Patriotic covers were a popular form of visual propaganda and became a collector’s item during the Civil War. Produced both in the North and South, these envelopes featured patriotic imagery and slogans, although some—primarily printed in the North—employed stereotypical and exaggerated images of the speech, dress, and physical characteristics of African Americans.

This strong young man represents those freedom seekers who fled behind Union lines and were declared “contraband of war,” not to be returned to their enslavers.