Lincoln in Caricature — A Reader’s Guide

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Authors: Wilson, Rufus Rockwell, 1865-1949 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2014 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Caricatures and cartoons Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 9,869

Reading time 43 min

Text sections 2

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #45069

An examination of Civil War-era political cartoons featuring Abraham Lincoln, drawn from Harper's Weekly, London Punch, and other periodicals, with contextual commentary by Rufus Rockwell Wilson.

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LINCOLN IN CARICATURE

By Rufus Rockwell Wilson

Author Of "Washington: The Capital City"

Illustrated With Thirty-two Plates

Printed For Private Distribution

LINCOLN IN CARICATURE

INCOLN in caricature is a phase of the career of the great war President that has thus far lacked adequate treatment. Yet he was the most bitterly assailed and savagely cartooned public man of his time, and one has only to search the newspapers and periodicals of that period to find striking confirmation of this fact. The attitude of Great Britain toward the Union and its President was then one of cynical and scarcely veiled hostility, and nowhere were the sentiments of the English government and of the English masses more faithfully reflected than in the cartoons which appeared in London _Punch_ between 1861 and 1865, many of which had Lincoln for their central figure. He was also frequently cartooned in _Vanity Fair_ the American counterpart of _Punch_; in _Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper_, and in _Harper's Weekly_. Indeed, nowhere were the changing sentiments of the people of the North, their likes and dislikes, their alternates hopes and fears, their hasty, often unjust judgments of men and measures, more vividly reflected than in the cartoons dealing with Lincoln which appeared in the last named journal during the epoch-making days of his Presidency. Thus the thirty-two plates from these sources here brought together have a value and interest already important and sure to increase with the passage of time, for they reflect with unconscious vividness, and as nothing else can do, the life and color of an historic era, and how his fellows regarded the grandest figure of that era. It is with their value as human documents in mind that they have been rescued from their half-forgotten hiding places, and assembled in chronological sequence, with such comment as may be necessary to make their purpose and meaning clear to older men, whose memory may have grown dim, as well as to the new generation that has come upon the stage in the eight and thirty years that have elapsed since the close of the Civil War.

|Plate Number One--This cartoon, "Lincoln à la Blondin," which appeared in _Harper's Weekly_, on August 25, 1860, seems to have been suggested by Blondin's crossing of Niagara on a tight rope with a man on his back--an event then fresh in the public mind. It also recalls an interesting phase of Lincoln's first campaign for the Presidency, which had its origin in a characteristic incident of the candidate's earlier years. It was in March, 1830, that Lincoln, at that time a youth of twenty-one, removed with his father and family from Indiana to Illinois, locating on the bluffs of the Sangamon River about ten miles from Decatur. There he and his kinsman, John Hanks, built a hewed log house, and broke fifteen acres of prairie sod with the two yoke of oxen they had driven from Indiana. They then felled the trees, cut off the logs, and with mauls and wedges split the rails to fence in the land they had broken. The following winter, the winter of the "deep snow" as it was known in Illinois, Lincoln alone made three thousand rails for a neighbor, walking three miles each day to do it. The Republican state convention of Illinois assembled at Decatur on May 9, 1860, and the first act of its chairman was to invite Lincoln, who was modestly seated in the body of the hall, to a seat upon the platform. An eye-witness describes the scene that followed as one of tumultuous enthusiasm. No way could be made through the shouting throng, and Lincoln was borne bodily, over their heads and shoulders, to the place of honor. Quiet restored, the chairman again arose and said:

"There is an old Democrat outside who has something he wishes to present to this convention."

Then the door of the hall swung open, and a sturdy old man marched in, shouldering two fence-rails, surmounted by a banner inscribed, in large letters:

"Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830."

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Rufus Rockwell Wilson opens Lincoln in Caricature by asserting that Lincoln was "the most bitterly assailed and savagely cartooned public man of his time," a claim he supports by tracing the President's depiction in American and British periodicals from 1860 to 1865. The book reproduces thirty-two plates from sources such as Harper's Weekly, Vanity Fair, and London Punch, arranging them chronologically with explanatory notes. Wilson emphasizes that these cartoons serve as "human documents" that reflect the shifting sentiments of the Northern public and the hostile stance of Great Britain. The opening establishes the work's dual purpose: to preserve visual artifacts and to clarify their historical context for readers whose memory of the Civil War era may have faded.

The Tightrope of 1860

The earliest cartoon in the collection, "Lincoln à la Blondin" (August 1860), draws on a recent sensation: the French acrobat Blondin crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Wilson notes that the image was "suggested by Blondin's crossing of Niagara on a tight rope with a man on his back" and ties it to Lincoln's first presidential campaign. The cartoon recalls an incident from Lincoln's youth in 1830, when he built a log house with his father and John Hanks near Decatur, Illinois. This early plate sets a pattern: each cartoon is anchored to a specific news event or biographical detail, with Wilson providing the political or personal backstory needed to decode the satire. Readers should note how the commentary bridges the gap between the visual joke and the historical moment it targets.

Apothecary Shops and Russian Salve

Later cartoons employ elaborate allegories. In one plate, Lincoln stands behind an apothecary counter, addressing Secretary Seward—depicted as an errand boy carrying a basket of "Russian salve." Lincoln says: "Mild applications of Russian salve for our friends over the way, and heavy doses and plenty of it for our Southern patient." Wilson explains that this references diplomatic relations with Europe and the Union's wartime policies. The image reduces complex foreign and domestic strategy to a pharmacist's trade, a device common in the period's political art. Wilson's commentary here is essential: without it, the symbolism of the salve and the identities of John Bull and Napoleon watching from across the street would be lost. This plate exemplifies how the book functions as a key to forgotten visual language.

The Election That Surprised London

Wilson devotes considerable space to the 1864 presidential campaign, which produced several of the collection's most telling cartoons. One plate, "This Reminds Me of a Little Joke" (September 1864), captures Lincoln's wry response to the opposition. Wilson details the political factions that challenged Lincoln's renomination—radical abolitionists and conservative Unionists—and notes the President's own prediction that Democrats would "nominate a peace Democrat on a war platform, or a war Democrat on a peace platform." The Democratic convention chose the latter, nominating General George B. McClellan on a platform declaring the war a failure. But Sherman's capture of Atlanta and Farragut's victory at Mobile shifted public opinion, and Lincoln won by over 400,000 popular votes. A Punch cartoon from November 5, 1864, titled "The American Brothers; or, How Will They Get Out of It," shows Lincoln and Jefferson Davis bound by ropes labeled "Debts," reflecting British confidence in Lincoln's defeat—a confidence that, as Wilson dryly notes, was "still wet from the press" when Lincoln's electoral landslide was confirmed.

Joyful Relief and the Long Shadow

The final plates document the North's reaction to Lincoln's re-election. "Long Abraham Lincoln a Little Longer" (November 1864) from Harper's Weekly is described by Wilson as bearing "witness to the joyful relief with which the people of the North greeted the re-election of Lincoln." The cartoon's visual pun—stretching Lincoln's already lanky frame—mirrors the sense of extended hope and endurance. Wilson's commentary throughout the book maintains a consistent tone: he treats the cartoons as historical evidence rather than art criticism, focusing on what they reveal about public opinion. Readers should observe how the chronological arrangement creates a narrative arc from the uncertainty of 1860 to the vindication of 1864, with each plate serving as a checkpoint in the evolution of Lincoln's public image.

Wilson's collection offers a focused look at how political cartoons shaped and reflected attitudes toward Lincoln during the Civil War. The thirty-two plates, drawn from four periodicals, are best approached as primary sources rather than illustrations. Readers will benefit from reading the commentary alongside each image, as Wilson's explanations supply the historical context necessary to understand the satire. The book does not attempt a comprehensive biography or art history; instead, it preserves a specific set of visual arguments that once circulated in newspapers and magazines. For those interested in the intersection of politics, media, and public perception, these cartoons provide a direct link to the passions of the era.

The rain kept up its drumming on the windowsill while I traced Lincoln’s gaunt face in a century-old Punch cartoon, his stances so fixed, so certain. Later, flipping pages idly, I landed on a passage about stillness, and the sharp clarity of those drawings softened into something else entirely—a quiet curiosity about how a culture frames its inner weather. That thread led me to Zen Culture — Story, Setting & Ideas, which sat beside my chair, waiting for a rainy hour like this.