Partisan genre scene depicting the unloading of a rowboat with medical supplies along a shoreline near dense thickets of trees. In the center, a white man Confederate military officer keeps the boat moored through a rope in his hand. He looks back toward a white man, possibly a doctor, climbing down from a tree. An enslaved African American man (his back to the viewer), ankle deep in the water, holds a wooden pole on the shore as a lever as a white man in civilian clothes rolls a barrel toward a Confederate soldier (his back to the viewer). The soldier places sacks on the back of a mule. A sack, crate, and barrel lie near the mule. Volck was active in smuggling medicines into the South across the Potomac River in response to the Union's ban of the passage of medical supplies to the South., Inscribed upper left corner: 18., Issued as plate 18 in Sketches from the Civil War in North America (London [i.e., Baltimore]: [the author], 1863-1864), a series of pro-Confederacy cartoons drawn and published by Baltimore cartoonist Adalbert John Volck under the pseudonym V. Blada. The "first issue" of 10 prints (numbered 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, 16, 21, 24), with imprint "London, 1863" were printed as etchings. The remaining 20 prints (numbered 4, 8, 9-11, 14, 17-20, 23, 25-27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 40, 45) headed "Second and third issues of V. Blada's war sketches" and dated "London, July 30, 1864" were printed as lithographs., Title and publication information from series at Brown University Library., Research file about artist available at repository., Accessioned 1935., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator
Volck, Adalbert John, 1828-1912, artist
Date
[1864]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Volck - Sketches - Volck 18 [2990.F.21]
