"The 'Reliable Contraband'," Edwin Forbes, copper plate etching, 1876, detail, zoomable image

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Scanned by
Joseph Williams, Archives and Special Collections, Dickinson College
Scan date
Notes
Sized, cropped, and adjusted for use here by John Osborne, Dickinson College, August 10, 2013.
Depicted ContentCivil War Soldiering
Image type
engraving
Original caption
A scene at the cavalry outpost. In the foreground, a negro, "leading an old horse," is seen hesitatingly imparting to anxious officers what little information he possesses of the enemy's movements. Cavalrymen and their horses are grouped about the house in the middle ground, and in the distance a vidette is sitting on his horse, watching the road through the woods in anticipation of the approach of the enemy.
Source citation
Edwin Forbes, Life Studies of the Great Army, A Historical Work of Art in Copper-Plate Etching ...(New York: Edwin Forbes, 1876), plate 23.
Source note
Cropped from the larger image, also available here.
Privately published. The complete set of forty plates sold for $50.00 in 1876. 
How to Cite This Page: ""The 'Reliable Contraband'," Edwin Forbes, copper plate etching, 1876, detail, zoomable image," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/40802.