Harper's Weekly“A Short Blanket”
Harper’s Weekly published this cartoon in its December 14, 1861, issue. Titled “A Short Blanket,” it pokes fun at a Confederacy assumed to be ill-equipped to defend its territory from Union forces. A lanky southerner named “Old Secesh” lies in bed in a dilapidated room, a rat nearby on the floor and a peeling map of the Confederacy on the wall. The man’s thin blanket, labeled “Confederate Army,” is not big enough to cover him—his exposed shoulder (marked “VA”) representing Virginia, his feet labeled as the vital port cities of Savannah and Charleston—a dilemma he laments in the caption: “While I cover my Neck, I expose my Feet, and if I cover my Feet, I expose my Neck. Ugh!” A month before the cartoon’s publication, Union forces had launched an amphibious expedition to capture Port Royal, South Carolina, a coastal foothold they later expanded northward and used as a base for the slow-moving, but ultimately successful, operations against Charleston.
Related topics: Confederacy
