Johnny Reb

Common card · No. 355122

Johnny Reb is the national personification of the common soldier of the Confederate States Army. During the American Civil War and afterwards, Johnny Reb and his Union counterpart Billy Yank were used in speech and literature to symbolize the common soldiers who fought in the conflict. The symbolic image of Johnny Reb in Southern culture has been represented in its novels, poems, art, public statuary, photography, and written history. According to the historian Bell I. Wiley, who wrote about the common soldiers of the Northern and the Southern armies, the name appears to have its origins in the habit of Union soldiers calling out, "Hello, Johnny" or "Howdy, Reb" to Confederate soldiers on the other side of the picket line. Johnny Reb is often pictured as a Confederate soldier in gray wool uniform with the typical kepi-style forage cap made of wool broadcloth or cotton jean cloth with a rounded, flat top, cotton lining, and leather visor. He is often shown as well with his weapons or with...

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