Nathan W. Armes

“We made the experiment; and the fruit is before us,” Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Slavery. 1857-1858 ca.

The battleship illustrated was on a mission to draw artillery fire from entrenched Confederates at Vicksburg, Mississippi. As the Confederates spent their dwindling ammunition reserves, the Union naval officers celebrated their broadcasted fakeout, the ship was a hoax, made of wood.