anniversary of the battle of Fort Sanders. The “Looking Back” Civil War artifact documentation program of the Tennessee State Library and Archives will be represented with an odd-shaped shoe, fashioned by the Union for a Confederate soldier from Grainger County who lost half his foot in the Battle of Franklin. In addition to artifacts, the exhibition will include a video of Civil War collectors Gerald and Sandra Augustus and a slide show highlighting East Tennessee’s Civil War cemeteries and monuments.

The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Blue & Gray Reunion and Freedom Jubilee to be held in Knoxville, April 30-May 3, 2015. Four days of special programming highlighting Knoxville and the region’s Civil War history begins with the state's Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event with lectures by nationally recognized speakers, a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Civil War artifact documentation by the Tennessee State Library and Archives, student and teacher programs, a Blue & Gray Dinner, and more. Weekend activities include music, vintage baseball games, bus tours to historic homes, forts, and cemeteries, living history, heritage groups, exhibits, a service of remembrance, a Peace Jubilee, fireworks, and more. For more information on the programs of the Blue & Gray Reunion and Freedom Jubilee, please visit www.eastTNhistory.org/BlueGray.

The Museum of East Tennessee History is open 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday; 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Saturday; and 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, Sunday. Museum Admission is $5.00 for adults, $4.00 for seniors, and FREE for children under 16. Each Sunday admission is FREE to all and ETHS members always receive FREE admission. The Museum is located in the East Tennessee History Center, 601 South Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37901. For more information about booking the exhibition, scheduling a school tour, or visiting the museum, call (865) 215-8824, email eths@eastTNhistory.org, or visit www.easttnhistory.org.