Confederate States general issue stamps

Confederate States general issue stamps comprise the series of adhesive postage stamps issued centrally by the Confederate Post Office Department during the American Civil War. Provided for by the Confederate Constitution, which required the postal service to become entirely self-financing from 1 March 1863, the national postal system was established under Postmaster General John Henninger Reagan following his appointment by President Jefferson Davis in March 1861. The administration was charged with supplying standard adhesive postage stamps and maintaining communications across the seceding Southern states.

Although the Confederate Post Office was created in February 1861, the United States Post Office Department continued to convey Southern post until 1 June 1861. When the Confederate authorities assumed full control of mail collection and delivery, centrally contracted stamps were not yet ready for distribution. Postmasters were initially obliged to accept cash marked with hand-stamped impressions or issue local provisional stamps. Reagan sought proposals from printing establishments across both Northern and Southern cities—including New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New Orleans, and Richmond—before hostilities restricted production to Confederate printers. The central postal service remained functional throughout the war until 1865.

The centrally issued stamps were produced to pay Confederate postal tariffs, which were set higher than existing Union rates. Basic letter rates were initially five cents per half-ounce for distances under five hundred miles and ten cents for longer distances, though the five-cent tariff was later raised to ten cents. Other rates included two cents for drop letters and circulars, fifty cents for express mail, and a forty-cent charge introduced after 1863 for mail conveyed across the Federal blockade of the Mississippi River. Throughout the war, the manufacture of stamps and paper was regularly impeded by material shortages caused by Union naval blockades.