Red Hill Rediscovered: "The Story of Ludwell Brown, the Lost Cause, and the Myth of the Black Confederate"

Less than a month before his death on November 18, 1937, the Union Star newspaper published an article celebrating the Virginians still receiving pensions for their service to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Ludwell Brown was amongst those pensioners. Yet, unlike the vast majority of Confederate veterans who were white soldiers, Brown was one of only 67 formerly enslaved Virginians listed on the pensioners’ roll that year. Born at Red Hill in 1841 and compelled into service as a child, likely by John Henry’s son, Confederate Captain Thomas Stanhope Henry, Brown’s life sat at the crossroads of racial subjugation and veneration by Southside Virginia’s Lost Cause celebrants. 

 

Join us to learn more about Ludwell Brown’s life and legacy.
 

Peighton Young is a public historian specializing in the history of African American life and culture in the South. Peighton began working with Red Hill in April 2020 as a historian and genealogist for the Quarter Place Project. The primary goals of my work are to research the history of slavery and post-slavery Black life at Red Hill, provide genealogical services to families seeking to learn more about their ancestry, and to help Black families navigate their ancestral ties to Red Hill and other related Henry-family plantations.

Peighton received a B.A. in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2017, an M.A. in History from VCU in 2020, a second M.A. in History from the College of William & Mary in 2021, and is currently a PhD student at the College of William & Mary, aiming to finish in 2026.