A Negro Regiment in Action

Published two months after the Emancipation Proclamation authorized Black enlistment, this full-page engraving carries the caption "A Negro Regiment in Action" and depicts United States Colored Troops storming an earthwork fortification. The composition surges diagonally left-to-right: soldiers charge uphill through smoke and close combat, one figure hoisting the American flag at the crest while fallen men lie in the foreground. Nast renders the soldiers with emphatic features in the manner of period illustration, yet the framing is explicitly heroic rather than satirical. For a Northern readership skeptical of Black combat capability, the image argued a political point: these men fight, die, and carry the flag.