Confederate Memorial Hall Museum

Thomas Sully and his partner Toledano completed a Romanesque Revival building on Camp Street in 1888. Three years later, philanthropist Frank T. Howard opened it as Confederate Memorial Hall — a museum to house the Louisiana Historical Association's Civil War collections. It became the oldest continuously operating museum in Louisiana. New Orleans had been the largest city in the South at the start of the Civil War. When that war ended, its veterans began donating artifacts — uniforms, battle flags, personal effects — to the new museum. The collection grew quickly. Today it holds over 5,000 objects, making it the second-largest collection of Confederate Civil War items in the world, behind Richmond's American Civil War Museum. The holdings include personal effects of Jefferson Davis — clothing, his Bible, his saddle, a crown of thorns from Pope Pius IX, all donated by his widow Varina. The collection includes uniforms worn by Confederate generals Braxton Bragg and P.G.T. Beauregard, and more than 140 regimental and other Confederate flags. In May 1893, Jefferson Davis's exhumed body lay in state in the hall. Over 60,000 people came to mourn before it was moved to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. For decades, the building itself has been caught in an ownership dispute. Howard's original donation language gave possession to the Louisiana Historical Association but described the building as "an Adjunct of the Howard Memorial Library Association." When the Howard Library relocated to Tulane in the 1940s, its building was eventually sold and converted into the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The Ogden Museum now flanks Confederate Memorial Hall on two sides. In the 1990s, UNO proposed building a tunnel through the museum's basement to connect the Ogden buildings. Negotiations collapsed. In 2001, UNO claimed title to Confederate Memorial Hall and sought to evict the museum. Governor Mike Foster brokered a 2003 compromise: UNO would cede its title claims in exchange for the construction of the connecting tunnel. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 4pm. Admission is charged. Photography is permitted.