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Latey, John Lash (editor) : The Illustrated London News. No. 1100. Vol. XXXIX. Saturday, July 27, 1861. AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

(London: George C. Leighton, 1861)

400 x 280 mm; magazine, disbound from volume XXXIX, without wraps (as issued), and contained within a film fronted bag; pp. [71-102]; several woodcuts. Regular light browning; some soiling and fingering throughout; some glue remnants to stitching. News in this number is dominated by the American Civil War. There is also a letter dated April 22, printed in full, from Charles Livingstone, accompanying his brother's expedition, in which he provides news of progress in Dr. Livingstone's exploration of the Rovuma and Lake Nyassa. Evidence is provided of Arab slavers' activity in the area. The front page illustration is "Capture of a United States' dragoon by guerilla horsemen of Virginia." A further important picture relating to the American Civil War is "Contraband of War" (p. 83). Civil War news is focused particularly on the mixed messages given out by Lincoln as to the way in which the Southern secession is to be treated. Some excerpts: 'Quite as significant as anything he says is his utter silence about slavery. The word does not occur from beginning to end. This silence harmonises with other symptoms of Northern public opinion, from which we gather that the war is not to have any anti-slavery tendency. The Republicans have made a tacit compromise with the Democrats. The latter will continue to support the war, provided it remains strictly one for the Union, for the flag, for territory, for empire; and, as a price of this indispensable support, the Republicans consent not to give an anti-slavery character to their policy. The disappointed parties will be those Abolitionists proper who gave countenance to the war, not because they desired to restore a Union with slaveowners, which they had always denounced, but because they indulged in the hope that the war must inevitably terminate in the liberation of the enslaved race. … Under the head of "Contraband of War" our Special Artist has forwarded to us a characteristic sketch (herewith engraved) of a party of slaves seeking protection in the Federal camp. It appears that the slaves from the different plantations in Virginia are continually going through the pickets of the Federal army, as fugitives from their masters, and when it is proved that their owners are fighting in the Secessionist ranks the slaves are treated as contraband of war.'

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