What if the mail couldn't get through?

[NH Civil War Gal]

Very interesting! We only rarely think of how the secession and the war disrupted everyday life at this level - but what if the mail couldn't get through? What if you had relatives up North or down South?

"If your state seceded from the United States today, how would it first affect your daily life? Scholars typically study the secession crisis of 1860 to 1861 in terms of high politics, with the action unfolding in Washington and southern state capitals. For humbler residents of the seceding states, however, a distant convention did not necessarily make disunion a tangible reality. Instead, many literate white southerners first encountered the practical consequences of secession through the mail."

https://journalofthecivilwarera.org...ivery-and-the-experience-of-disunion-in-1861/

 

[archieclement]

There was a clandestine mail service conducted by people who risked their lives as potentially being executed as spies.

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/capt-absalom-grimes-confederate-mail-runner.146405/

 

[DaveBrt]

While direct US to CS mail ceased, people found ways around the restrictions. The better-known members of Southern society often found friends and relatives who lived in Europe who would forward letters -- a letter would be addressed to the friend in France, who would open the outer envelope and forward the inner one to the final address. The same method also operated through Canada. William & Mary University has a set of letters from a Confederate railroad President/Army Engineer Captain to his father in Philadelphia -- all routed through friends in other countries.

 

[mobile_96]

There was a clandestine mail service conducted by people who risked their lives as potentially being executed as spies.

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/capt-absalom-grimes-confederate-mail-runner.146405/

Absalom had a lot of interesting times trying to deliver mail. IIRC, he even managed to smuggle percussion caps into Vicksburg during the siege.

 

[leftyhunter]

Very interesting! We only rarely think of how the secession and the war disrupted everyday life at this level - but what if the mail couldn't get through? What if you had relatives up North or down South?

"If your state seceded from the United States today, how would it first affect your daily life? Scholars typically study the secession crisis of 1860 to 1861 in terms of high politics, with the action unfolding in Washington and southern state capitals. For humbler residents of the seceding states, however, a distant convention did not necessarily make disunion a tangible reality. Instead, many literate white southerners first encountered the practical consequences of secession through the mail."

https://journalofthecivilwarera.org...ivery-and-the-experience-of-disunion-in-1861/

There was one Union commander in Mo who had Confederate supporters transport the mail since the guerrillas attacked the USPS carriers.
Leftyhunter

 

[J. D. Stevens]

There are a number of instances of a husband in the Trans-Mississippi and the wife in St. Louis sending letters back and forth across the lines in the book, "I Acted From Principle - The Civil War Diary of Dr. William McPheeters" edited by Cynthia Pitcock and Bill Gurley. Mail was not delivered by any type of regular postal service, but by a friend who had obtained a pass to travel from one side to the other. It wasn't frequent and it wasn't totally reliable, but it was done if you had the friend or connections to some one being allowed to travel between the lines.

On a side note, this book is not a battle book, but the daily entries by Dr. McPheeters, a Confederate surgeon in the Trans-Mississippi Department, in his diary from June of 1863 when he was forced to leave St. Louis and his family until June 1865 when he returned home. Dr McPheeters traveled with the army and was present tending to the wounded at almost all battles in Arkansas and Louisiana as well as Price's ill fated Missouri Raid.

"The diary has been enhanced by the combined editorial work of Dr. Pitcock, an authority on the history of medicine and Dr. Gurley's knowledge of Trans-Mississippi military history. The book provides details about the struggle to keep men alive from wounds, exposure, sickness, disease, and malnutrition. It also provides insight on the effects to Confederate civilians, behind the scenes look at the army's high command, and treatment of Confederate sympathizers in Missouri." - Although not copied word for word, the general gist of this paragraph was better written in the preface by Anne J. Bailey.

 

[AUG]

Philip Daingerfield Stephenson has this to say in his memoirs. He and his brother were originally from St. Louis but left the city after Federal occupation to enlist in Confederate service. Both served east of the Mississippi, first in the 13th Arkansas Infantry but Philip later enlisted in the 5th Company, Washington Artillery.

"Letters from home came to us at Kennesaw, which was one of the notable events of the war. A letter from home was always a great event to any soldier but to us from Missouri much more than to any other. Hammett [Philip's older brother] and I received not more than a half dozen or so from there. When we did get letters, it was in the most round about way! By flag of truce, by blockade runners via Europe, by 'grapevine telegraph,' i.e. by spies, private parties, etc. Letters would be passed from hand to hand and sometimes be months in reaching us. Many were written that never arrived. In the latter part of the war a regular system was agreed upon by which letters were sent through the lines, but only one side of a page could be used. Every letter was open to inspection and only the simplest news allowed—as you were well and so your friends, etc.

"When the letter found me at Kennesaw, I ran overjoyed, at night, to where Hammett's regiment [13th Arkansas Inf.] lay in line, not far off to our left, and we read it eagerly by the light of a fire. Every line was scanned. And between the lines too. We discussed every word and the letter was read over again and again and passed around to all other St. Louis men that were reachable. All letters became common property for all men from the same neighborhood. It was the same way at home with our letters and those of our Missouri comrades. This we soon found out, and every letter would be a list of names and how the owners were. This created a sort of fellowship at home as well as with us, regardless of social line or former affiliations. . . ."
​

- The Civil War Memoir of Philip Daingerfield Stephenson, D.D. Ed. by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr.

Capt. Absalom Grimes was the mail runner for Cockrell's Missouri Brigade and other C.S. Missouri troops serving east of the Mississippi.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

Great replies to this and so interesting. Thank you both for adding this. This type of thing makes the war experience so much more real for us in trying to understand the common soldier. Those letters so cherished and they were so excited to receive them.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Great replies to this and so interesting. Thank you both for adding this. This type of thing makes the war experience so much more real for us in trying to understand the common soldier. Those letters so cherished and they were so excited to receive them.

Exactly, thank you! These mail threads always remind me of a collection I've seen, a husband's letters home from the 50th PA. OH goodness, I shouldn't laugh- collector is an amazing historian, focus on Gettysburg and must have driven him a little crazy. It's his grgrgrgrandfather, so it's a lucky family, having them. It's the content. Not all about camp life, the war or romantic yearnings. He's away from home, terribly concerned his wife is busy spending all their money, without him there to keep an eye on her.

You just know as cherished as these relics are today, his wife may have had other feelings.

 

[John Hartwell]

There were seven channels for across-the-lines mail:

1) Post Office Routes used during a transitional period from December 1860 until August 1861, as the Federal government was suspending the regular pre-war Post Office routes in the seceded States.

2) Express Routes employed by private express companies in the June through August 1861 period.

3) Flag-of-Truce Routes maintained from September 1861 until the end of the war by both governments for the benefit of prisoners of war and a few civilians, as well as for military or diplomatic exchanges.

4) Smuggler Routes employed by private enterprises, such as the Louisiana Relief Committee, and by the small number of individuals who managed to cross the lines with mail.

5) Trans-Mississippi Routes used by both private and official Confederate trans-Mississippi expresses after Union control of the Mississippi River in 1863 cut the Confederacy into two parts.

6) Blockade-Runner Routes between the Confederacy and neutral West Indies ports, used by Confederate steamships from May 1862 until June 1865 to evade the Federal blockade of the Southern coastline.

7) Trans-Rio Grande Routes between Texas and Mexico used to circumvent the Federal blockade.​

These are detailed in the philatelic study SPECIAL POSTAL ROUTES ACROSS THE LINES DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. It includes many covers (envelopes) with markings illustrating he different routes. Very detailed, with a lot of information.

The Civil War Round Table UK has an excellent sketch: The Mail Will get Through.

See also: https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamp...turnabout-mail-traveled-secretly-across-.html

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

Very interesting @John Hartwell. I was reading the CWRTUK and Captain Grimes was certainly determined about the mail and had a number of adventures and lived to old age! Amazing really. Thank you for posting all this information. It is also so interesting that towns were so much smaller that an envelope in Charleston could be addressed to a Captain Tucker in Wiscasset, Maine and that was all that was needed to get there.

 

[John Hartwell]

Here's an interesting Confederate patriotic cover, with a U. S. stamp. It's dated April 28, 1861 ... after Virginia had seceded, but before it had actually joined the Confederacy.

​

And, here's a Sept. 1864 letter from Ohio to a PoW in Andersonville. "Via Fortress Monroe & Flag of Truce Boat."

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

Both of them are really interesting in their own unique way. The first Confederate flag on the top one and then the Fortress Monroe one on the bottom. Thank you so much for adding to this thread. Communication was so important and people longed to hear from their loved ones. The Andersonville one is so poignant. Do we know if he survived?

 

[DaveBrt]

Very interesting @John Hartwell. I was reading the CWRTUK and Captain Grimes was certainly determined about the mail and had a number of adventures and lived to old age! Amazing really. Thank you for posting all this information. It is also so interesting that towns were so much smaller that an envelope in Charleston could be addressed to a Captain Tucker in Wiscasset, Maine and that was all that was needed to get there.

Its interesting to find in the larger newspapers lists of people who had letters being held for them at the post office. I've found the lists useful in tracking the movements of several people.

 

[John Hartwell]

Both of them are really interesting in their own unique way. The first Confederate flag on the top one and then the Fortress Monroe one on the bottom. Thank you so much for adding to this thread. Communication was so important and people longed to hear from their loved ones. The Andersonville one is so poignant. Do we know if he survived?

The story behind Sgt Morrow's letter is told at the beginning of This article. (A lot more great reading there).

But to that we can add: Morrow had already been returned from Andersonville to Belle Isle, where he had the opportunity to escape. Sick and wounded prisoners – those thought to have only weeks to live – were being exchanged, so Morrow volunteered as a clerk for the Commissioner of Exchange. While compiling the list of prisoners to be released, Morrow inserted his own name. Later the Tuscarawas Advocate (Ohio) reported on Dec. 16, 1864, that Morrow had returned to New Philadelphia. "He is looking finely, is in good health and the best of spirits, but says he does not feel like thanking the rebels for it, as he had to buy nearly everything he ate while sojourning among them," the paper said.

Ironically, that letter may never have reached him ... he was moving around so much.