Cartoon addressing the impropriety surrounding the purchase of substitute draftees during the Civil War. Depicts four wealthy gentlemen attempting to find substitutes in a draft office. To the right, near an "Avoid the Draft" notice, a gentleman offers a wad of cash to a possible substitute. The man dressed in working man's clothes informs him, "I'm looking for a substitute myself." In the center, two gentlemen, one holding several bills, the other overweight and bemoaning "I walk but one square I chafe," display for inspection their wretched, raggedly dressed substitutes to two Union officers, including a doctor. The physician accepts a "Lee veteran" despite his extreme thinness and missing teeth, while the second officer tells the portly man that he would prefer him to the substitute and that "one days march will take down his fat and a little tallow will remove the chafing." To the left, the fourth gentleman, crying into a handkerchief, tells an officer that he would rather "bleed for his wife" than for his "suffering country." In the background, bandaged and ailing men line up in front of the marshall., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Digitized by Alexander Street Press for Images of the American Civil War.
Date
[1862]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - 1862-15W [P.2275.17]
