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 cover depicts Confederate President Jefferson Davis as a woman hanging out laundry, each piece marked with the name of a southern state. Observing fleeing African Americans depicted as birds in flight, she remarks "Lor' bless my soul, how these blacks are flying! they'll dirty all my clothes."