How to Send a Letter from North Carolina to Pennsylvania in 1863

T he process by which Confederate prisoners at Gettysburg could correspond with loved ones at home was a convoluted one. It involved stamps of both postal systems, a "flag of truce" that allowed mail to pass through the lines, and no expectation of privacy, as Benjamin Franklin Little of North Carolina explained to his wife in a letter written August 17, 1863.

"If you do not know any other course (better inquire) write one page, place it in an envelope (left open) with confederate stamp on one corner, & Federal stamp, (which I enclose) on the other, directed to “Capt. B.F. Little, Care of Dr. L.W. Oakley, Surgeon at General Hospital, Gettysburg, Penn. Enclose this unsealed letter in a sealed one (with our stamp) to Commissioner Robert Ould, Richmond, Va. with a note requesting him to forward by "flag of truce", Please enclose me 10 confederate stamps."