In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service launched a stamp series to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which engulfed the nation from 1861 to 1865. A souvenir sheet of two stamp designs is being issued for each year of the war. The series will continue through 2015.

The Civil War profoundly changed the country, bringing an end to slavery, transforming the social life of the South and the economic life of the nation, and leaving a lasting impact on those who lived through the four-year ordeal.

On the 2013 souvenir sheet, one stamp depicts the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle of the war, while the other depicts the Battle of Vicksburg, a complex Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River.

Battle of Gettysburg

In the spring of 1863, Confederate general Robert E. Lee conceived a bold plan to invade Pennsylvania and perhaps deal a decisive blow to the Union. Fresh from his brilliant victory in Virginia at the Battle of Chancellorsville in early May, Lee confidently informed Confederate president Jefferson Davis that the invasion would relieve pressure on war-ravaged Virginia as well as on Rebel forces in the West.

Notwithstanding Lee’s optimism that he could follow up his recent triumph with a major offensive, the position of the South was increasingly desperate. Union forces were closing in on Vicksburg, Mississippi, jeopardizing the entire western theater. The Confederates sorely needed an offsetting victory in the East.

In early June, Lee began moving troops from his Army of Northern Virginia out of Fredericksburg. Before the end of the month, the bulk of the army had crossed the Potomac River into Maryland on their way to Pennsylvania. As Union forces discerned Lee’s intent, they raced north to meet the threat.

On June 28, President Abraham Lincoln, still seeking an aggressive general who could defeat Lee on the battlefield, replaced Joseph Hooker after his disappointing performance at Chancellorsville and put Major General George Gordon Meade in command of the Army of the Potomac. Meade developed a plan to fight a defensive battle in Maryland, but the armies collided instead along the ridges and hills near the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The battle began on July 1, when a Confederate infantry division approached Gettysburg, stumbling prematurely into a Union cavalry division on McPherson’s Ridge, west of the town. Lee planned to engage Meade’s army only after massing his own scattered troops. However, unaware that Meade’s 90,000 Federal troops were only a short distance behind the Yankee cavalry, the Confederates attacked and the fighting quickly escalated. By the time Lee actually arrived on the scene, his troops had pushed the Federals back to Cemetery Hill, just south of the town. Lee ordered General Richard Ewell to seize the high ground “if practicable.” But as the sun was setting, Ewell decided it was too risky to attack. Union troops were then able to consolidate their position on Cemetery Hill during the night.

Meade arrived on the scene during the night, and quickly decided that Cemetery Hill, and the ridge that ran southward from it, made a good defensive position. With most of Meade’s army arriving the next morning, July 2, the Union troops formed a line whose shape resembled a fishhook, with the curved part of the hook on Culp’s and Cemetery Hills and the shank running along Cemetery Ridge to the Round Tops. Lee’s most trusted subordinate, James Longstreet, recognizing the strength of the position, urged Lee to make a flanking move and find defensive terrain further south of Gettysburg, but Lee was determined to stay on the offensive. Pointing to the Union line, he told Longstreet, “The enemy is there, and I am going to attack him there.” The ensuing attack on the afternoon of July 2 resulted in bloody fighting at places soon known across the nation as the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, and Devil’s Den.

The following day, Lee ordered the ill-fated attack commonly known as Pickett’s Charge (after the lead officer, General George E. Pickett) on the Union center at Cemetery Ridge. Some 13,000 infantry crossed an open field under heavy artillery fire, incurring high casualties in an attempt to overrun the Union’s position. At the end of the day, Lee admitted his mistake, telling one of his generals, “All this has been my fault.” He ordered a retreat on July 4, the same day Vicksburg fell to Ulysses S. Grant in the West.

Estimates of the three-day toll for both sides exceed 45,000 casualties, including more than 7,500 killed or mortally wounded. For the Union’s much-maligned Army of the Potomac, the battle marked an important turning point. For Lee’s forces and the South, Gettysburg has often been called the “high water mark of the Rebellion.”

Battle of Vicksburg

The Battle of Vicksburg in the spring and summer of 1863 was the culmination of the longest and most complex military campaign of the Civil War.

By the spring of 1862, Union forces had captured both Memphis and New Orleans, giving them a secure hold on both ends of the Mississippi River in the South. The middle part of the Mississippi, however, including the great fortress-city of Vicksburg, remained in Confederate hands. As long as Vicksburg stood, Northern commerce along the river was hampered and Confederates could continue to move men and supplies eastward from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.

President Abraham Lincoln considered the capture of Vicksburg to be “the key” to bringing the war to an end. When Admiral David G. Farragut, who had become a national hero after seizing New Orleans in the spring of 1862, was unable to bombard Vicksburg into submission using naval force alone, Union general Ulysses S. Grant began planning a vast overland campaign to take the city.

Grant faced formidable obstacles. The city, known as the “Gibraltar of the Confederacy,” was located on high bluffs overlooking a narrow bend of the Mississippi River and was protected by deep ravines, swamps, and thick woods. The city was also heavily fortified and guarded by 30,000 troops under the command of Confederate General John C. Pemberton.

Grant tried nearly every trick to take the city, including a fruitless attempt to dig a canal that would bypass Vicksburg. He eventually conceived a bold and risky plan of attack—what has been called “the greatest amphibious operation in American history up to that time.” The plan involved marching his troops south along the western bank of the Mississippi River, and transporting more than 20,000 men east across the river to an undefended site well below Vicksburg. The troops could then mount an attack from the open ground east of the city.

To carry out the plan, however, Grant would need to run a fleet of transports and ironclads commanded by Rear Admiral David D. Porter past Vicksburg’s river defenses to meet Grant’s troops and ferry them to the Vicksburg side of the river. On the evening of April 16, 1863, Porter’s fleet set forth with all lights out aboard his ships and managed to get past the city’s surprised defenders with minimal losses. A second passing a week later provided Grant with even more boats downriver for a faster troop transfer.

After Union forces successfully landed at Bruinsburg, Mississippi, Grant turned toward the state capital of Jackson, to prevent Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston’s troops from coming to the aid of Pemberton’s men in Vicksburg. Pemberton came out to attack Grant at Champion Hill on May 16, 1863, but was quickly compelled to draw back behind the defenses of Vicksburg. The first Union assault on the city, which began on May 19, failed, and a long siege ensued.

Grant’s men dug trenches, pounded the city with artillery, and tunneled under Confederate lines to set off explosives that could blow gaps in their defenses. Vicksburg’s civilian residents had to live in makeshift caves, surfacing only when the shelling stopped, and increasingly suffered from shortages of food and supplies. As one wrote, “We are utterly cut off from the world, surrounded by a circle of fire.”

Six weeks into the siege, with the city in ruins and no hope of help from outside, Pemberton was out of options. He arranged a meeting with Grant and surrendered on July 4, one day after the Union victory at Gettysburg.

Grant’s triumph validated his western strategy and ultimately led to his appointment as general-in-chief of the Union armies.

The Battle of Gettysburg and Battle of Vicksburg stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce rate.

Stamp design brief:

In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service launched a stamp series to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which engulfed the nation from 1861 to 1865. A souvenir sheet of two stamp designs is being issued for each year of the war. The series will continue through 2015.

On the 2013 souvenir sheet, one stamp depicts the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle of the war, while the other depicts the Battle of Vicksburg, a complex Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River.

Art director Phil Jordan of Falls Church, Virginia, created the stamps using images of Civil War battles. The Battle of Gettysburg stamp is a reproduction of an 1887 chromolithograph by Thure de Thulstrup (1848-1930), a Swedish-born artist who became an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly after the Civil War. Thulstrup’s work was one of a series of popular prints commissioned in the 1880s by Boston publisher Louis Prang & Co. to commemorate the Civil War.

The Battle of Vicksburg stamp is a reproduction of an 1863 lithograph by Currier & Ives titled “Admiral Porter’s Fleet Running the Rebel Blockade of the Mississippi at Vicksburg, April 16th, 1863.”

The background image on the souvenir sheet is a photograph taken by Mathew Brady shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg of captured Confederate soldiers, who reportedly posed for Brady on Seminary Ridge.

The souvenir sheet includes comments on the war by Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton, Rufus R. Dawes (a Union soldier), and William Tunnard (a Confederate soldier). It also includes some of the lyrics of “Lorena,” a popular Civil War song by Henry D. L. Webster and Joseph P. Webster.

Text on the back of the stamp sheet:

In June 1863, Confederate general Robert E. Lee began to carry out his bold plan to invade Pennsylvania and perhaps deal a decisive blow to the Union. By the end of the month, troops from his Army of Northern Virginia had moved out of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, on their way toward Pennsylvania. There, on July 1, near the small town of Gettysburg, his forces would meet those of Major General George Gordon Meade, the newly appointed Union commander of the Army of the Potomac.

The ensuing three-day Battle of Gettysburg—in places soon known across the nation as the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, and Devil’s Den—was the largest battle fought during the war and Lee’s first major defeat. There were some 45,000 casualties, including more than 7,500 killed or mortally wounded. For Lee’s forces and the South, Gettysburg has often been called the “high water mark of the Rebellion.”

Taking place at the same time in the western theater was the climax of the longest and most complex military campaign of the Civil War: the Battle of Vicksburg. A busy port city, Vicksburg was the last major Confederate stronghold preventing the Union from gaining complete control over the Mississippi River. President Abraham Lincoln considered its capture “the key” to bringing the war to an end.

After the U.S. Navy was unable to bombard the city into submission, General Ulysses S. Grant planned and implemented what has been called “the greatest amphibious operation in American history up to that time.” Grant marched his troops south along the western bank of the Mississippi River, and the Navy transported more than 20,000 men east across the river to an undefended site well below Vicksburg. The troops then mounted an attack from the open ground east of the city.

Their assault began on May 19, but a long siege commenced after frontal attacks failed. Finally, six weeks into the siege and with the city in ruins, Confederate general John C. Pemberton arranged a meeting with Grant and surrendered on July 4, one day after the Union victory at Gettysburg.

The Battle of Gettysburg and Battle of Vicksburg stamps are part of the U.S. Postal Service’s series commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.