Those Topps 1962 Civil War Cards Were Graphic But We Loved Them

"It's a nice set, but it could be a little gory for kids,"--Jerry Rockoff  

Card #1 in the set. John Brown's attempt to instigate a slave rebellion.

Did you collect Civil War Cards when you were a kid? I was ten the year they were produced and sold. My brother and I nearly acquired the entire 88 card set. What I remember most was the graphic nature of the violence portrayed in vivid color. Explosions would be bright yellow and red. Many of the cards portray men being killed in some of the most brutal ways.

I never made a connection between the year they came out and the notion that it was a product of the Civil War's Centennial. It was, in part, a way to learn more about our history and the war that so divided our nation.

Each card was numbered in a manner that corresponded with the historical moment it occurred. On the back was a newspaper account of the event pictured on the front. For example, the first card in the set is titled The Angry Man. When you turn it over you see a story about John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, October 16, 1959.

The Battle of Bull Run had many lessons for historians.

The newspaper stories were written by Topps associate creative director Les Brown in a manner that suggested they were authentic accounts. According to psacard.com, "The cards were the brainchild of Brown and Topps executive Woody Gelman. Gelman had recalled the 1938 Gum Inc. Horrors of War series and wanted to create a similar Civil War set. The cards were distributed in one-cent and five-cent wax packs with gum and a replica Confederate dollar bill. The dollar bill dominations ranged from $1 to $1,000."

What prompted this blog post was some cleaning I've been doing in a futile attempt to downsize my belongings. I came across a binder containing 78 of the 88 cards in that set.

This was one of my favorite cards at the time.

The titles of the cards tell a lot. Death Fall (showing a hot air surveillance balloon in flames), Painful Death (showing a soldier throw from his horse, impaled on spikes), Massacre (showing Union soldiers being massacred in White Oak, Virginia), Wall of Corpses (showing soldier using corpses as a barrier so they can shoot the enemy), Fight For Survival (also at Fredericksburg) and many similar horrors.

We each had favorite cards and one of mine was Bridge of Doom which portrayed a dynamited bridge explosion with bodies flying into the air. Quite a few of the cards have the word Death in the title such as Death Barges In, Bullets of Death, Shot to Death, Jaws of Death and Death in the Water, to name a few.

Card #3: Fort Sumpter. If you're ever in Charleston, the war started here.

All my life I've been interested in the Civil War. Perhaps this TOPPS card series was the impetus for that fascination. In fourth grade we had a very large American Heritage book about the Civil War in the back of the classroom. Whenever I had the chance I would study the battle maps that illustrated the troop movements and told stories in a visual way. (For the record, I loved maps and in my fourth grade Iowa Test I was scored at the 12th grade map reading level.)

* * * *

I don't think the Civil Ward Cards conveyed the real sense of war being a horror. We somehow looked at the horrific pictures with fascination. The stories were educational though. We learned about many of the significant people and places of that period in time.

If you still have your cards, but don't have a complete set, you can finish yours off by means of eBay. Or you might want to sell your cards to the highest bidder so someone else can complete his or her set.

Topps has primarily been famous for its baseball cards, so the Civil War set was a bit of a departure. The success led to another set of cards that stirred imaginations: Mars Attacks.

Related Links
Civil War cards on eBay
Partial set on eBay
PSA Registry for 1962 Topps Civil War Cards