In 2013, people across the United States will celebrate the sesquicentennial of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. As the country approached a third year of bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln issued what has become the most symbolic of mandates. Although limited in many ways, the Proclamation stands as...

During the Civil War, enterprising publishers produced small envelopes with patriotic images, views of camp life, battles, portraits and comic illustrations. Both soldiers and their friends and families used these Civil War envelopes to mail letters during the conflict. Although most of these envelopes were printed in Union states, a...