UNION 600: CAMP SORGHUM, COLUMBIA SC: CSA 8a, 2¢ pale red tied by RICHMOND Va. FEB 9 (1864) circular datestamp, addressed to Capt. Ira B. Sampson, 2nd Mass. Heavy Arty., Prisoner of War, Columbia, S.C., unsealed flap confirming it contained a circular; upper right of stamp replaced and couple faint cover stain spots. This is a VERY RARE UNSEALED CIRCULAR RATE COVER incoming to a Union officer in the Southern prison camp dubbed Camp Sorghum because cornmeal and sorghum syrup were the staple rations there. The cover was transported to the lines inside a cover sent from the North, then removed from that cover in Richmond where the 2¢ stamp was applied and the cover sent on to the prisoner. There were three prisons in Columbia, all such uses are scarce. Camp Sorghum was an officer’s camp. Capt. Sampson escaped twice, the first from Camp Davidson in Savannah, Ga., July 3, 1864. There, he managed to escape by crawling through a hole under a fence and tried to reach the fort on the coast six miles away, making his way across a swamp in the process. He was recaptured by a patrol while attempting to remove himself from the muddy swamp. He escaped again from Charleston City Jail on March 17, 1865. Sampson was one of the “Union 600” officers captured at various battles and imprisoned within the line of fire of Union batteries bombarding Charleston, using them as human shields. On the other side were the “Immortal Six Hundred” Confederate officers held by the Union Army on Morris Island in Charleston Harbor, also being used as human shields.  Click here to see the full story of this shameful stain on American history on my articles page in the April 2009 American Stamp Dealer and Collector. Awesome history and postal history on this one. $1,500.  Awesome history and postal history on this one. $1,500.

Ira Bradford Sampson (1840-1890) was a 23-year-old resident of Springfield, Mass., when he enlisted in the Union Army on October 7, 1861, as a sergeant major, mustering in to the Massachusetts 27th Infantry. He was discharged for promotion December 7, 1863, when he was commissioned as a captain into Co. G, Massachusetts 2nd Heavy Artillery. He was captured on the North Carolina coast at the surrender of Fort William at Plymouth, N.C., in April 1864, and imprisoned at Andersonville, Ga., Macon, Ga., Charleston and Columbia, S.C. He resigned the army on June 8, 1865.  Sampson married Mary Almira Cooley (1844-1933) of Springfield, Mass., in 1865, and with her had three children: Marcus, Walter, and Luke. Sampson died from consumption in Arizona on December 23, 1890, at the age of 50. His papers for years 1862-1891 are located at UNC as part of the Southern Historical Collection, including his wartime diary, CDV, hand-drawn maps, and memo book. The papers were purchased by UNC from Charles Hamilton Galleries in New York in 1968.