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Dixie
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In May 1861, General Benjamin F. Butler refused
to return three runaway slaves who had sought refuge
at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Butler, a Massachusetts
lawyer and politician, argued that Virginia by its
secession had nullified the Fugitive Slave Law,
and since slaves were deemed legal property, he
considered them as contraband of war. The Lincoln
administration supported his decision, and the new
meaning of “contraband” quickly found
favor in the Northern press. That fall, Winslow
Homer, a sketch artist for Harper’s Weekly,
underscored this interpretation in a drawing of
a black man sitting on a barrel marked “Contraband.”
This sketch, labeled Dixie, was included
in an engraving of composite sketches titled The
Songs of War, which appeared in the November
23, 1861, issue. |
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Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
Pencil and gray watercolor on paper, 1861
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
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