Emancipated Slaves, White and Colored

When this engraving (based on the nearby photograph by Myron H. Kimball) was featured in the January 30, 1863, issue of Harper’s Weekly, the caption noted, “THE CHILDREN ARE FROM THE SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED IN NEW ORLEANS, BY ORDER OF MAJOR-GENERAL BANKS.” An accompanying letter to the editor provided brief, evocative biographies for each of the individuals depicted. Included in these texts was the fact that Wilson Chinn had been branded on the forehead with the letters “V.B.M.”—the initials of his former enslaver, Volsey B. Marmillion—and that Rosina Downs’s father was serving “in the rebel army” while her mother lived “in a poor hut.”