Civil War
In December, 1860, South Carolina in convention repealed the act adopting the Constitution of the United States, a move which was promptly followed by other Southern States, and led to the American Civil War. On February 18, 1861, a provisional Confederate Government under Jefferson Davis was set up at Montgomery, Alabama, with all the appendages of military and civil administration, including a post office department. The Confederate Government later moved to Richmond, Virginia, and throughout the long and bloody war from 1861-1865 the Confederate States maintained a separate postal service, with separate postage stamps. Judge John H. Reagan was Postmaster-General.
The United States postage stamps current at the beginning of the war were the beautiful series of 1851-60, and as large quantities remained in stock at Southern post offices, these issues were demonetized and replaced hurriedly by the now rare première gravures of August, 1861, which were promptly superseded by the more finished designs of September, 1861.
The Confederate States stamps lack the excellence of engraving and printing of the United States stamps, a deficiency due to the difficult conditions under which they were produced in the country or imported from England. But what they lack in this respect is more than amply compensated by their historic significance and associations. The home-produced stamps were prepared under the stress of invasion; the foreign manufactured ones and much of the material for the local productions had to be brought through the blockade.
In the annals of philately there are no more exciting records than those which tell of the capture of a ship bearing three De La Rue plates and 400,000 dollars worth of Confederate States stamps, which the agent of Davis's Government managed to throw overboard, or of the despatch (preparatory to the evacuation of Richmond) of printing press, dies, plates, and stamps to Columbia, in South Carolina, where they arrived only to be destroyed in the holocaust following upon General Sherman's capture of the city.
The different designs of the successive issues of Confederate stamps are shown below.
Some bogus stamps purporting to have been used in various temporary services are illustrated, including one showing a fort at Charlestown, and another which purports to prepay "blockade postage" to Europe.
Spanish War
The war with Spain produced a considerable effect upon stamp issues; but the war tax stamps which were very popular with young collectors by reason of their bearing a picture of the battleship Maine were in no sense postage stamps, though often affixed to letters as small contributions to the war funds.
Throughout the campaign there were many United States military postal cancellations used in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines.
The United States postage stamps were later overprinted for these and other former Spanish colonies, e.g., Cuba, Guam, Philippine Islands and Porto Rico. These were replaced by definite issues for the Republic of Cuba, and for the Philippines.In the republic of Mexico the United States used its own stamps at the post office of Vera Cruz.
Includes edited excerpts from The Project Gutenberg e-Book of The Postage Stamp in War, by Fred. J. Melville
Stamp-Collecting-World has some wonderful pages on classic US stamps:
1847usa.com has a lot of resources on US early issues, including:
- Classic U.S. Postage Stamps 1847-1868 - visual identification guide
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| Articles on U.S. Postage Stamp designs and list of varieties by year of issue. |
| 1847 - The First U.S. Postage Stamps: | |
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| At the bottom of each page is a listing of all varieties of U.S. postage stamps, including regular issues, commemoratives, Air Mails, Special Deliveries, Registry Stamps, Postage Dues, Parcel Post, and Parcel Post Postage Dues issued in that year. |
- A detailed list of all the early US issues:
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