Currier & Ives Civil War Lithograph Prints

The unlikely teaming of military leader George B. McClellan with Peace Democrat (Copperhead) George Hunt Pendleton as presidential and vice presidential candidates in the 1864 election is ridiculed here. The artist charges McClellan with disloyalty to his former troops by virtue of a "peace at any price" campaign. In the center McClellan (left) is attached to the side of his running mate by "The Party Tie." McClellan says apologetically to the two Union soldiers at his left, "It was not I that did it fellow Soldiers!!

A pro-Lincoln satire, deposited for copyright weeks before the 1860 presidential election. The contest is portrayed as a baseball game in which Lincoln has defeated (left to right) John Bell, Stephen A. Douglas, and John C. Breckinridge.

The Confederate leaders are portrayed as a band of competing opportunists led by South Carolina governor and secessionist Francis Pickens (far left). The artist criticizes the January 1861 secession of five states from the lower South, following the lead of South Carolina, which had formally declared its independence a month before. Armed with a whip and a pistol, Pickens sits on the back of a young slave, pronouncing, "South Carolina claims to be file leader and general whipper in of the new Confederacy, a special edict! Obey and tremble!" The other leaders are also armed.

The print's title derives from the name of Hinton Rowan Helper's 1857 pamphlet "The Impending Crisis," an influential document in antislavery literature. Here the crisis is that of New York senator William H. Seward, whose recent loss of the Republican presidential nomination to Abraham Lincoln was widely attributed to the machinations of New York "Tribune" editor Horace Greeley. Seward flounders in the water at the end of a pier, crying, "Oh I'm going down for the "last time." He holds aloft "Greelys Letter." Henry J.

The artist portrays a President tormented by nightmares of defeat in the election of 1864. The print probably appeared late in the campaign. Lincoln was said to have believed in the prophetic importance of dreams. The President lies on a bed under a sheet embroidered with stars. In his dream Columbia or Liberty, wielding the severed head of a black man, stands at the door of the White House. She sends a frightened Lincoln away with a kick.

The Republicans' purported support of Negro rights is taken to an extreme here. Editor Horace Greeley (left) and candidate Abraham Lincoln (resting his elbow on a rail at right) stand on either side of a short black man holding a spear. The latter is the deformed African man recently featured at P.T.

In late December 1860 three commissioners from the newly seceded state of South Carolina met with lame-duck President Buchanan to negotiate for possession of Fort Sumter, a federal installation in Charleston Harbor. Buchanan's attempts to stay the situation and South Carolina governor Francis Pickens's insistence on Union evacuation of the fort are ridiculed here. Pickens (left) holds a lit fuse to a giant Union cannon "Peacemaker," which is pointed at his own abdomen. He threatens, "Mr.

The print may have appeared soon after the Confederate Congress passed a national conscription act on April 16, 1862, to strengthen its dwindling army of volunteers. The artist characterizes regular Confederate troops as unsavory, criminal types. Two of them (in uniform, left and center) have a well-dressed young gentleman in tow. The leader pulls on a rope around the reluctant recruit's neck, saying, "Come along you rascal!

Depicts 5 Union ironclad ships attacking Confederate fort while Union soldiers stand on the shore. Caption: "By the Gun-boats, commanded by Rear Admiral D. D. Porter, and the Union troops under Majr. Genl. McClernand; the number of Prisoners taken was 7000, being more than all the Federal forces in action, also 20 Guns, 8000 Stand of small arms and 200 army wagons, with herds of horses and mules.

In a rare pro-Democrat cartoon presidential aspirant George Brinton McClellan is portrayed as the intermediary between Abraham Lincoln and Confederacy president Jefferson Davis. Gen. McClellan is in the center acting as a go-between in a tug-of-war over a "Map of the United States" engaged in by Lincoln (left) and Davis.

Depicts a brief military engagement between a Union fleet and rebel batteries at Port Hudson. Most ships passed through safely except the Frigate Mississippi.

Depicts Union infantry in a bayonet charge with injured Confederate soldies in foreground and Union Army and explosion in background. Caption: "Terrific bayonet charge of the Federal troops and final repulse of the Rebel Army."

Depicts Union and Confederate infantry engaged in combat with injured Confederate soldiers in the foreground and armored ships firing artillery in the background.

The piece depicts a Union charge after initial defeat, ending in the death of over 1200 rebel soldiers.

The movement of several Southern states toward secession in early 1861 is portrayed as a doomed enterprise. The artist shows Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, all represented by men riding donkeys, following the lead of South Carolina toward a cliff.

An election year cartoon measuring Democratic candidate McClellan's military failures against the recent successes of his successor, Ulysses S. Grant. At right Grant, portrayed as a bulldog wearing a collar labeled "Lieut. General" and epaulets, sits pugnaciously on the tracks of the "Weldon Railroad," a Confederate supply route. He looks to Republican presidential incumbent Abraham Lincoln and boasts, "I'm bound to take it." Grant refers to the city of Richmond, here represented by a doghouse, in which cowers Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

Depicts Union and Confederate cavalry and infantry in combat using guns, swords, and bayonets. Caption: "This was one of the greatest battles of the war commencing on the 31st December 1862 and after terrible losses terminating on January 2nd 1863 in a glorious victory for the "Stars and Stripes." The desperate valor of both armies during this three days fight will be long remembered, by the brave heroes, who shared its dangers and its renown."

An angered response to false Confederate peace overtures and to the push for reconciliation with the South advanced by the Peace Democrats in 1864. (See also "The Sportsman Upset by the Recoil of His Own Gun," no. 1864-32.) Confederate general Robert E. Lee and president Jefferson Davis (center) stand back-to-back trying to ward off an attack by Northern officers (from left to right) Philip H. Sheridan, Ulysses S. Grant, David G. Farragut, and William T. Sherman.

A caricature of Jefferson Davis, probably issued not long after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, but certainly postdating his February 1861 election as president of the Confederacy. Davis is shown standing on a gallows, draped in the Confederate flag and wearing on his head a misshapen Phrygian cap. Under him is a "Secession Trap" door. He anticipates his drop saying, "O dear! O dear! I don't really want to secede this way--I want to be let alone.'" To the gallows crossbar is nailed a "Letter of Marque."(See "The Southern Confederacy a Fact!" no.

Democratic presidential candidate George Brinton McClellan is lampooned as an incompetent military leader. He sits in a saddle mounted on the boom of the Union ironclad vessel "Galena." The print recalls two prominent failures in McClellan's tenure as commander of the Army of the Potomac, which haunted him during the 1864 campaign. The "Galena," a Union ironclad leading a flotilla of Union gunboats against Richmond, was driven back and badly damaged by Confederate batteries just miles from the capital in May 1862.

The polarizing issue of slavery and its extension into the West is the crux of this political cartoon depicting the presidential candidates in 1860. In their attempts to cross Salt River, Abraham Lincoln teeters on a rail balanced by the abolitionist Horace Greeley. Stephen Douglas, the champion of popular sovereignty, a doctrine that lets voters decide their regions political and economic destiny, is falling off of the Non Intervention rope, while President James Buchanan carries John C. Breckenridge across the rope labeled Slavery Extension.

At half past ten P.M. the boats left their moorings & steamed down the river, the Benton, Admiral Porter, taking the lead. As they approached the point opposite the town, a terrible concentrated fire of the centre, upper and lower batteries, both water and bluff, was directed upon the channel, which ran within one hundred yards of the shore. At the same moment innumerable flats of turpentine and other combustible materials were set ablaze. In the face of all this fire, the boats made their way with but little loss except the transport Henry Clay, which was set on fire & sunk.

Depicts Union and Confederate cavalry and infantry attacking in formation with wounded Union soldiers in the foreground. Caption: "This battle shows what undaunted courage, the Lion-hearted Army of the Potomac always meets its foes.

The cartoon depicts John Bull telling a man Pat to not enlist with either of the "Belligerents" or he will not protect him if he's taken as a pirate. Pat responds that the stars and stripes he will be fighting for will proctect him.