CSA 12-ADc, 10¢ bluish green used oon back flaps of adversity cover fashioned from lined paper with Blue Mt Ala manuscript postmark on obverse, addressed to Mrs. A. F. Smith, Care M.R. Burt, Prattville, Ala. Sent from Thomas W. Smith, a correspondence researched by Galen Harrison and with accompanying paperwork. Smith was married to M.R. Burt’s daughter, Margaret. Stamp is not torn and looks like it a flap could (operative word) be carefully turned to display both from the front with bottom flap turned down. Ex Roger Ballard. $250.

Thomas W. Smith (born 1 October 1836) mustered into Prattville Dragoons, Co. H. 3rd Alabama Regiment Cavalry 18 April 1861 as a private. This later became the 8th Alabama Cavalry and he was in Company A. He later became Quarter Master Sergeant. Smith was married to M.R. Burt’s daughter, Margaret. He is described on his archived Oath of Allegiance (photocopy included) as 6’2” tall, dark hair, dark eyes and complexion, 15 May 1865 Montgomery. Blue Mountain was settled by the Hudgins family in the late 1830s and for years was the terminus of the Selma, Rome & Dalton Railroad, being the shipping station for the Oxford furnace. During the War, the Confederate Government operated both the railroad and the furnace, the iron being shipped to Selma to make “Ironclads” for the Confederacy. “Thousands of Confederate soldiers trained at the Blue Mountain rail depot and training camp, the group’s members say. Historians and Civil War experts say the site, where industrialists later built the textile mills that became Blue Mountain Industries, was home during the war to a Confederate supply depot and training camp.” It was burned in 1864. Source: History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Volume I – By Thomas McAdory Owen