385
●
(MILITARY—CIVIL WAR.)
ALL SLAVES WERE MADE FREEMEN BY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY
1st 1863. Come then able Bodied COLORED MEN to the Nearest United States
Camp, and Fight for the STARS AND STRIPES.
Chromolithographic broadside, 8
1
⁄
8
x 10 inches, depicting a Black officer with raised sword and holding a flag with streamer
reading FREEDOM TO THE SLAVE; all around him and in the background are many
symbolic images. The reverse with the above text. (WGC)
[Philadelphia?, 1863]
[15,000/20,000]
A VERY FINE EXAMPLE OF A RARE RECRUITMENT BROADSIDE SEEKING COLORED
TROOPS
.
This broadside is a small version of a six foot tall poster that was pasted up on walls,
both in the captured Southern territories as well as in the North-East. The Emancipation
Proclamation also opened up the army up to ex-slaves and North-Eastern free blacks. In fact
the majority of the colored regiments were made up of recently freed slaves. Lincoln had said
“The colored population is the great available and as yet unavailed of force for restoring the
Union.” (The Man Behind the Myths, page 112 (Harpers 1984) Recent scholarship suggests
that Frederick Douglass wrote the text used on both the present broadside and the larger poster version.
