Christmas in the American Civil War "the best recruiting sergeant the North ever had". Nast was not the only one to use Christmas as a propaganda tool. On the Union side, "The New York Herald" also engaged in propaganda. One illustration published in the paper included Santa Claus fuming that he could not reach southern children, due to the northern blockade. On the Confederate side, "The Richmond Examiner" described Santa to its young readers as "a Dutch toy monger" who was a New York/New England "scrub" and Hottentot that had nothing to do with traditional Virginian celebrations of Christmas. Even through the war was over, Nast
Thomas Nast Asylum to the ground. His experiences may explain his sympathy for black Americans and his "antipathy to what he perceived as the brutish, uncontrollable Irish thug". An 1876 Nast cartoon combined a caricature of Charles Francis Adams Sr with anti-Irish sentiment and anti-Fenianship. In general, his political cartoons supported American Indians and Chinese Americans. He advocated the abolition of slavery, opposed racial segregation, and deplored the violence of the Ku Klux Klan. In one of his more famous cartoons, the phrase "Worse than Slavery" is printed on a coat of arms depicting a despondent black family holding their dead child;