Reconstruction
Thomas Nast (1840-1902)
Union Soldiers in Andersonville
Prison/The Rebel Leader, Jeff Davis,
at Fortress Monroe.
Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1865
Wood engraving
Prints & Photographs Division
Copyright deposit, 1865 (43.8)
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Thomas Nast was the most influential political
cartoonist in nineteenth-century America. His editorial cartoons
for Harper's Weekly, which he joined in 1862, helped
inflame Union sentiment during the Civil War. Nast became one
of the most visible and voluble critics of the inadequacies of
post-war Reconstruction, which was initiated by Lincoln and carried
out by his successor Andrew Johnson. This rampant divisiveness
is made apparent when Nast sharply juxtaposes the degradation
of Union prisoners at Andersonville with the comfort afforded
fallen Confederate president Jefferson Davis during his confinement
at Fort Monroe.
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