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Passage through Baltimore
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Unlike the North, the Confederacy did not have an
extensive network of partisan magazines and newspapers
to promote its cause. Yet it did have the Baltimore
dentist Adalbert Volck, who, at the Civil War’s
outbreak, turned to drawing commentaries that publicized
the Southern point of view. In Volck’s hands,
President Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, became
the devil incarnate, among lesser villains. For
instance, in this print Volck ridicules Lincoln
for making a secret passage by train through Baltimore
in late February 1861, on his journey to Washington
for his inauguration. Lincoln had been warned of
a possible assassination plot in the city, in which
there were strong Southern sentiments, and was advised
to pass through quietly and under the cover of night.
Lincoln reluctantly heeded the advice. After he
became President without incident, he regretted
having made an unannounced arrival in the nation’s
capital. |
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Adalbert John Volck (1828–1912)
Etching, 1863
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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