Mass Meeting to Avoid the Draft...Promote Enlistments in the Philad'a City Guard 157th Regt. Printed broadside/handbill. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: n.p., October 1862. With period ink inscription to upper margin: "This was handed to me in the streets of Philadelphia on Friday Evening Oct. 24 1862. Henry Graham Ashmeade." 

An 1862 recruitment broadside which takes the unusual persuasive tactic of encouraging potential recruits to join the 157th Pennsylvania Infantry in order to avoid the eventual draft. At the time of this broadside, the 157th Pennsylvania were enticingly advertised as the Philadelphia City Guards, an attractive prospect for anyone wanting to avoid the front lines. 

The 157th did defend Philadelphia and later Washington D.C. for the first two years of the war; however, 1864 saw them called to the front lines when they were ordered to join the Army of the Potomac and the brutal Overland Campaign. They fought at Cold Harbor and the Siege of Peterburg, a rude awakening for even the most battle-hungry soldier. 

This copy is enhanced by a contemporary note by Henry Graham Ashmeade, who records that he was handed the handbill on 24 October 1862. He did not record whether he attended the meeting to enjoy the "splendid display of fireworks," but he does not appear on the rolls of the 157th. 

RARE. Only one other copy has sold at auction since 1922. Other copies are held institutionally. Another edition, printed by King & Baird with similar text, also exists. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Broadsides, Ephemera, Printing, Posters, Handbills, Documents, Newspapers]