The Union Image: Popular Prints of the Civil War North (Civil War America)

During the American Civil War, popular prints were frequently used to depict, define, and celebrate both the Union and Confederate causes. The Union Image explores the graphic arts that portrayed the Northern side — both in patriotic pictures and newsworthy illustrations published while the war raged and in retrospective images issued years later as major weapons in the postwar battle to shape the national memory.

Created not for connoisseurs but for ordinary Americans, these engravings and lithographs depicted battles, commanders, life in camp and on campaign, the sacrifices of home and hearth, and an election campaign that roiled the North in the midst of the war. This volume reproduces nearly 150 original prints, allowing readers to trace changes in Northern public opinion, from Northerners' early high hopes for success to their appreciation for the ultimate victors, the “real men of war,” Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman.