Confederate
General Issues
The
Confederate States Post Office Department had to provide its
citizens with stamps. Less than a month after his appointment,
Reagan ran ads in both Southern and Northern newspapers asking
for sealed proposals from printing firms desiring the account.
The Department received bids from companies in Philadelphia,
New York, Baltimore, and Newark, as well as New Orleans and
Richmond.
After
war commenced at Fort Sumter, it was evident that the contract
should go to a Confederate firm. The Department settled on the
modest Richmond lithographers Hoyer & Ludwig. The first
Confederate issue was placed in circulation in October, five
months after postal service between the North and South had
been suspended. In the meantime, postmasters throughout the
seceded states were directed to use temporary substitutes.
The
CSAPOD contracted with five different printing companies over
the four years of its existence—Hoyer & Ludwig of Richmond,
Virginia; J.T. Paterson & Co. of Augusta, Georgia; Thomas
de la Rue & Co., Ltd., London, England; Archer & Daly
of Richmond, Virginia, and Keatinge & Ball of Columbia,
South Carolina. They employed all three methods of printing
known at that time—lithography, typography and line-engraving.
The
Confederacy issued thirteen different major stamps that saw
postal usage, or sixteen stamps if the different printers are
taken into consideration. One stamp, the 1-cent De La Rue, was
printed but never issued, and it therefore saw no postal usage.
All stamps were issued imperforate (without perforations) except
a few perforated stamps that were prepared experimentally.
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