Whipping Negroes in Illinois.
date: label: Date made
content: n.d.
label: date made
content: ca 1862-1868
name: label: maker
content: unknown
notes: label: Description
content: This print depicts a white man in a Union uniform, standing in a path and holding a whip as he confronts a group of five black men and one black women who are sitting and standing on a patch of grass. This illustration was used in an 1868 book, entitled Scraps from the Prison Table: At Camp Chase and Johnson's Island, by John Barbière, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate Army. He was imprisoned at Johnson’s Island during the war and as he was being transported home in the fall of 1862, the author witnessed a "brawny man" of the "Puritan race" brutally beating several "Negroes who were basking in the sunshine" with a horse whip. Barbière claimed in all his years travelling in the South, he had never seen such inhumane treatment, remarking that “the slave has merely changed masters.” The ex-Confederate employed episodes such as this to challenge notions of Northern righteousness. Barbière wanted to inform his readers of his exposure to mistreatment of Confederate prisoners in Union jails, accounts of which were often overshadowed by post-war reports of the horrors of Andersonville Prison. Scraps from the Prison Table was published by W.W.H. Davis, a printer and historian from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, who had previously served as a colonel in the Union Army with the 104th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. This print and Barbière’s book, along with Northern prints of Andersonville prison, reveal a selection of the atrocities committed by both sides during the war, which were also documented in in the letters and diaries of thousands of soldiers.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: World
topic: label: Subject
content: Blacks
label: Subject
content: Civil War
label: Subject
content: Uniforms, Military
label: Subject
content: African American
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: American Civil War Prints
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Harry T. Peters "America on Stone" Lithography Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: DL.60.3307
label: catalog number
content: 60.3307
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Lithograph
label: Object Type
content: Lithograph
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: image: 4 in x 6 3/4 in; 10.16 cm x 17.145 cm