Mar 21, 2013 - Sale 2308

Sale 2308 - Lot 404

Price Realized: $ 6,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) United States Soldiers at Camp 'William Penn' Philadelphia, PA. Chromolithographic print, 10-3/4 x 14 inches (image size), 14 x 17-1/8 inches overall, including the original wide margins. Paper repairs to a number of closed tears to the margins, mostly at the bottom, one crossing into the caption affecting a couple of letters, none affecting the image. Philadelphia: engraved by P.S. Duval and Sons for the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments, [1863]
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a wide-margined example of this famous image of the colored recruits at camp william penn. 'It took a lot of war to excite the citizens of Philadelphia and to overcome the latent sympathy with the South of perhaps a majority. It took Lee's victory at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, and his subsequent invasion of Pennsylvania, turned back at Gettysburg, to scare them into unified action. So prejudiced was the city that early in the war, Negro recruits had to be sent away at night to New England regiments.' (Library Company, Negro History 1553-1903, #140) However in the spring of 1863, a committee was formed to raise black regiments. Camp William Penn was chosen for their training, well out of town, and well out of sight of its citizens. 'Posters, prints and pamphlets began to appear to stimulate recruiting. . .As the movement gathered momentum, Negro troops could be seen for the first time, marching through the city.' Later in the year, addressing a group of critics of his policy to arm and train Negro troops, and to promise emancipation, Lincoln said 'I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people act upon motives– Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive – even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept. Gladston, 'Men of Color,' page.