Corinth Contraband Camp (Corinth, Mississippi)

Corinth Contraband Camp (Corinth, Mississippi)

Eight life-size bronze statues (in six groupings) commemorate the formerly enslaved persons who escaped from the South and sought safety and freedom behind Union lines at the Corinth Contraband Camp in Corinth, Mississippi. Established by Union General Grenville M. Dodge in 1862 to shelter freedom-seekers, the Corinth Contraband Camp featured a church, a school, a hospital, and numerous homes as well as productive and profitable farms that were operated by freedmen and women. The bronze statues include: a woman with her hands on her hips, “the greeter”; a laundress ironing clothes; a farmer tending to his crops with a hoe; a female teacher with a young female student who read together from an open Bible; a man and boy gathering books; and a member of the United States Colored Troops who pulls Hardee's Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics from his haversack . Included at the site: two bronze plaques with inscriptions attached to a concrete wall near the greeter; two bronze low reliefs on a concrete wall opposite the greeter; and an informational panel explaining farming at the site in front of the farmer.

The two bronze low reliefs are based on nineteenth-century photographs: Timothy H. O'Sullivan, [Rappahannock River, Va. Fugitive African Americans fording the Rappahannock], August 1862 and G.W. Foster, Refugee camp; street scene, Camp Nelson, Kentucky, 1864.

Lugar, Larry, 1953-

Lugar, Andrea, 1952-

Photographs by Renée Ater

May 23, 2009

Siege and Battle of Corinth Commission (Rosemary Williams), Shiloh National Military Park (Superintendent Haywood “Woody” Harrell), Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and Corinth African-American Historical Society, and Preston Knight (Knight Brothers, Inc.).

National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240, United States

JPEG

English

Visual Arts-Sculpture

800 N Parkway St, Corinth, Mississippi, 38834, United States

Sculpture

Various sizes