A Bull Run-ner
Library Company of Philadelphia
Beginning in the 1840s, the American market for comic valentines grew to rival the sales of traditional, sentimental cards. Characterized by unflattering images and mocking verses—and often sent anonymously—comic (or “vinegar”) valentines were not only bitter and crude (in both sentiment and production values) but also less expensive than their “sweeter” counterparts.
The illustration shown here, from a wartime example titled “A Bull Run-ner,” depicts a terrified soldier—his eyes wide, his close-cropped hair standing on end, his kepi and knapsack on the verge of flying off his body—bolting from the battlefield at Manassas as cannonballs whiz past. The accompanying text reads: “His eye-balls glare— / Oh! what a stare / Is on that human face divine; / He runs! he’s running back to me— / Oh! Hurry up! my Valentine.” One hopes that the unsuspecting soldiers who received such vinegary valentines had thick skins and combat-tested senses of humor.
