“The stampede from Bull Run—From a sketch by Our Special Artist.”

Northerners who expected a swift victory were convinced otherwise by the Union defeat at Bull Run on July 21, 1861, shown in this sketch by Illustrated London News “special artist” Frank Vizetelly. Northern illustrated newspapers dispatched “special artists” to cover the war. These artists’ sketches, engraved on wood blocks and published in Harper’s Weekly, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, and other periodicals, were the North’s major source of war imagery. A few short-lived southern illustrated papers appeared, but it was the Illustrated London News that most actively portrayed the Confederate point of view.

Source: Frank Vizetelly, Illustrated London News, August 17, 1861—American Social History Project.