Reconstruction Cartoon Most white southerners had difficulty adjusting to defeat, but no one defied and damned the Yankees like white women. This 1865 cartoon pokes fun at two Richmond ladies as they pass by a Union officer on their way to receive free government rations. One says sourly to the other, “Don’t you think that Yankee must feel like shrinking into his boots before such high-toned Southern ladies as we?” Just a step behind the white women is a smiling black woman, who obviously views the Yankee through different eyes.
Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.