Title
Is All Dem Yankees Dat's Passing?
Description
The cartoon depicts a slave on a porch watching in amazement of the sheer numbers of Union soldiers marching through the Confederate homefront during Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea. Published in Harper’s Weekly, a moderate Republican publication, the illustration provides an account of the impact the march had on not only the white civilians, but also on the slaves. Sherman’s March was intended to destroy Confederate infrastructure, but even more than that, the march destroyed the morale of the Confederacy by bringing the war to Confederate civilians. This highlighted the Confederacy’s lack of defenses in protecting its people. The shock and disappointment of the Confederacy’s white civilians due to this raid brought feelings of impending defeat. Slaves must have felt that the prospect of freedom was within reach.
Source
Harper’s Weekly, January 7, 1865
Date
1865-01-07
Contributor
Alek Wimberly
Text
"IS ALL DEM YANKEES DAT'S PASSING?"
One of the most amusing as well as most striking features of Sherman’s march through Georgia was the utter amazement of the people, black and white, of the hitherto unvisited regions through which the army passed, at the immense numbers of the “Yankees.” Our Artist sends us a portrait from life of one of the “colored population,” who watched, hour after hour, the endless column of Blue-Coats cheerily filing by the plantation, from which, probably, she was never ten miles in her life, and finally broke out: “Is all dem Yankees dat’s passing?” Another exclaimed, to a daughter of her master, “Law! Miss Hattie, jess look dar in de road: dem Yankees like so many blackbirds!”
One of the most amusing as well as most striking features of Sherman’s march through Georgia was the utter amazement of the people, black and white, of the hitherto unvisited regions through which the army passed, at the immense numbers of the “Yankees.” Our Artist sends us a portrait from life of one of the “colored population,” who watched, hour after hour, the endless column of Blue-Coats cheerily filing by the plantation, from which, probably, she was never ten miles in her life, and finally broke out: “Is all dem Yankees dat’s passing?” Another exclaimed, to a daughter of her master, “Law! Miss Hattie, jess look dar in de road: dem Yankees like so many blackbirds!”