Etchings (prints)

Etching: 1 p. Depiction of a riot at Baltimore train tracks between Union soldiers on their way to Washington and secessionist sympathizers; civilians are throwing stones or brandishing pistols while soldiers, some on the train, use rifles with bayonets.

Etching: 1 p. Depiction of Lincoln is seen writing, his foot on the U.S. Constitution. Ghouls and demons surround him on the furniture and an inkpot. Two satirical paintings are hanging on the wall.

Etching: 1 p. A depiction of well dressed man attempting to pay another man to take his place in the Union army draft. All those selling themselves are smokers, drunkards, card players, or ragamuffins. A sign on the door advertises: "Substitutes for sale. Supply of able bodied men always on hand."

Etching: 1 p. German Union soldiers harassing a woman who pleads with them. The soldiers brandish their guns and knives as if in a play, while burning the woman's house and pursuing her children with a large Union flag.

Etching: 1 p. A view of rioting crowd, some in uniform and brandishing guns, some attempting to vote with pieces of paper labeled "Union tickets" which are also being ripped up by soldiers. Two Zouaves are in the foreground.

Etching: 1 p. Depiction of Union soldiers searching for hidden arms in a family's home. A mother and child cower in the window curtains while the officer, who has a bottle hidden in his coat, brandishes a small U.S. flag at them. The father of the family fights soldiers at the door.

Etching: 1 p. Haitians, depicted as if in African dress, dancing and beating drums around a child sacrifice. Some wear tribal necklaces or carry sticks with totems.

Etching: 1 p. Two Union soldiers survey land through trees and vines, their rifles by their sides. This is likely a depiction of the Union Army's attempts to build several canals around Vicksburg.

Etching: 1 p. A street scene showing destitute African Americans begging (a white man offers a "tract on slavery" rather than money), and others inhabiting a rundown "Colored Men's Home" where dancing, drinking, and fighting take place.

Etching: 1 p. A well dressed woman is shown praying in a furnished cave space. A crucifix is on the wall, the cave opening looks out on to the town.

Etching: 1 p. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry on a raid; much chaos as the mounted Confederates shoot Union soldiers, tear down the Union flag and harass a "Hezekiah Skinflint" who runs an alehouse.

Etching: 1 p. A man returns home to find his house burned and family killed by pillaging soldiers. A ripped open Bible on the ground is open to a page on which is written: "By their [deeds?] Ye shall know them."

Etching: 1 p. Protestant and Catholic clergy and congregations bring the bells from their churches (visible in background) to the smithy to be melted into cannons for the Union war effort.

Etching: 1 p. An idyllic landscape showing wreckage of ships off the coastline. A tattered Union flag waves from a mast.

Etching: 1 p. Depiction of Lincoln, dressed as a Union soldier, on his way to Washington by train (likely according to Franz Weitenkampf, to be inaugurated), peers timidly out of the door in Baltimore and is scared by a hissing cat. May refer to the passage of Union troops through Baltimore on April 19, 1861.

Etching: 1 p. Colonel Sickles stands outside a liquor store in Five Points, New York City, enlisting men from the surrounding crowd, including drunks, pickpockets, simpletons, and African Americans. A Mrs. Higby hands out free pipes to the newly enlisted men, "for the noble saviors of their country."

Etching: 1 p. Four men cross a river in a rowboat stocked with guns and barrels. They seem to be fleeing a fort on one side of the river which is firing at them.

Etching: 1 p. Philadelphia shop selling counterfeit Confederate money to well dressed men. An American flag hangs in the store, which is next to a "Bible house."

Etching: 1 p. Depiction of a crowd of characters, including Lincoln (at center), sacrifices a youth on a central pillar. The pillar is decorated with mottos such as "free love," "atheism," "rationalism," "negro worship," and "socialism." "Ego" is inscribed in both upper hand corners. An embodiment of "liberty" holds a banner: "the end sanctifies the means." An African American is enshrined on the "Chicago platform."

Etching: 1 p. J.E.B. Stuart pointing the way to safety in Virginia to his cavalry after a successful raid of Union forts in Pennsylvania, many horses and wagons are the product of the raid.

Etching: 1 p. Confederate camp with soldiers gathered in prayer, many leaning on their swords.

Etching: 1 p. Interior view of fort, Union Zouave soldiers guard the gate and oversee captured Confederate soldiers, who have balls and chains attached to their feet and are engaged in physical labor. A fat Gen. Butler shows off the scene to a woman.

Etching: 1 p. Three women are spinning yarn, weaving cloth, and sewing it into clothing.

Etching: 1 p. An African American slave woman directs mounted Union soldiers away from her home, while her master hides inside with her family.

Etching: 1 p. Men secretly load a rowboat with barrels, boxes, bundles of medicine.

Etching: 1 p. Mounted Union soldiers from the Seventh Kansas Regiment under Charles R. Jennison leave destruction in their wake as they ride through town; they burn houses, hack down doors, shoot a man and abduct a woman.

Etching: 1 p. Man being recruited to join a guerrilla band of Confederates under a flag calling for "no more surrenders;" his house has been destroyed and he sits with his family by the side of the road.

Etching: 1 p. Johnston crosses a rock and skull-strewn desert on foot, with an accompaniment of loafers, horses, and a Native American guide, after resigning his Federal Army position to take up an appointment with the Confederacy.

Etching: 1 p. Confederate soldiers, some on horseback, are herding a large group of pigs, cows and covered wagons, obtained during a raid on Union forts, toward a river.

This portfolio was produced in an edition of 200 copies for subscribers of Dr. Adalbert John Volck during the early part of the Civil War. It sardonically illustrates events that allegedly took place in the North and South from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Charleston and Vicksburg between 1861 and 1863. The original publication contained thirty prints, but one plate, "Meeting of the Southern Emissaries and Lincoln," has been lost. The twenty-nine caricatures presented here were etched during the Civil War. They show sympathy for the Confederate cause, and distaste for warfare in general.