This sketch was the basis for part of Winslow Homer’s November 23, 1861 Harper’s Weekly illustration caled "The Songs of the War," which linked popular songs to the actions of the Union Army in Virginia. Seated on a barrel marked "Contraband" and juxtaposed to the title Dixie, the Confederacy's rallying song, the figure of the African-American was demarcated as a free man, one of the many former slaves who had escaped to sUnion lines at the beginning of the war.