Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #27 — page 41: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page from *Whiz Bang* (page 39) contains no cartoon or satirical illustration—it is entirely textual content. The page presents a Civil War-era poem by Colonel W. S. Hawkins titled "Your Letter, Lady, Came Too Late." The accompanying prose explains the historical context: a Confederate officer imprisoned on Johnson Island had been engaged to a Georgia woman. After his death in captivity, she sent him a letter containing cruel, heartless remarks—abandoning her previous tender signature ("Your own devoted and faithful Virginia") for cold formality. Hawkins's poem responds to this betrayal, imagining the soldier's dignified indifference to her cruelty and suggesting she should witness his peaceful death to understand what she lost through her faithlessness. The content reflects popular Civil War nostalgia and romantic Lost Cause mythology common in early 20th-century American magazines.