Description

This print is a reproduction of an original 1863 recruitment broadside for African American men to join the Union Army in the Civil War. The largest printed portions of the flyer state, "Men of color to arms! To arms! Now or never, Three Years' Service!...Fail now, & our race is doomed...are freemen less brave than slaves [?]" The names of Frederick Douglass and fifty-four others are printed near the bottom of the broadside. Below the names is text reading "A meeting in furtherance of the above named object will be held" followed by three blank lines "And will be addressed by" with another long blank line to be filled in. In the bottom margin below the reproduction the text reads: FREDERICK DOUGLASS, and others. Men of Color. To Arms! To Arms! [recruitment broadside]. Philadelphia, 1863. The Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library. GLC 2752" Part of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana State Museum