American Civil War Museum — White House of the Confederacy

The White House of the Confederacy was built in 1818 — the Revolutionary era's immediate architectural aftermath — and served as Jefferson Davis's presidential residence during the Civil War. The associated American Civil War Museum provides context for how Richmond's Revolutionary era identity was refracted through the Confederacy's appropriation of the Founders. The site illuminates how the same city that was burned by Benedict Arnold in 1781 and designed a capitol modeled on Roman republicanism by Jefferson later became the capital of a slaveholding Confederacy that claimed the same revolutionary legacy.