Civil War and Humor

Throughout history, and through many wars we will find cartoon drawings , jokes, and songs that depict either sides as ridiculous, evil, and futile.  The North and South even created their own magazines to spread their humor when things looked their worst to keep the spirits up. In the north this magazine was called Vanity Fair, it first appeared in late 1859 and ended July 4^th 1863.  These drawings and jokes were just to make “opponents look ridiculous, evil and futile, then our cause becomes lighter and nobler.”[i]  For the most part the South in this magazine was impaired to a “ridiculous child who misbehaves”, telling jokes from their leader, money, military tactics, and soldiers.  Even the Britain and France had their part of making fun of the south. They both sent cartons of what they believe to be “English Justice”, which I found interesting because I wouldn’t believe that overseas countries were poking fun. One would wonder why such humor would be liked during a time of war but war intensity may be lessened by laughing at some of the hardships. Another famous time during war not only with cartoons and jokes were songs, “The Cavalier’s Song” being one of Vanity Fair most famous. Even though they were most promoted of the North they still had some small jokes for their own side. Throughout the campaign they would snipe at the “two-shilling candidate” and “rail-splitter.”[ii] They said that “if elected, Lincoln would be probably Abe-used”[iii], but once elected he was treated differently.   Which seems even stranger is that when the north began to win, it ceased publication all together. Due to paper shortages it had little chance for operation but it seems as though the author of the journal seemed to believe that it was something a little more than that, but truly that was what these were used for. To make sure that while everyone knew what was going on with dark times but in dark times you need to laugh. We even find it now in today’s time with the cartons about North Korea and the war overseas and will be seeing them a lot more in the future.

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[i] Nardin, James. The War in Vanity Fair. September 1956, pg 2.

[ii] Nardin, James. The War in Vanity Fair. September 1956,pg 9

[iii] Nardin, James. The War in Vanity Fair. September 1956, pg 8