Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps


The Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps concerns both the actual stamps and covers used during the American Civil War, and the later postage celebrations. The latter include commemorative stamp issues devoted to the actual events and personalities of the war, as well as definitive issues depicting many noteworthy individuals who participated in the era's crucial developments.
... the generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience ... in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, and ... above all, we have learned that ... , the one and only success which it is to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

The American Civil War is one of the secular crises in American history that produced heroes. Societies venerate people and events of the past and present, and governments likewise use a variety of official mechanisms to honor them, including place names, architecture, currency, and postage stamps. Like other secular crises, the conflict grew from seeds planted a generation before, in this case during the Transcendental Awakening: a sudden change of societal values. Transcendental idealists became :Category:American abolitionists|abolitionists. Romantic evangelicals became fire-eater secessionists. The lifetime achievements of outstanding individuals from the Civil War era, both elder leaders and younger participants, have been honored on stamps both in the United States and in foreign nations.

Civil War stamps

During the Civil War, heroes of the previous national period were featured on the stamps of both sides of the conflict: Washington, Jefferson and Jackson. Following reunification, and during many decades thereafter, sporadic U. S. definitive issues appeared in honor of Civil War-related statesmen and military leaders—exclusively those, however, who had supported the Union cause.
Their Confederate counterparts remained unrecognized on American stamps until 1937, when Lee and Jackson were included among the Civil War generals and admirals pictured in the commemorative Army-Navy issues, a series promoted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even then, however, with the war some seven decades in the past, this inclusion of a stamp honoring Confederate generals proved controversial. After the issue was announced in May 1936, a false rumor spread that Jefferson Davis was to be portrayed along with the two officers, and on June 11 the following Associated Press dispatch appeared in the New York Sun:
G. A. R. Opposes Honors For Lee. Denounces Plan to Issue Stamp Series. — At Syracuse, June 11, A proposition to honor Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, on postage stamps issued bearing their likeness, was denounced by thirty-eight aging veterans of the Civil War, attending the Seventieth Annual Encampment of the United States department of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Later the proposed Lee-Jackson stamp was deplored in the Ohio state legislature. After its issue, moreover, southerners inveighed against it as well, objecting that Lee’s right shoulder displayed two stars rather than three, in effect demoting him to the rank of Lieutenant General. Word spread that an act of Congress to recall the stamp was in preparation, but no such legislation materialized. Indeed, given that the conflict remained so touchy a subject, it is not surprising that the Civil War and its various aspects—apart from a small number of personalities associated with it—was left virtually uncommemorated on stamps for almost a century.
This article follows the convention of the 1995 Civil War commemoration of 20 stamps related to the Civil War; civilian persons of the Civil War have been pictured beginning with the definitive issue for Abraham Lincoln after his assassination. Notable persons who were Civil War participants have been included in this article including inventors, authors, and subsequent U.S. presidents.

U.S.A. and C.S.A. postal service

Note: A brief note as to the significance of each subject as it is related to the American Civil War is included by each stamp and cover.
The generations who led and fought the American Civil War were born into an independent United States and they would determine whether it could continue as a united republic. Steam power on land and sea had begun to shrink the world and the telegraph moved information at the speed of electricity. In 1851, Congress reduced rates for typical uses such as printed matter to one cent, and three-cent letter postage versus five or ten-cent rates. Postal distances for each rate were extended as much as ten times, for example, from three hundred to 3,000 miles. Their world was filled with mechanized innovations that included the first U.S. postage stamps produced from machine perforation to replace the cutting tasks which had been done manually. These were accompanied by innovations in paper types and printing techniques.
Confederate stamps were generally issued imperforate to be manually cut. Moreover, while U. S. stamps had always been steel engraved, the first Confederate issues did not employ this state-of-the-art technique, instead being lithographed and typographed, before steel engraving finally was adopted in 1863. More innovations in technology and organization would develop during wartime. The north-south conflict exploding into war also ripped the nation's communication system in two. The postal system once meant to unify the country through the dissemination of information was used instead used to solidify the break.
During the decades preceding the war, the American Anti-Slavery Society sought to promote abolition by educating the populace on the evils of slavery, and for that purpose, mailed thousands upon thousands of anti-slavery tracts. The response in the south led the nation to the edge of disaster, only temporarily eased by the Missouri Compromise, and the Compromise of 1850. But the post roads and routes established by Congress in the late 1850s brought a stronger southern mail system, and with it a rising spirit of southern nationalism. Southern public opinion began to boil over as through the southern mails, the fiery pamphlets of the Southern Rights Association other agitators roused a Southern national sentiment. To compound the irony, solidifying of southern opinion was achieved through a mail service that never paid its own way, subsidized largely at northern expense.
The secession state by state was at first peaceful, with South Carolina followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Most Americans still felt that the issues driving "secession" resolutions would be resolved quickly. The United States Government still considered these jurisdictions part of the Union, and allowed continued use of the U.S. Postal System for mail service within those states and to outside destinations. Forming the Confederacy within a month or less brought about a change in postal policy.
But at the onset of the American Civil War, Lincoln's postmaster general, Montgomery Blair faced a federal postal system regionally disabled by seceding states and disloyal postmasters. To prevent possible fraud potentially amounting to $270,000 in postage and stamped envelopes held in the South, the existing stamps were withdrawn and demonetized, and a new series of stamps was hurriedly issued. With the previous contract ending June 10, 1861, the Post Office Department signed a contract with the National Bank Note Company of New York City. Loyal postmasters in seceded states returned stamps to the Department. The new stamps were in use across the Union by mid-August 1861 with the same denominations and honoring the same persons as the previous issue, but all of the designs had changed.
Unlike most political appointees, Montgomery Blair took personal charge of the department, organizing an efficient system for the army and navy and abolishing the franking privilege for postmasters. He originated the new practices of free mail delivery and the sorting of mail on railway cars. He developed the return-receipt system for accountability, and innovated the money order system for soldiers to send and receive money from the field. Blair sponsored the first International Postal Congress in Paris in 1863.
President Jefferson Davis had appointed John Henninger Reagan on March 6, 1861, to head the new Confederate States of America Post-office Department. The United States Post Office Department continued to handle the mail of the seceded states until June 1 when the Confederate Post office took over collection and delivery throughout the Confederacy, remaining in operation for the duration of the Civil War. The most immediate concerns of the Confederate postmaster general was the organization of his department and providing for the payment of postage so that it would become self-financing. While the recalled U.S. postage could no longer be used to carry the mail by the U.S. Post Office, the Confederacy did use "appropriated" United States postal stationery for some time. General Reagan claimed he never conferred official authority on postmasters to issue interim, "provisional" stamps, but they filled a need in the absence of national Confederate stamps and stamped envelopes.

U.S.A. and C.S.A. stamps

The eight United States postage stamps issued in 1861 pictured Washington, Franklin and Jefferson, and envelopes signaled the sacredness of the Constitution and rebellion as treason. Confederate stamps pictured Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Jefferson Davis. Confederate envelopes focused on the Confederate flag and Jefferson Davis to foster a growth of Confederate nationalism, characterizing Lincoln as the anticonstitutionalist, the North as disloyal and the Southern attempt at nationhood as a renewal of the American Revolution. In the struggle for preserving their rights and liberties, George Washington was on their side.
United States regular issue stamps during the Civil War.
In 1861, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair cut off mail service to any state in rebellion. Confederate postage was not recognized by U.S. post offices, and postmasters forwarded mail addressed into the Confederacy to the Dead Letter Office, to be returned to senders.
The Confederacy used U.S. stamps pre-1861 with Roman numerals, provisional stamps and regular issue.
Postmaster Reagan placed 8,535 of the nation's 28,586 post offices under his control, and initially all postal business was conducted with U.S. money and postage stamps. Until Confederate stamps became available, some local postmasters issued provisional stamps or marked mail "paid" by hand.

Contemporary Civil War covers

During the Civil War, private sector printers throughout the North developed cultural heroes who complemented and expanded the galaxy of official heroes found on stamps. Patriotic covers honored ordinary middle-class individuals, both civilian and military. Military theme covers also commemorate ordinary citizen soldiers. This "democratizing" in American popular icons contributed to a more explicit democratic nationalism.
The Union flag was everywhere. In a way rarely seen before the war, mottoes and verses emphasize that the flag symbolized the "Vox Populi," the right of the people to rule. Uncle Sam became a widespread symbol of the nation, as well as figures like President Lincoln and General McClellan. The distribution of tens of thousands of Union Patriotic Covers through the postal system enhanced interconnectedness of the nation and the homogeneity of popular culture, with profound implications for post-war society.
Illustrated stationery reveals the strong emotions generated by the Civil War. In the North envelopes bearing patriotic illustrations appeared even before hostilities broke out.
Soon after the war began, Southern stationers quickly marketed patriotic envelopes picturing flags, cannons, political leaders, slogans, soldiers, and caricatures, among other war-related themes.
Union forces began blockading southern ports in April 1861, requiring mail to be carried on blockade runners or routed through foreign posts. Without postal treaties with foreign governments, Confederate letters were carried as private "ship" mail. They were charged the inland rates plus two cents, which was paid to the ship's master.
The "Gilded generation" born 1822 to 1842, defined the western adventurer of today's imagination. They were the youthful mining 49er in California, the Pony Express rider before and during the Civil War, bringing in Nevada as a state in October 1864.
As Union troops occupied rebel territory, federal mail service was restored, amounting to almost 500 routes by the end of 1865. Almost half of the post offices in the South had been returned to Federal service by the end of 1866.

Subsequent commemoratives">Commemorative stamp">commemoratives and definitives">Definitive stamp">definitives

In the years immediately following the Civil War, the U. S. post office did not offer commemorative stamps at all; and the commemoratives that began appearing in the 1890s were devoted almost exclusively to international trade fairs. The sole exception, the "Lincoln Memorial", was the first stamp officially designated as a commemorative ever issued in honor of a Civil War figure. After World War I, however, topics were greatly expanded to include noteworthy individuals, places, events and innovations. Commemoratives have communicated an idealized and patriotic vision of the American past, but contests for recognition on a federal stamp also reflect contemporary fights over definitions of U.S. citizenship.
Principal actors in the Civil War are arranged into categories of Union officers, Confederate officers, the Common Soldier and Civilians. Events in the Civil War expand beyond Battles to include Reconstruction, Culture, and Technology. Famous people and the Civil War include authors, presidents, and a separate section on Abraham Lincoln.

Principal actors in the Civil War

Some groups have seen commemoratives as holding out a romanticized view of America. Others have promoted issues as a part of grander strategies fighting for social and political equality. Commemorative committees, business leaders, and politicians have actively pursued federal postage stamps celebrating regional anniversaries held at battlefields. Others sought stamps honoring military, cultural, and political heroes, such as Robert E. Lee, Susan B. Anthony, and Frederick Douglass.
While commemoratives had honored Civil War figures and events in such stamp issues as the Army Navy 1937 series and the Centennial celebration of 1961–1965, comprehensive coverage of the conflict did not appear until 1995, when U.S. Postal Service issued its most ambitious commemorative of the Civil War to date in photogravure sheets of 120 in six panes of 20. The four events pictured were Battle of Hampton Roads between the Monitor and Merrimac, Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Chancellorsville and Battle of Gettysburg. Presidents included Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. Union officers included Ulysses S. Grant, David Farragut, Winfield Hancock, and William T. Sherman. Confederate officers included Robert E. Lee, Raphael Semmes, Stand Watie, Joseph E. Johnston and "Stonewall" Jackson. Civilians included Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Mary Chestnut, and Phoebe Pember.
Note: Several recent issues are not yet available at Wikimedia Commons for use here. For some, place-holders are provided. For previous images readily available for both commemorative and definitive issues, names are linked to their biographical articles in their Civil War career at each stamp description. Links to states take the reader to the " in the American Civil War" series of articles in Wikipedia.

Union officers

During World War I, Theodore Roosevelt believed it to be a "bully" idea to issue a series of stamps honoring American military heroes. Nothing came of the suggestion until his stamp collecting cousin, Franklin Roosevelt was nearing the end of his first term. His Secretary of War recommended both Union and Confederate generals in the series. Political reaction delayed issue until after election. The opposition was primarily from Northern Republicans against the Confederate choices, and Lost Cause southerners against the Union choices.
Today stamp collectors from North and South include both Grant-Sherman-Sheridan and Lee-Jackson stamps in their collections. In the 1990s Civil War series, no state legislature objected to Sherman as a villain as some protested for the 1937 issue. The healing process continued.
Naval officers Farragut and Porter. 1937 issue.
Winfield Hancock was featured in the Civil War commemorative sheet of 20. Hancock was the hero general of Gettysburg, subsequently Democratic 1880 nominee for president. 1995 issue.

Confederate officers

The Lee-Jackson stamp of 1937 signified a demonstration of national unity of the New Deal. The Confederate generals were no longer traitors but American war heroes pictured alongside George Washington, William Sherman, and Ulysses S. Grant.
Raphael Semmes, was featured in the Civil War commemorative sheet of 20. Semmes was a naval commander of the cruiser CSS Alabama and CSS Sumter raiding U.S. commercial shipping in the Pacific and the Atlantic. 1995 issue.
Stand Watie was featured in the Civil War commemorative sheet of 20. Watie was a Native American general of a Cherokee faction allied with the Confederacy and represented in its Congress. 1995 issue.
Joseph E. Johnston was featured in the Civil War commemorative sheet of 20. Johnston commanded the western armies for the Confederacy. His strategy was the mirror image of Lee's offensive strategies in the Confederate Offensive-defensive strategy, Johnston emphasized the defensive falling back onto Atlanta. 1995 issue.

Common soldiers

Note: Abraham Lincoln has a section dedicated to him below.

Battles

Appomattox surrender followed Confederate evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond. Lee's remnant army was surrounded without supply of food or ammunition. Terms were generous, contributing to the nation's healing following civil war. 1965 issue.
The Battle of Hampton Roads between the Monitor and Merrimac, Battle of Shiloh, Battle of Chancellorsville and Battle of Gettysburg were featured in the Civil War commemorative sheet of 20. 1995 issue.

Reconstruction

Modern historians date Reconstruction from 1863 to 1877. This period witnessed national efforts to integrate the former slaves into American society through the "Civil War" or Reconstruction Amendments, as freedmen in the Thirteenth Amendment, as citizens in every state in the Fourteenth Amendment, and as voters in the Fifteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment was sent to the states before Lincoln's assassination, the Fourteenth passed over Johnson's active opposition, the Fifteenth passed during Grant's administration.
In literature the onset of the Civil War occasioned important considerations of nationalism, citizenship and the nature of the American republic.
Radical social changes involving communications, women's rights, civil rights, states' rights and other issues had already been set in motion before the Civil War, and accelerated through it into succeeding historical eras.
The Second Wave of Immigration reshaped American society in its diversity and urban numbers leading to an explosion of internal commerce and providing a consumer base for the coming industrial age. At 28 percent, the "Gilded generation" fighting the Civil War included a larger share of immigrants than any other generation in America since colonial times.
Tides of immigration reinforced the natural population increases to the advantage of the Union on the battlefield. Both German and Irish immigrants formed several ethnic regiments. Both German and Irish immigration have been commemorated in U.S. stamps.
The 100th anniversary of law creating land-grant colleges and universities was commemorated on November 14, 1962 to coincide with the annual meeting of The Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. The design by Henry K. Bencsath features a lamp of learning against a bas-relief map of the continental United States.
Throughout the Civil War, efforts continued to develop communications with Europe via telegraph by a trans-Atlantic cable. The first had been laid in 1858 but only functioned three weeks. The initial project was led by Cyrus West Field and the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Efforts continued with much improved technology in 1865 and 1866. A 4-cent commemorative was issued on the 100th anniversary of the first attempt. 1958 issue.
During the conflict, two additional free-soil states were admitted, which along with Lincoln's reconstruction, moved the country inexorably towards the number for three-fourths states required in a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery by December 1865.
Inventors contributed to both sides of the conflict, most notably for the Union in fundamentally strategically important venues, enlarging on its material advantages over the Confederacy.

Authors and the Civil War

Prominent authors of the Civil War generation later were commemorated in stamps in view of their important career-long contributions to American literature. Several Transcentendalist authors promoted immediate abolition and war. Some authors served as nurses, or wrote without any direct participation in the conflict.
"Transcendental" generation, born 1792 to 1821. As a generation in their twenties they provided the original core of the 1830s evangelical and abolitionist movements. Their extremism, whether of William Lloyd Garrison or Nat Turner, ended any attempt at the compromises by the "old men" meeting with Lincoln in the Willard Hotel on the eve of Fort Sumter. At the onset of the Civil War, they were in their fifties, Massachusetts "Black Republicans", and South Carolina "Fire Eaters", "fully prepared to shed younger blood to attain what they knew was right." In their old age, they watched Reconstruction disintegrate and youthful causes fall into scorn.
"Gilded" generation, born 1822 to 1842. The same generation who flocked to the California gold rush in their teens were most of the actual participants and combat casualties of the American Civil War. They expected a quick adventure, perhaps glory or profit besides. They would settle all the thundering hatred of their parents abolitionists and 'southrons' and then proceed with the settlement of the western frontier. For Gilded blacks, the war was a march toward "flesh-and-blood freedom". In their old age these Gilded would "later turn bitterly cynical about passionate crusades."
Besides Abraham Lincoln in the United States and Jefferson Davis in the Confederate states, nine U.S. presidents had Civil War experience.
is perhaps the most commemorated of the Civil War generation on U.S. postage. Pictured here as his statue in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. 1958 issue.
In the 2009 issue of 42-cent Lincoln stamps, Lincoln was pictured in four stages of life: as rail-splitter, as lawyer, as politician, and as president. 2009 issue.
Lincoln was elected in 1860 and won reelection in 1864, the first president since Andrew Jackson to do so. The Confederacy initiated hostilities while he was seeking to "hold, occupy and possess", not repossess federal property. Lincoln responded with a naval blockade and raising troops to restore the Union, and he successfully expanded the war effort throughout the duration of hostilities. He served as an active commander-in-chief, naming his top generals and admirals. In his presidential capacity he marshaled support for the war across the north, border states and in Congress, and he led the Republican party in the initial steps of reconstruction of former Confederate territory.
Lincoln's war policy was to press offensives into the South on multiple fronts to destroy Confederate armies and restore the Union. By December 1864 his peace policy was end of rebel hostilities and the end of slavery. His legislative program included the Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad, land grants for colleges, a higher tariff and monetary centralization by the national banking act. His Proclamation of Amnesty sought to restore states by 10% of the 1860 vote swearing future loyalty to the union. He preserved the Union and liberated the slaves. Lincoln's appearance in U. S. definitive issues was long considered all but obligatory.