On first examination the sun in this image might be understood to be setting because it accompanies an image of President Abraham Lincoln lying in state after his 1865 assassination. But the figure of liberty hovering above the president and the soldiers marching on the horizon make it possible to consider this a rising sun—a symbol of freedom for many black Americans following Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and a symbol of renewal after a civil war that left some 700,000 dead.
Curry created the drawing for an edition of Walt Whitman’s book of poems, Leaves of Grass, and while it does not appear to be related to a specific verse, the image evokes the same mixture of sadness and hope in several of Whitman’s poems about Lincoln’s death, including “O Captain! My Captain!” The narrator in this poem describes the death of a captain who has led his ship, a symbol of the nation, back to safe anchor after its “fearful trip,” an allusion to the Civil War.