This week on Mailin' It, we'll explore the extraordinary power of letter writing and the crucial role played by the Postal Service during the U.S. Civil War. Get ready for a truly special episode, as we'll have the privilege of hearing firsthand accounts from a Civil War soldier and his family through the letters they shared during that tumultuous time.
Envision a time when our nation was engulfed in a Civil War, and the only connection with loved ones was through the exchange of letters. In this episode, we’ll delve into the profound impact of letter writing during the Civil War era and the importance of the Postal Service. Guiding us through this conversation are special guests Lynn Heidelbaugh, the Curator of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum's history department, and Tom Paone, a Civil War historian and Museum Specialist at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum.
Dale Parsan:
Hey everybody. Welcome to Mailin’ It, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm your co-host Dale Parson.
Jonathan Castillo:
And I'm Jonathan Castillo. You're in for a real treat. This episode, Dale and I talk with our guests about the vital role the Postal Service plays in everyday life. Of course, people have email and social media, and so many other ways to communicate these days, but mail continues to be deeply ingrained in our way of life. Now, imagine a time when US Mail was the only way to communicate over long distances in this country. Taking that a step further, imagine a time when this country was at war with itself and the only way to keep in touch with your loved ones was by writing and receiving letters.
Dale Parsan:
That's right, Jonathan. This episode we're going to talk about the power of letter writing and the importance of the Postal Service during the US Civil War. We're also going to hear from a Civil War soldier and his family about their firsthand experiences during the war, through letters they exchanged at that time.
Jonathan Castillo:
Here to guide us on what I'm sure will be a fascinating conversation are Lynn Heidelbaugh, and Thomas Peone. Lynn is the curator of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum's History Department, which specializes in telling the history of the US Postal Service. And Tom is a Civil War historian and a museum specialist at the Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum. Lynn and Tom are also the editors of Between Home and the Front: Civil War Letters of the Walters Family, a book that chronicles in much greater detail, the lives of private David Walters of the Fifth Indiana Calvary and his wife Rachel. Tom, welcome to Mailin’ It. And Lynn, welcome back to the podcast.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Great to be here. Nice to meet you, Jonathan. And see you Dale.
Thomas People:
It's good to be here as well.
Dale Parsan:
Wonderful. Before we talk about these amazing letters and the stories they tell, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourselves? Lynn, you've been on the podcast a few times already to talk about the history of the ZIP code and about military mail For those who may have missed those conversations, tell us a little bit about your background and the work you do at the postal museum.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
I am one of the curators at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, where I joined in 2004, specializing in collections and research about the history of the Postal Service. And I have specialized in military mail and letter writing culture that results in articles essays and exhibitions. So I've done exhibitions from topics ranging from women's military service during World War I, the history of military mail, and also the US Postal Inspection Service.
Jonathan Castillo:
Tom, you're new to the podcast. Tell us about your connection with the postal museum and what else you do at the Smithsonian.
Thomas Paone:
So I actually started my career at the Smithsonian in 2009 as an intern at the Postal Museum. And Lynn allowed me to work on this project because I had a background in Civil War era studies and Civil War history. So that is when I was able to really dig down into these letters and realize just how much amazing history were contained in the myths between this family. But I now work at the National Art Space Museum as the curator for the Lighter Than Air collection, which includes blimps, balloons and airships. And I actually curate some fabric from Civil War balloons. So I still have that Civil War connection, even at the Air and Space Museum.
Dale Parsan:
So just as a personal note. So are you at the one in DC or are you at the Udvar Hazy?
Thomas Paone:
So technically it's the same museum - it's one museum, two locations, ‘cuz we're spoiled
Dale Parsan:
Oh, wonderful. Oh, is it pronounced hazy?
Thomas Paone:
Yes. Udvar Hazy is the gentleman that gave the very large check to pay for a majority of the building.
Dale Parsan:
So better get that name right! Well, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Thomas Paone:
Thank you so much. It's so great to be here.
Dale Parsan:
So it's, it's interesting how letters can serve as candid historical documents. They tell you not only about the people writing and receiving those letters, but also about the times in which they lived. What makes the Civil War such an interesting period to study in terms of letter writing? And why did you choose these letters in particular?
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Well, you're right, letter writing seems like novel to most of us today. And a lot of people don't realize that years ago, this is the main way that people were communicating over long distances. And it's our goal with this collection of letters to help people understand how they are important historical documents that they help you understand a time period, people's mindsets, their social interactions. These are social relationships that are developing and being in sustained in these letters. But we also really want people to understand how this was significant primary communication modes for decades, if not really centuries. And we really see this at times of war where people are of course, motivated to write because they're separated, that there is honestly that specter of death. And so you do want to say everything that you can in your letters so that many of them can be revealing at times of conflict.
In times where people are facing danger, where families are hoping to find hope within the letters and dreading to receive a last letter. And so during the Civil War, Americans were really motivated to stay in touch because for many, this is the first time they're separated from family members. And of course there's the strife that they're facing, whether they're in battle or at home and facing all new circumstances economically and socially. And these letters for the first time have become truly affordable for most Americans. After postal regulation changes in the 1840s and 1850s, more Americans could now write and send letters than ever before. And then with the invention of the, or acceptance of the postage stamp in 1847, it really became very easy to drop a letter at the post office and send it to someone.
Dale Parsan:
You know, sometimes it's hard for me to fathom. Right. Obviously I'm preparing for this podcast and I'm, I'm looking forward to speaking with you guys and getting deeper into this. But I mean, I, this day and age, I get upset when somebody doesn't get back to me by, you know, later that night when I text them in the morning months less having to wait, you know, days if not weeks to hear back in correspondence. So Tom, was there anything else you wanted to add?
Thomas Paone:
Yes, that is actually a very good point about that delay. And you actually see that come up in the letters. As Lynn mentioned, this became the only way for families that were separate by war to communicate. So a letter became a critical aspect of morale for both soldiers and those at home. This was the only way they were learning what was happening at home or how their soldier was doing in the field. So these became critical for kind of both sides of that. And as a result of that, you can really gather a lot of information at that level, at the very personal level about what was going on and how the war was impacting everyone. So that just made it even more important to have these letters and to be able to read the information in them.
Dale Parsan:
I think a big part of why they're even around today, Tom, is they become treasured. Right? You know, that somebody took the time to grab a writing utensil, don't even know if it's right to call it a pen, but, you know, a quill and ink, let's say, and actually pen something. You can see their handwriting. You can see the effort they put into it, a tremble in the hand as you're reading through it, and they end up holding onto them for such a long period of time. I’m really happy they did.
Thomas Paone:
Absolutely, especially for historians. We were able to glean so much information out of them that you don't normally see in kind of top level views of history.
Jonathan Castillo:
So you've both chosen a handful of excerpts from actual letters to share with us to, you know, provide real world examples of what we're talking about. Right? Those letters are part of a larger collection in your book between Home and the Front Civil War: Letters of the Walters Family. Could you set the scene for us? Who are we going to hear from and who are they writing to?
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Yeah, so Tom and I selected excerpts from six of the letters from this Indiana family. And all the letters from this family exchange from about 1859 to 1868 are in the collection, the Smithsonian National Post and Museum, and transcribed in the book. So we're gonna give you a sample today. As you mentioned earlier these are letters between private David Walters, of the Fifth Indiana Calvary, and his wife Rachel. And the final letter is actually from David's brother Isaac. David's letters, they were of his own personality. They were about being a soldier. He also very freely expressed his love for the family and missing them where Rachel's letters were recording how she was getting on at the home front, managing things taking on the job as a teacher, and raising their young son, Willie. She also was exchanging all the information of other family members. She became the hub of communication for David and his brothers Isaac and John Wesley, who are also serving in Indiana regiments.
Thomas Paone:
So this first pair of letters that we're gonna be hearing date from 1862, and they're between David and Rachel. Rachel's letter is written in mid-November, November 12th, and then David's response is written on Christmas Day, 1862.
Rachael Walters Letter:
Rachel's letter to David dated November 12th, 1862. You say you have some notion of joining the regulars, if I will let you know, David, as you wanna know my mind on it, I will give it. David, I would not have you to join the regulars for anything. We do not any of us want you to join them. Phoebe says to tell you, she says No twice for, we want you to come home as soon as you can. It has not been quite four weeks since I saw you, and it seems to me like four months. Oh, the time seems so long. I can hardly wait.
David Walters Letter:
David's response, dated Christmas Day, 1862. This is Christmas and a droll one it is to what I'm used to. It's warm and raining. The boys are enjoying themselves very well, laying round in their respective tents, some writing, some telling fish stories. There's no regular soldiers here except our company. There's about 1500 home guard and legions in this county. They're fully organized and ready to turn out at any call. We expect to have something to do before, long as the sesesh is getting quite saucy. They're beginning to act about, as they did last summer before Morgan come in. They say that they're looking for a heavy sesesh force thrown in before long. Please ride as often as you can, take good care of yourself and child.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Rachel's letter that we've just heard highlights a point of friction. It's those needs on the home front and keeping family together, a marriage together and businesses and farm going and against the demands of the military's necessity. And that draw of patriotic duty, which David has expressed to her in a letter. She is responding directly to one of David's recent letters in which he floated by the idea of joining the regular US Army. David had been a volunteer, and if he had switched, it would've meant a much longer term of an enlistment. So to make her point, she brings in both her sister Phoebe's commentary as a powerful reminder of those family obligations. She also goes to the heart of the matter about that separation and missing David when she talks about the time of not seeing him for several weeks.
And he had only just volunteered. He had started in the summer of 1862 and gone into training in September. So in those early days, he has that desire to further his commitment to the union cause and he's clearly adjusting to military life and considering that longer term enlistment with the army. So Rachel's reminder that there's a home and there's a family, and there's her and their marriage to come back to is clearly what she's trying to bring his attention to. And she wraps up these notes also with tales of their son, Willie's latest antics, and the games he was playing and makes one final and treaty to David in this letter to please don't enlist further.
Thomas Paone:
David's response letter describes where he is and goes into some detail about the conditions, the camp. And he, you know, specifically mentions the weather. Again, he's trying to explain to Rachel what he's experiencing while he's away from her. He also brings up what the company's doing for Christmas. And this most likely was his first Christmas away from home. So he even uses the word droll to kind of describe the rainy, you know, the rainy weather and sitting around camp again without his family. So you can really see this this feeling coming out of what he's experiencing and how he's not enjoying it at the moment. He also mentions something about there's no regular soldiers in the area except his, our company. He says, “our company.” This reflects that his unit is the only kind of volunteer force in the area as opposed to militias or local forces. So they're really there helping to keep order. And it kind of, he's explaining a little more how their unit's a little more organized than some of the things that are around some of the other units that are around. And in our research, we never found him going beyond this volunteer status. So we believe he did listen to his wife's advice and stayed as a volunteer.
Dale Parsan:
Well, that's probably good. And frankly, when you're away from home, it's not just about necessarily feeling guilt and being reminded of your responsibilities, but it's also just nice to have that moment to break away and to think back to particularly what he may be fighting for, you know, a future for his family.
Jonathan Castillo:
I thought it was really interesting about you know, the abbreviations that they were already making, like the sesesh, right?
Dale Parsan:
Maybe we should bring them back, Jonathan
Jonathan Castillo:
Absolutely. Let's make it real.
Dale Parsan:
So based on your research, is there anything about these letters that's unusual for the time in terms of the way people wrote or how they express themselves?
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Well, thinking about Rachel's letter, I'll talk about her a little bit more. She really is following the style and the conventions of the day. She uses phrases that were in etiquette books but looking at the material, which we got to work with in the collection, her letters are bright, vivid blue ink. And so this seems to be her personal preference, and they really stand out, and she has a kind of perfect penmanship, which you would expect from a teacher, which she is. But what is extraordinary is that we actually have her letters. It's unusual to have the home front letters because of the demands on soldiers, sailors and marines of constantly moving, being in danger, perhaps having to burn their letters before going into battle, because they don't want it to fall in enemy hands or somebody else to read them because they're private memories. But we do know that somehow David saved these and through careful reading of the letters, we believe that they were returned to Rachel from a comrade.
Thomas Paone:
David's writing is much more difficult to decipher than Rachel's. He most likely had less formal education and that shows through both how he wrote and then some of his grammatical and spelling errors that appear including spelling different camp names or cities differently in various letters. However you do see his letter writing technique and his style change over time. So as he's doing this more brought on by necessity of war, he is improving as the war goes on. However we do note some of the letters appear in a completely different hand in the collection. So we believe that he may have been dictating to a comrade to write a letter for him at times, which was not uncommon, especially for people who had never written before or had less formal education to do so. And because of this, it actually really helps to read some of the letters out loud because of the lack of a standard formatting or spelling sometimes reading out loud can give you a hint as to the word that is trying to be spelled or trying to be written out.
Dale Parsan:
Well, I mean, I guess they didn't have a spell check back in the day, so…
Thomas Paone:
That's right.
Jonathan Castillo:
I'm curious about what it was like to send and receive mail during the war for families like the Walters. How was mail service affected by the fighting? How quickly could you expect the mail to be delivered?
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Well, for those on the home front in the union, it was pretty much mail as usual. Most of the time would be timely deliveries. But it also, it really depended on where your family member was deployed, were they on a campaign? And thus a little bit harder for the post office department to reach them. And even in one of David's letters, he mentions that the letter cannot be sent to his unit at a certain time because they were out in the field. They also do also have to tell them who to send it to. So he was usually putting at the bottom of his letters, here's my commanding officer's name, and that's who it was going in care of. So there was those little kind of signs of addresses are even different. But for the most part, the post office department and the military coordinated all the shipments to the troops. They coordinated some of the processing and times to exchange the mail, and they could reach mail to someone within a day or two for some of the letters that we have between Rachel and David. But it could also take weeks to months, depending on the circumstances.
Dale Parsan:
Did the Army give soldiers paper and encourage them to write? Did they worry about soldiers giving away too much information in their letters in case the mail was ever intercepted? You know, I'm thinking plans, locations, stuff like that?
Thomas Paone:
Paper and envelopes and stamps were not issued to soldiers by either army. That was something they had to get on their own or through other means. So oftentimes soldiers would buy the materials needed to write home from traveling merchants that were called settlers. So they would carry stocks of paper and pencils and ink and things like that. There were also several volunteer organizations, especially in the north that would provide such paper and really encouraged letter writing. So organizations like the US Sanitary Commission and the US Christian Commission were very much encouraged soldiers to write home. Again, seeing the value of this for a morale and for, you know, keeping both sides the home front and the soldiers involved and knowing what was going on. They also very typically re requested these items from home. There are specific mentions in the letters that Rachel writes of her saying, I sent you stamps, or I sent you paper, please continue to write me. So that was a very typical request that many soldiers made back home of, I'm out of stamps or I'm out of paper, please send as soon as you can.
Dale Parsan:
Yeah. Now, now when I send a care package, it's usually socks and snacks.
Thomas Paone:
That’s right.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
And those stamps were really important because it was very hard for the post office department to get those stocks of stamps out to the field. There's tales of local post offices - If a unit had just moved in and wanted to
Dale Parsan:
I feel like if I'm receiving a letter, I'd be happy to pay it though.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Yes. And they, and these are almost like little gifts too, when you have somebody paying that stamp for you.
Jonathan Castillo:
Yeah. When you're waiting, you know, two or three months to get that mail in, you know, I'll gladly pay that.
Dale Parsan:
Absolutely. Give it here.
Jonathan Castillo:
So tell us about what we're gonna hear in the next two episodes.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
This is from a couple of letters between David and Rachel in 1864. So first you'll hear from David's letter to Rachel dated April 26, and then we'll hear Rachel's response dated May three.
Dale Parsan:
So for those following along, we fast forwarded about two years, right?
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
That's right. And there's a lot of a lot going on in 1864 during the Civil War, and they are, they are writing about it at this point.
David Walters Letter:
David's letter to Rachel dated April 26th, 1864. It with much pleasure that I improve the present by writing these few lines this day. Find me Well, hoping you are the same. I think the pictures are very nice. I would not know Willie, but yours is very handsome. If you had been standing and your hat on it would've suited me better, but it is nice enough. You spoke about having wet feet, my dear. Have you went to teaching school without getting you a pair of boots? If you have, it grieves me very much. If you have not got money enough to make you comfortable, let me know by the return of mail and I will spare you some.
Rachael Walters Letter:
Rachel's response. Dated May 3rd, 1864. I walked to Star City last night after school and was well paid for my trip for, I received two letters and two small books or tracks from you. I have read them all and think they are very nice, my dear. If it was not for the good and kind letters that I received from you, it seems to me that I never could stand it. I'm glad that you have received the miniatures for I was afraid that you never would get them. Please tell me in your next letter, whether you know a young man in your company by the name of Corbett and whether you know what become of him. Mrs. McCauley told me that his folks had not heard from him for some time. They thought that he had been taken prisoner, but they had not heard from him for so long that they did not know what had become of him. And I told her that I would write and ask you.
Dale Parsan:
We hear a lot about that aspect of her being an operator, right. Trying to relay those messages. And it, you know, it comes off at least from the listening that, you know, it feels as though she's, in order to maximize the space, maximize the amount of time she's foregoing her one-on-one time with David in order to help the community. And that's kind of beautiful.
Thomas Paone:
Yeah, her role that she kind of adopts of being this hub of communication is essential to the family. Again, she's relaying information from multiple brothers who are in different theaters of war back to one another, and then including information from the home front, from what's going at home to them. And so she really does play this critical role in keeping the family together, even though they are spread out as far as they possibly could at this time.
Dale Parsan:
What else can you tell us, Tom, from what we just heard?
Thomas Paone:
So in this exchange, you hear a much more emotional side of David as compared to kind of our first excerpt. And he specifically mentions receiving pictures from her, which the is sometimes referred to as miniatures, but photography had been you know, increasing in this time. So being able to get a photo and it was often printed on glass or tin. That, and then being able to send it back and forth became a very important aspect to many. Again, just having something to remind you of your spouse away was an incredible gift. So he really highlights this and, and explains how happy he is to have received it. However, his concern for what's going on at home is still the same. He, you know, this discussion with, with getting a new pair of boots refers to a conversation which she said she had gone teaching and come home from with wet feet. And he's very distraught about that. He even mentions, if you need more money, please let me know. You know, he wants her to be comfortable. So even though he has been you know, away from, from home for so long, his concern for her and her wellbeing has only increased and, and is still very much in his mind.
Jonathan Castillo:
I really like this news side that we're seeing here from David. You know, he, he's very much a, a, a charmer. This David, you know,
Thomas Paone:
Absolutely different.
Dale Parsan:
Well, we've got two more excerpts. Tell us about those.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
These two are probably the most significant of the excerpts in terms of both this family's history, these individuals, and also one of them about gives us insight into the nation's history. The first is from May, 1864. Rachel writes to David on the same days that he is actually in the Battle of Saka, which is in northern Georgia, and he is ultimately taken prisoner of war on one of those days. The second letter was written nearly a year later, and it's written to Rachel from Isaac Walters, one of David's brothers, and he was a private with the 20th Indiana Infantry. The date of Isaac's letter is April 17th, 1865. So that's just three days after Lincoln's assassination and eight days after the Union General Ulysses S Grant accepted Confederate General Robert Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.
Rachael Walters Letter:
Rachel's letter to David May 1864. I again, seat myself in order to answer your very kind and ever welcome letter of May 9th, which came to hand yesterday evening and was gladly received and read with much satisfaction. It found me well, and I hope that this may find you enjoying the same blessing of health. Willie is well, he is very well pleased to see me come home. He always runs to meet me. He says that he is Mo’s boy and Pa’s boy too. He says that his paw is down in Dixie fighting rebels. And I asked him what he thought that paw would fetch him when he came home. And he said he thought that paw would fetch him some little boots. The war news are more favorable than ever now. They all think that war cannot last much longer. For my part, I certainly hope that it will not. There has been two hard battles in Virginia lately.
Isaac Walters:
Isaac Walters letter to Rachel, April, 1865. It is pleased the Almighty to spare my life and bring me safely through the last struggle. While many have breathed their last on the field of battle and in their horrible prisons in the south, which I think is the worst of all deaths, I would 10 times rather be killed in battle than die there in filth and dirt with starvation. But alas, for my poor brother who has fallen a victim to their cruel hands, oh, what a sickening thought that such a near friend should perish in such a way and such a place is one of those southern prisons are represented to be. Yesterday, we received intelligence that Abe Lincoln, Secretary Seward, and his son were all assassinated. This is awful if true, but I hope it is not. If this is true, it is very likely we will be held five or six months longer than we would've been. Otherwise, I close for the present, hoping soon to get an answer.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Rachel's letter, it's full of details of her life as a busy mother with that beautiful passage about young Willie and his experiences at the war as a little boy of just a few years old. And also that life that she's leading as a school teacher, where she has to balance everything. And she's returning home to Willie. She's so busy that she has to break off this letter while writing it on May 14th to help with the farm and go into the fields. And then she returns the next day on May 15th and continues the letter. But there's why she's writing this over two days. She has no way of knowing that at the same time, David is also in battle over those two days. And she wraps up this letter again without knowing with a message of hoping to promise to write more often, to send David some more stamps so he can write often too. And so these are the things that she doesn't know as a writer. And we know as a reader and knowing the history and having to know that David's personal history and that history of that battle, what comes. But you can imagine what it would be like for her to be writing this with a quite a sunny disposition that she has. And then finding out the news later…
Thomas Paone:
Isaac, his in his response you know, you can see the emotion that he's experiencing as the war is coming to a conclusion. And he's realizing, you know, what his family has paid during this conflict. He specifically mentions receiving news of his brother's death in a POW camp and has quite a long you know opinion of what that must have been like. And again, you really see this, this emotion coming through that as, as he comes to grips with this reality. It's also interesting that he specifically mentions, you know, a pivotal event in American history with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and then the attempted assassination of Secretary Stewart and his son. So we know that he actually survived. But at this time this was the information that Isaac had. So he's realizing how critical this is going to be and that this will most likely, in fact extend his service. So it's really a reality check for him. He's realizing that even though the war is wrapping up, his time in the service is not over yet because of the events that are going on around him.
Dale Parsan:
I'm gonna be honest with that. It got me a little bit. I'm there's a little mist in my eyes that is heartbreaking and just a testament to how powerful these letters really can be.
Jonathan Castillo:
Yeah, I was gonna mention the exact same thing, Dale. I felt like I went through an emotional rollercoaster just reading the optimism you know, in Rachel's letters talking about their son, and he's hoping to get a pair of boots and then to just get hit with Isaac's letter. Oh my gosh, as a father, it's just, it's heartbreaking. You know.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
And this is why it's so important to have these letters going because this is the way they got the information. This is the way they expressed their grief, but also their hopes, for many returned like Isaac. But the reality is those who didn't, some have the letters. Some have the photos left to their family members.
Jonathan Castillo:
Heartbreaking. That's a fascinating story. And the way it's told through letters in the words of the people who lived through it, makes the story even more incredible. Before we let you both go, I'm curious if there was anything in these letters that surprised you or if you had any challenges trying to decipher the meaning of anything David, Rachel, or Isaac was writing about.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
For me, it was getting into these conversations. Some of these letters were a couple days apart or a day apart. They were responding directly to questions. It was like you could hear their voices. And these were letters that they would've shared with other family members passing along that information. But to start to see how they're related to each other is unique because there are so few letters from the home front. So to have Rachel's letters and her experiences, her perspectives, and being able to then talk about her brothers-in-law letters and tell her husband about where they are, because he might not be receiving their letters, is such a special source. And for, I'm sure for the family that held onto these four years, but also for us as historians to understand what it meant to exchange letters at this time,
Thomas Paone:
I was always struck by how much information you could find in these letters. You know that many times when we study history, we have a very high level view of things cuz it's, you know, we can't possibly know everything unless we spend many, many years studying a subject. So yeah, having a high level understanding is, you know, what we can expect to have. But in these letters, they're writing about things that are directly impacting their individual lives. And, and all these very these lesser known aspects of the war are, are, you could, you know, are drawn out through these conversations. As Lynn said Rachel describes things that are happening at the home front and resistance to the draft and things like that. And then David discusses his participation in certain battles and areas that are not as well covered as others especially in the middle of the country. Something called Morgan's raid that is just as not as known as other major battles. So just reading through these letters, you can get these, these little details and these facts that are not necessarily lost to history, but just are not as well known. And you can really see how this war that impacted the whole country impacted individuals and impacted their lives. And, you know, it really gives you such an appreciation for how much this upended everything in the country.
Dale Parsan:
Lynn, Tom, thank you so much for joining us today. I have to say this was probably one of the more emotional podcasts that we've had to date. It, it definitely got me a little misty-eyed, but it was well worth it.
Jonathan Castillo:
Absolutely. Thank you both for joining us. I 100% with Dale on that one. You almost had me going.
Lynn Heidelbaugh:
Thank you for the opportunity to share these letters. They're extraordinary.
Thomas Paone:
Absolutely. They impacted our lives as we worked with them and we were so grateful we could share them with others.
Jonathan Castillo:
It's now time for another Did You Know, where we discuss interesting facts that most people probably haven't heard about the Postal Service. I'll get things started. Dale, did you know that the longest serving postmaster held their position for 74 years?
Dale Parsan:
Did they start from birth?
Jonathan Castillo:
Well, public service did run in the family. Roswell Beardsley, whose father served in the New York State Senate, began his postmaster of North Lansing, New York in 1828. He was just 18 years old at the time, and he held onto the title of postmaster until his death in 1902 at the age of 93. Beardsley was well loved by the patrons he served at the post office in his small country store, including some families whom he served for five generations.
Dale Parsan:
That is… I can't even fathom that. Five generations. Alright, that's, that's truly a man of the people. I'm curious though, did anyone else come close?
Jonathan Castillo:
Well, we've had several postmasters who served for more than 60 years, most recently of which was Edgar Comley, who was the postmaster of the Reddig South Dakota Post Office for nearly 66 years until his retirement in early 2015.
Dale Parsan:
While inspiring is the easiest way I can put that. My Did You Know, also deals with some postal business. Think about the adhesive stamps we all know need and love.
Jonathan Castillo:
What about 'em?
Dale Parsan:
Well, did you know that before 1847 there were no general issue adhesive stamps in the United States? Surprisingly, it was a private New York City delivery service - Alexander M Greig, City Dispatch Post that issued the first adhesive postage stamps. That was back on February 1st, 1842. The US Post Office Department quickly bought Greg's business and continued the use of adhesive stamps for carrier service in New York City. Remember, there was no free delivery to homes and businesses back then.
Jonathan Castillo:
Wait, so how did people pay for postage before?
Dale Parsan:
Well, previously you'd take your letters to a post office where the postmaster, clerk or assistant would note the postage in the upper right hand corner. From there, you had three options. Pay the postage in advance, have the person receiving your letter pay for postage when the letter arrived or split the cost between sender and recipient. That changed once prepayment of postage became mandatory in 1855.
Jonathan Castillo:
Sounds like a headache compared with today's process. What did the first US postage stamps look like?
Dale Parsan:
The first stamps came in two denominations, a 5 cent stamp with Benjamin Franklin and the ten cent stamp with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson stamps followed years later.
Jonathan Castillo:
Very cool.
Dale Parsan:
All these postage stamps were printed on large sheets with pre gummed backing and had to be cut apart with scissors until stamp manufacturers began perforating sheets of stamps. That wraps up this edition of Did You Know.
Jonathan, we had a wonderful conversation today learning about a side of the Civil War and the involvement of the Postal Service that frankly I had never really learned about.
Jonathan Castillo:
Absolutely. I just keep thinking about something that Tom had said earlier about how all these details that we get through the letters really help give context and make all these events that we know about, you know, kind of top level.
Dale Parsan:
Yeah, that you learn about in school.
Jonathan Castillo:
That you learn about in school – right! And, and now you get to, you know, internalize it, you make it, it's more personal and it gives more context to what you're, you know, reading about. So I really like that part.
Dale Parsan:
Absolutely. And it's honestly, to me, it's just amazing that we still have these letters. You know, Lynn was talking about how sometimes these letters just didn't make it, they didn't make it back from the field. And the fact that we have them we're able to get that glimpses is really just remarkable.
Jonathan Castillo:
100%.
Dale Parsan:
All right, that wraps up this episode of Mailin’ It. Don't forget to subscribe to Mailin’ It wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss the next step episode. And follow along on Instagram @USPostalService, Twitter @usps, and on Facebook.