Columbia demands her children!. American Civil War 1861-1865.

An impassioned attack on Abraham Lincoln and the human toll of the Union war effort. Columbia, wearing a liberty cap and a skirt made of an American flag, demands, "Mr. Lincoln, give me back my 500,000 sons!!!" At the right, Lincoln, unfazed, sits at a writing desk, his leg thrown over the chair back. A proclamation calling for "500 Thous. More Troops," signed by him, lies at his feet. He replies, "Well the fact is--by the way that reminds me of a Story!!!" The artist refers to the false report published by the "New York World" that Lincoln joked on the battlefield of Antietam. (See "The Commander-in-Chief Conciliating the Soldier's Votes," no. 1864-30.)