The “Light Guard”

Good Morning!

Today’s Friday Funny is an 1861 Harper’s Weekly cartoon.

Entitled “Costume Suggested for the Brave Stay-at-Home Light Guard,” this sketch mockingly questions the masculinity of Union men who did not voluntarily enlist. It casts these cowards as the “stay-at-home” guard—a feminized “soldier” attired in a dress-like uniform with hairbrush epaulets and a cooking-pot hat. He is armed with a feather duster, broom, and dustpan.

Image Credit: Harper’s Weekly, September 7, 1861.

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