Patriotic covers were a popular form of visual propaganda and became a collector’s item during the Civil War. Produced both in the North and South, these envelopes featured patriotic imagery and slogans, although some—primarily printed in the North-- employed stereotypical and exaggerated images of the speech, dress, and physical characteristics of African Americans.

This envelope depicts an African American couple dancing to celebrate their status as “contraband,” freedom seekers who fled behind Union lines and were not returned to their enslavers in the South.