Civil War Series Continues with Release of New Stamps Tomorrow

Tomorrow the U.S. Postal Service continues its commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War (1861–1865), the most wrenching chapter in American history, with the issuance of a new souvenir sheet of two stamp designs. One stamp depicts the Battle of New Orleans, the first significant achievement of the U.S. Navy in the war, while the other depicts the Battle of Antietam, which marked the bloodiest day of the war.

Art director Phil Jordan created the stamps using images of Civil War battles. The Battle of New Orleans stamp is a reproduction of an 1862 colored lithograph by Currier & Ives titled “The Splendid Naval Triumph on the Mississippi, April 24th, 1862.” It depicts Admiral David G. Farragut’s fleet passing Forts Jackson and St. Phillip on the way toward New Orleans.

The Battle of Antietam stamp is a reproduction of an 1887 painting by Thure de Thulstrup. The painting was one of a series of popular prints commissioned in the 1880s by Boston publisher Louis Prang & Co. to commemorate the Civil War.

For the stamp pane’s background image, Jordan used a photograph of Union soldiers in the vicinity of Fair Oaks, Virginia, circa June 1862.

The stamp pane includes comments on the war by David G. Farragut, James C. Steele, Walt Whitman, and the New York Times. It also includes some of Charles Carroll Sawyer’s lyrics from the popular 1862 song “Weeping, Sad and Lonely,” or “When This Cruel War Is Over” (music composed by Henry Tucker).

Martha Gellhorn: Fearless Journalist

Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) spent her professional life covering major conflicts, including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Vietnam War. Fearless and prolific, she blazed a trail for future female journalists. Gellhorn was one of five individuals―and the only woman―honored on the 2008 American Journalists stamps.

I recently caught up with author Caroline Moorehead, who wrote Martha Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life, an extensive biography of the influential journalist. Via email, Moorehead answered a few of our questions about Gellhorn.

Why do you think Martha Gellhorn was such an influential journalist?

I think she was one of the very first war correspondents to look at war from the point of view of the civilians. That’s what interested her: what happens to ordinary people when war is all around you. Something of her muted and eloquent outrage, barely kept in check, was very powerful. Younger journalists read and copied.

When she started out, were female war correspondents rare?

Yes, pretty rare. No tradition for them to go anywhere near the front line for a start. [There was a] feeling that somehow [it was] not right or decorous to have them around. But there were a few in Spain, and by the end of World War II, numbers were growing.

And did she face discrimination from her fellow journalists and also the subjects she covered?

The military were constantly angry with her for venturing to places she should not have gone to; fellow journalists tended to find her daunting and very glamorous; she was very forthright and bold and energetic, and people seem to have admired her.

Gellhorn traveled to war zones well into old age. What do you think kept her going?

No adrenaline like it; also, the license to see, to ask questions, to witness, to convey what she saw, was irresistible. That was what she did. She wasn’t much interested in comfort or safety.

At the moment, are you working on anything?

I am writing a sequel to a book I had out in September called A Train in Winter, about a group of women from the French resistance. The new one is about a plateau in the Ardèche, where they set about saving people hunted by the Gestapo.

Honoring Women in Military Service

Today we recognize all the brave women who have served our country in the armed services. Though women still don’t serve in combat units during times of war, their immense contribution to military efforts is undeniable.

Women were first enlisted into special branches of the armed services during World War II: the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), the Navy’s Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES), the women’s Coast Guard Reserve (SPAR), Women Marines, and the Air Force’s Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Service (WAFS) and Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). The success of these branches led to legislation—such as the Army-Navy Nurse Act of 1947 and the Women’s Armed Service Integration Act of 1948—that solidified the permanent inclusion of women in the military.

By the 1970s, the separate, all-women components to the branches of the armed forces had been disbanded and women completely integrated into the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard of the United States. Issued in conjunction with the dedication of the Women in Military Service of America Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, this 1997 stamp features five women representing the five branches of the military.

Thank you all for your service.