US 3¢ star-die entire tied NEWNAN / Ga. // MAR / 12 (1861) to James P. Boyce, Greenville, S.C., with contents docketing of H.J. Tangent and Ker Boyce 11th March 1861. Confederate State Use of US Postage. Ex Doug Baker. $180.

James Petigru Boyce (1827-1888) was an intellectually gifted Southern Baptist pastor, theologian, author, and educator who was a chaplain for a Confederate regiment of volunteers from Greenville, a Representative to the S.C. Legislature, and aide-de-camp to the governor of South Carolina. Boyce was founder (1859) and first president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The seminary was forced to close during the war but he restarted it after the war. His legacy lives on to this day through the seminary he devoted his life to establishing and preserving. Major Ker Boyce (1833-1891) was Assistant Brigade Quartermaster with the 12th Georgia Battalion (Evans Brigade, Army Northern Virginia), and brother to Rev. James P. Boyce. He was a wealthy and successful Charleston merchant before the war. After the war, he was postmaster of Augusta, Ga. Their father’s name was also Ker.