After the Battle — The Rebels in Possession of the Field

Nast’s next negative illustration referred to the aftermath of the Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, which occurred two months earlier. A letter to the New York Times, reprinted in the Weekly, described the scene two miles from Centerville, the site of First Bull Run the previous summer. Confederates stripped and robbed the dead, and threw their bodies into trenches, which The New York Times reporter wrote about and Nast depicted in horrific detail. Even though these troops were not guerrillas, they knew that their actions violated all rules of warfare and decency, as they inadvertently admitted to the correspondent.