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 Reconstruction Era

 “We Fights Mit Sigel”
  Source:  Harper’s Weekly
  Date:   November 6, 1869, p. 720

Click to see a large version of this cartoon...

Click to see a large version of this cartoon

Complete HarpWeek Explanation:
In the November 6, 1869 issue of Harper’s Weekly, a pithy little drawing, “We Fights Mit Sigel,” depicts Franz Sigel, a former Union general and Republican nominee for New York secretary of state, leading an unlikely platoon of Republican warriors into battle against the “Sham Democracy” of the “Tammany Ring.”  Sigel was a refugee from the failed liberal revolution in Germany in 1848 who became beloved by his German-American troops during the Civil War; hence, the caption proudly mimicking a German accent.  At the time of this cartoon, Greeley was the Republican candidate for state comptroller in New York.  Sigel is supported first by Nast, his porte crayon at the ready; then by President Ulysses S. Grant, cigar clenched in his teeth; Horace Greeley, a step behind Nast; poet William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post; and George Jones, publisher and new editor of The New York Times.  In addition to Nast, Harper’s Weekly is represented by a large banner in the rear.  That year, all the Republican candidates for statewide office in New York were defeated handily, although Greeley managed to outpoll Sigel.

 

 
 

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