John Tenniel 's "The Black Conscription, When Black Meets Black Then Comes The End (?) Of War”, published in Punch, a British satirical magazine, on September 26, 1863, is a wood engraved cartoon that depicts what would happen when two black soldiers, one fighting for the Union and the other fighting for the Confederacy, encounter each other during a battle in the Civil War. Tenniel 's cartoon, drawn from the perspective of someone who believed blacks shouldn’t be allowed to join the military, most likely had a variety of targeted audiences, including both Southerners and Northerners, as well as Americans, like Frederick Douglass, who thought that black conscription would both help the Union triumph over the Confederacy and help blacks achieve
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A year prior to the cartoon’s publication, the Militia Act of 1862, which stated that any free or escaped slave was allowed to become a soldier, was passed; however, it wasn’t until a year later that blacks began to enlist in the Union army in great numbers. As a matter of fact, the number of black men who joined the Union army was so great that the government established the Bureau of Colored Troops in 1863. According to the article “The Fight for Equal Rights: A Recruiting Poster for Black Soldiers in the Civil War”, this rise in enlistment was attributed to abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass, who “encouraged black men to become soldiers to ensure eventual full …show more content…
Second, the dispositions of both soldiers do not match the ways disciplined soldiers should act. The black soldiers are shown smiling and jumping around, excited to see each other. Again, white audiences looking at this image at the time probably thought how they could win the War if the soldiers on their side are shaking hands with the enemy. Finally, the way the faces of the men are drawn, with large lips and teeth, are most likely meant to make audiences think that proper soldiers do not look like these men do. Many Americans in the 1860s didn’t like anything that was different from them, so they wouldn’t want men like these representing their army. In the middle ground of the cartoon, a black Union soldier, who can be identified by his pinstriped uniform, is shown joyously shaking hands with a black Confederate soldier, who is wearing a cotton white uniform with the letter “S”, for South, on his belt. By drawing the two soldiers wearing infantry uniforms, Tenniel conveys that blacks were no in any commanding positions. At the time of the cartoon’s publication, as Charles H. Wesley mentions in his article, “The Employment of Negroes as Soldiers in the Confederate Army”, “some [whites] said that the Negro belonged
A year prior to the cartoon’s publication, the Militia Act of 1862, which stated that any free or escaped slave was allowed to become a soldier, was passed; however, it wasn’t until a year later that blacks began to enlist in the Union army in great numbers. As a matter of fact, the number of black men who joined the Union army was so great that the government established the Bureau of Colored Troops in 1863. According to the article “The Fight for Equal Rights: A Recruiting Poster for Black Soldiers in the Civil War”, this rise in enlistment was attributed to abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass, who “encouraged black men to become soldiers to ensure eventual full …show more content…
Second, the dispositions of both soldiers do not match the ways disciplined soldiers should act. The black soldiers are shown smiling and jumping around, excited to see each other. Again, white audiences looking at this image at the time probably thought how they could win the War if the soldiers on their side are shaking hands with the enemy. Finally, the way the faces of the men are drawn, with large lips and teeth, are most likely meant to make audiences think that proper soldiers do not look like these men do. Many Americans in the 1860s didn’t like anything that was different from them, so they wouldn’t want men like these representing their army. In the middle ground of the cartoon, a black Union soldier, who can be identified by his pinstriped uniform, is shown joyously shaking hands with a black Confederate soldier, who is wearing a cotton white uniform with the letter “S”, for South, on his belt. By drawing the two soldiers wearing infantry uniforms, Tenniel conveys that blacks were no in any commanding positions. At the time of the cartoon’s publication, as Charles H. Wesley mentions in his article, “The Employment of Negroes as Soldiers in the Confederate Army”, “some [whites] said that the Negro belonged