Special mail routes were used to exchange letters in the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) and those across the military lines or frontiers separating the Confederacy from the rest of the world. These routes developed because the C.S.A. was almost completely surrounded militarily by the United States of America (U.S.), and an important Federal war strategy was to cut off all outside communications with the C.S.A.. These routes were used for mail between the C.S.A. and the U.S., for mail between parts of the C.S.A. separated by Federal military activities, and for mail between the Confederacy and other countries.
Postal history is the study of postal routes, rates, frankings and markings from a particular historical period. The best postal history reference sources are official postal regulations and documentation, such as instructions to postmasters or post office communications. However, the official record is invariably incomplete, so a census of covers relevant to the period can fill in the gaps by showing patterns of postal usages. The combination of a census with postal documentation, historical events and geography can be used to accurately re-create the details of a mail delivery system. This is the approach employed in the formation of this collection and in writing the related book, Special Mail Routes of the American Civil War: A Guide to Across-the-Lines Postal History by Steven C. Walske and Scott R. Trepel (referred to throughout this catalogue as Special Routes).
This collection is organized according to the routes used for across-the-lines mail. This represents a different perspective on the subject, and has resulted in new insights on how the mail was handled. For example, traditional studies have examined prisoner-of-war (P.O.W.) mail from the perspective of the prisons themselves, while this collection arranges the covers according to the routes which carried P.O.W. mail to or from those prisons. Similarly, covers reflecting new discoveries and significant insights are offered for the first time with respect to suspended mail routes, blockade-run mail, trans-Rio Grande mail, and private express mail.
The Civil War began slowly with the peaceful secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860. At the time, most Americans assumed that the conflict would be resolved relatively quickly and peacefully. Virtually no one could project the four-year bloody struggle that ensued.
South Carolina’s path out of the Union was quickly followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. Each of these states acted separately, and their status after secession was as independent states. However, the official stance of the U.S. was that these states were still part of the Union. As such, these independent states continued to use the U.S. postal system for mail within each state and to or from external addresses.
Mail sent in the U.S. postal system between these states and the U.S. during their independent state periods should not be considered across-the-lines mail, since there were no impediments to the trans- mission of the mails prior to the suspension of U.S. postal service in the South. Nonetheless, postal uses during the independent state periods are popular with collectors because of the short timeframes (as few as six days in the case of North Carolina) that they were in effect.
Throughout this period, the U.S. continued to operate the C.S.A.’s postal system, but many postal routes between the U.S. and the C.S.A. had to be abandoned due to armed conflict and the threat that the ships, trains or wagons used to transport the mail would be confiscated. The most significant example of this was the closure of the primary north-south postal route which ran between Washington, D.C. and Richmond by the U.S. military occupation of Alexandria, Virginia, on May 24, 1861.
Mail continued to be exchanged along the other major north-south postal route between Tennessee and Louisville until June 1861. Private express companies also carried small amounts of letter mail between the C.S.A. and the U.S. during the February to May 1861 period that the U.S. postal system was still operating in the C.S.A.. Their service supplemented the regular post office service.
The U.S. postal service in the C.S.A. was finally suspended on May 31, 1861, four months after the formation of the C.S.A.. After this suspension, the regular north-south post office routes were replaced by a complex array of special mail routes that expanded as the war grew in intensity and duration. Because of the difficulty and danger in getting mail across enemy lines, many of these routes show great ingenuity, and most carried only small amounts of mail. These special routes fall into the following seven categories, and the collection presented is arranged accordingly:
- Suspension of the U.S. Post Office Across-the-Lines Routes (May 1861 until early July 1861) during a transitional period as the Federal government completed the suspension of the regular pre-war Post Office routes between the northern states and the seceded states.
- Private Express Company Routes (February 1861 to June 1865) were used to supplement the regular U.S. post office service, and to carry mail within the C.S.A.. Mail carried between the U.S. and C.S.A. prior to June 1861 is not considered to have crossed the lines because there were no obstacles to the transmission of the mail. This special mail service temporarily filled the void created by the discontinu- ance of the U.S. post office across-the-lines routes, but ended with the August 26, 1861 U.S. ban on all communications with the C.S.A..
- Flag-of-Truce Routes (September 1861 to June 1865) were maintained by both governments for the benefit of prisoners of war (P.O.W.), and a limited number of civilians. Mail was exchanged at a number of locations, but principally in southeastern Virginia. This mail service did not evolve until regular communication between North and South was prohibited. P.O.W. and parole camp mail which did not cross the lines is included to provide a full treatment of P.O.W. mail.
- Trans-Mississippi Routes (April 1862 to April 1865) were used by both private and C.S.A. post office trans-Mississippi expresses after Union control of the Mississippi River in 1862 cut the Confederacy into eastern and western halves. Communication between the separated parts of the C.S.A. required new special mail routes to bypass the Union blockade along the Mississippi River.
- Covert Mail Routes (September 1861 to June 1865) were maintained by a number of private across-the- lines mail systems which typically used inland waterways to cross the lines.
- Blockade-Runner Routes (May 1862 through May 1865) connected the Confederacy with neutral West Indies ports, and were used by Confederate steamships to penetrate the Federal blockade of the Southern coastline.
- Trans-Rio Grande Routes (July 1861 to June 1865) were maintained between Texas and Mexico, and were used to circumvent the Federal blockade.
Source
1. “The Steven C. Walske Collection of special mail routes of the American Civil War”. Sale 988. Robert A. Siegel. New York, US, 2010.
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