| KY39 |
Stampless
cover with the BLUE
Bowling Green KY CDS 9 NOV (1861) and manuscript "Paid 10." Semi-Official Imprint
"Headquarters Western Department, Official Business" (CC
WD-ZA-33). Addressed to A. L. Alexander Esqr for Mrs. Gilmer,
Washington, Wilkes Co., Georgia. Based on the handwriting, the cover
was sent by CSA Lt Col Jeremy F. Gilmer to his wife in care of his
father-in-law. Sealed opening tear at the
upper right corner through part of the imprint but nothing missing.
Otherwise a clean and complete cover with a scarce imprint and a scarce
postal use from Confederate occupied Kentucky.
The Confederates did not have an official "Western Department"
designation as no such reference can be found to such a Confederate
military department. But the USA had such a designation which in the
summer of
1861 included western Kentucky. The Union "Western Department" went out
of existence on 11/9/1861 which is the date of this cover. This is very
probably a Union imprint
and not a Confederate imprint which helps to explain why the imprint is
lined through. It appears that Col Gilmer (Later Maj-Gen in 1863) found
these imprinted covers most likely in Bowling Green and used them for
his personal
correspondence home to his wife. The
cover appears
to be
a captured Union imprinted cover and is associated with a later very
prominent
CSA general. There are only two other examples of
this imprint that I could find - one used from Bowling Green
KY and dated 25 OCT (1861), and the other used from Nashville 6
NOV (1861). All three covers are from
the same Gilmer Correspondence. One is an
oversized cover with the imprint not lined through, and the other is
similar to this cover with the imprint lined through. I cannot prove
positively
that this is a Union imprint because I
cannot find a postally used Union or pre-war example of the
imprint.
The only recorded uses that I could find are Confederate from the
same personal correspondence. The evidence is compelling that this is "CSA Use of a Union Imprint." My research article, "Headquarters Western Department Semi-Official Imprint," on this imprint was published in the Second Quarter 2021 issue of the Civil War Philatelist.
Click the title of you wish to read the full article. One of the
additional two covers in this correspondence is listed in the Tennessee
section as TN400.
Jeremy Francis Gilmer (1818-1883), an 1839
West Point graduate, was a pre-war US Army Engineer officer. At the
beginning of the war, he was commissioned as a CSA
Engineer Officer and
served as a Lt Col on the staff of General Albert S. Johnston
as Chief
Engineer of Confederate Military Department No. 2 which included the
Western Theater. He was known to have been in Bowling Green in Oct-Nov
1861. He was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh but recovered. In 1862 he
was promoted Colonel and became Chief
of the Engineer Bureau in the Confederate War Department. In 1863, he
was promoted from Colonel directly to Major-General without having been
a Brigadier-General and later assisted in the defences of Charleston
and Atlanta. Gen Gilmer was considered by many to be the best military
engineer in Confederate service. After the war, he engaged in railroad
activities and was president of the Savannah Gaslight Company. The
handwriting on the three covers known to me with this imprint
is clearly that
of Gen Gilmer early in his Confederate service. |
$1,250.00
SOLD
|
JLKCSA@aol.com
-- Confederate Order
Form --