With the creation of Jack Downing (later, Captain, then Major Jack Downing), Seba Smith introduced a new character into the annals of American literature: a comic Yankee who was realistically portrayed. Although this character type had appeared on the stage in various forms for years before Smith brought Jack into the world, Smith created in Jack Downing a different breed of Yankee, one whose dialect was relatively unexaggerated and whose humor depended not so much on his long-winded anecdotes as on his naive view of American politics and politicians. As Jeanette Tandy observed in Crackerbox Philosophers in American Humor and Satire (1925), "The first attempt at presentation of the unlettered philosopher and critic in American literature ... resulted in a notably realistic and unaffected characterization." Seba Smith's Jack Downing, drawings of whom eventually led to the standard caricature of Uncle Sam, set the stage for a host of comic figures...