Evening star., 1961-02-05
PHILATELIc NEWS
Five Stamps to Mark
Civil War Centennial
BY BELMONT FARES
star Stamp Editor

u1oSVcC NCueIal v. 6QWarQ
Day.
Events to be commence
rated and the dates are:
Fort Sumter. April IL, 1861.
Shiloh. April 6, 1862
Gettysburg, July /. 1868.
The Wilderness, May 5,
1864.
Appomattox. April 8. 1865.
Designs are still in prep
aration, but 1t is under
stood that the general pat
tern will be set by the Fort
Sumter stamp, marking the
first military action Of the
war, the bombardment Of the
Union-held fort in the harbor
at Charleston, 8. C.
Preliminary art work, de-
veloped in the Post Office
Department and the Bureau
Of Engraving and Printing, is
in horizontal formal with a
gunner and weapon of the
type which fired on Sumter
against o background Of q
palmetto branch.
The lettering, Civil War
Centennial" is across the top,
with Fort Sumter" in
smaller letters beneath, the
dates 1851" and 1851" at
left and right, and "U. S.
Postage &c across the bottom.
The symbolic central de-
sign and its background
will differ for each battle,
with the lettering remaining
unchanged as q unifying
element.
The five battles to be COM
memorated were chosen after
consultation with the Civil
War Centennial Commission,
headed by Mai. Gen. Ulysses
S. Grant III, who issued q
statement expressing his
pleasure with the planned
program.
Also consulted were the
chairnen Of the Senate and
House Post Office Commit
tees. Senator Olin D. john
ston Of South Carolina, who
had urged the Fort Sumter
stamp, and Representative
Tom Murray of Tennessee,
whose district includes the
Shiloh battlefield.
Reasons for the choice Of
the five battles to be COM
memorated were explained by
Postmaster General Day in
these words:
Fort Sumter has been
chosen for 1861 to represent
those early events Of a CEN
tury ago which tragically
committed the Nations peo-
pie in an armed struggle to
create once and for all what
the Declaration of Independ-
ence called q more perfect
union
"In choosing the Battle Of
Shiloh for 1862, we memo
rialize one of the most i'm
portant events in the West
ern theater Of operations. It
was here that the South
tragically lost Albert Sydney
Johnston and the North be-
came aware Of the emergence
Of Ulysses S. Grant. At the
same time. for the war as a
whole, Shiloh represented
for both sides the time of
the improvised war in which
the heroic courage of volun-
teer troops was most appar-
ent and the native genius of
commanding officers on both
sides was only beginning to
assert itself.
I'm July, 1868. Gettysburg
told all Americans that the
tragedy Of the war would
inevitably be fought to a
decision on the battlefield.
Southern and Northern
troops displayed at Gettys-
burg the kind of courage in
battle never again to be seen
on the American continent.
Commanders on both sides
by then had reached their
maturity. But Gettysburg
stands to remind us of the
remarks Of President Lincoln
to be uttered there four
months later explaining SIM
ply and concisely for the
first time the blueprint of the
greater America for which
these men fought.
THE Wilderness campaign
in 1864 marked the begin
ming of q war of unceaSing
attrition which was not to
conclude until II months la
ter. It was the beginning of
Gen. Grants almost un-
interrupted period of pres
sure upon the armies of the
South. Yet in many ways
it saw, too, the emergence
of a period of the most bril-
liant strategic and tactical
genius on the part of the
Confederacy against the
greatest morale and material
odds in history.
"Appomattox In 1865 did