SOUTHERN EXPRESS COMPANY / AUGUSTA GA // MAY 31 blue double circle on cover addressed to W. Johnston Esq, Station No 6 CRR Screven Co, Geo with docketing at top “320$ from P A Scranton” on TURNED COVER addressed but not postally used to “Mrs. P A Scranton Burlington, Connecticut.” Five red wax seals on verso sealing back flaps. The absence of a mail registration system in the Confederacy made it necessary to use express companies to transmit valuable letters. Postage was required on all express letters, but the Act of April 1862 changed the law from allowing adhesive stamps to requiring stamped envelopes, which of course the government did not provide. The calculated effect of this regulation was a ban on private express mail, but surviving covers show that the companies continued to carry letters. It was illegal for express companies to carry mail starting June 1, 1862. Although “May 1862” is penciled on the verso, it is more likely immediately postwar and sold as such although it could potentially be a “last day” cover. The same markings were used during the war and immediately postwar. $550.

The Central Railroad and Banking Company, organized in 1833 as Georgia's first railroad company, in 1861 possessed a main line from Savannah to Macon, with a branch from Gordon through Milledgeville to Eatonton. The canal division of the company was soon dropped in favor of the construction of railroads, which were not as limited as to where they could be built. During the war, a lot of destruction was done with a railway-destruction known as “Sherman’s Neckties” where rails were destroyed by heating them until malleable and twisting them into loops, often around trees. Since the Confederacy had limited supplies of iron and few foundries, this destruction was very difficult to repair.