A Costly Decision

Illustration of woman in red, white and blue outfit lighting a cannon tagged as Secession that's pointed at her.Rare Books Department, Boston Public Library

Pro-Union illustration from sometime in 1861.

Sometime in 1861, an unknown northern publisher produced patriotic envelopes (or covers) with this pro-Union scene. It depicts a woman (presumably representing the state of Virginia) wearing a dress patterned after the style of the Confederacy’s first official national flag (or “Stars and Bars”) standing at the muzzle of a cannon labeled “secession” as she attempts to fire it. Captioned “Virginia begins the War,” the illustration’s message is clear: The state’s decision that April to join the Confederacy was a foolish—and possibly mortal—mistake.

Four years later, in December 1865, Sarah Pugh, a schoolteacher and co-founder of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, used a copy (from which the image shown here is taken) to correspond with fellow abolitionist Elizabeth Pease Nichol. In her letter, she reflected on the gains their cause had made during the recently concluded war: “To live to see this day, was beyond our most daring anticipations,” Pugh wrote. “Although it has come through great tribulations—as was meant to our unrepentant nation—yet we rejoice at the deliverance God has wrought.”

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