Fugitive Slaves Escaping to Union Lines, 1864

Description

Captioned Coming into the Lines, shows a wagon containing what may be a family escaping to the Union lines during the Civil War. Such fugitive slaves were called contrabands. A barefoot man, carrying a banjo, leads the animals drawing the wagon, and a teenage (?) boy with what appears to be an unusual hat sits atop one of the animals; two white Union soldiers on the left. This engraving, based on a sketch by Forbes (which differs slightly from the published engraving), first appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (vol. 18 [1864], p. 340); see Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (LC-USZ62-88806).

Source

Edwin Forbes, Life Studies of the Great Army. A historical work of art, in copper-plate etching . . .illustrating the life of the Union Armies during the years 1862-'3-'4'-5 (New York, E. Forbes, 1876), plate 30 (Copy in Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library)

Language

English

Rights

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

Identifier

plate30

Spatial Coverage

North America

Citation

"Fugitive Slaves Escaping to Union Lines, 1864", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed November 30, 2023, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/794
Captioned Coming into the Lines, shows a wagon containing what may be a family escaping to the Union lines during the Civil War. Such fugitive slaves were called contrabands. A barefoot man, carrying a banjo, leads the animals drawing the wagon, and a teenage (?) boy with what appears to be an unusual hat sits atop one of the animals; two white Union soldiers on the left. This engraving, based on a sketch by Forbes (which differs slightly from the published engraving), first appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (vol. 18 [1864], p. 340); see Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (LC-USZ62-88806).
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