[Illustrated Civil War Union Envelopes"]: [Caricature of "Southern Gentleman"]"

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A caricature of a "Southern Gentleman" fills the design of this illustrated Union envelope, a form of patriotic stationery that circulated during the Civil War. Such envelopes carried satirical images of Confederates into everyday mail, so the propaganda reached people who would never have bought a political print. The subject headings point to cotton, secession, treason and Virginia, and to cartoons from the early war years, though the caption card records no firm date. The drawing turns a social ideal of Southern refinement into a target for ridicule, a common Northern tactic of the period.

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