AnonBiblio.com
[Anon]Biblio.com
Union Soldier in the Andersonville Prison. caption title of illustrated broadside
3734846<p>N.p. n.d. ca. 1880s–1890s. 10¼ x 7¼ inches. Printed via a photomechanical process. A very good example.</p> <p>This broadside poem voices the imagined last words of a dying Union soldier held at Camp Sumter more widely known as Andersonville. The text is set in display type with decorative borders and features a central image of a flag-bearing Zouave soldier rendered in a style simulating a wood engraving.</p> <p>The anonymous verse describes thirst starvation and emotional torment portraying the prison as a “cruel rebel den.†It emphasizes separation from home appeals for letters and rescue and ends with a vision of death as release. The soldier dreams of water“green fields in which to roam†and peace beyond the “Dead Lineâ€â€”a reference to the real boundary in Andersonville beyond which prisoners were shot. </p> <p>Poems like this circulated widely in the decades following the war reinforcing narratives of Confederate cruelty and the martyrdom of Union soldiers. Likely produced in the 1880s or 1890s using a photo-mechanical process this piece reflects the ongoing work of remembrance in the North through inexpensive printed ephemera.</p> <p>Curiously the broadside is printed on a single sheet of paper with a soft matte vermilion-pink wash applied only to the verso. Unrecorded in OCLC.</p> unknown
