Cover of Five Black Misfit Volunteers in Various Milita and Zouave Uniforms

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/27/2015

Music Sheet, "Raw Recruits, or Abraham's Daughter, as sung with great applause by Bryants Minstrels of New York, Words by Charley Fox, Arranged by W. L. Hobbs." Lithographic cover and five pages of engraved music, standard sheet music size; spine with some damage having been removed from a larger volume of sheet music; paper evenly toned. New York: Firth and Pond, 1862. The lithographic cover is an early barb, lampooning the idea of using black soldiers. In May of 1863, Lincoln established the Bureau of Colored Troops to manage the burgeoning numbers of black soldiers. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Of course, Abraham’s daughter is Columbia.

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