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The Confederate Philatelist· VoL 54 • No.1
Postal History
~,
Confederate States of America
Senator Robert M.T. Hunter
By Col. Thomas M. Lera
From Siegel Auction Sale Cata log 907, Lot 3073, March 16,2006
Senator Robert M.T. Hunter
hile reviewing the Siegel catalogs fo r examples of Semi-O ffi cial im prints fo r the new
Co nfederate catalog, I ran across the above cover. It was fro m the Office ofthe Provost
Marshal General, Anmies operating aga inst Ri chmond, Va. OFFICIAL BUSfNESS, addressed to Robert M.T. Hunter aboard the U.S. Gunboat Burnside.
Beginning in 1861, Federal regim ental pro vost marshal posts were formed in the Anmy of the Potomac. The position was later created in the di vision, corps, and army levels, wi th each Federal Army
havi ng a Provost Marshal General. By the fall of 1862, provost marshals were operating in all northern
states, with the primary duty of capturing deserters.
A simi lar system existed in the Confederate Army with provost marshals appointed to enforce conscription and other laws.
On March 3, 1863 , U.S. Congress established the post of U.S. Provost Marshal Genera l. Colonel
James Fry, later a brigadie r general, was appoin ted to the post, and operated with deputy provost marshals in each congressional distri ct. Later promoted to Brigad ier General, Fry established the Provost
Marshal General Bureau which dealt mainly with recmitment and desertion issues, enforcement of
the Consc ription Act of 1863, and supervision of the In valid Corps, whi ch co nsisted of di sabled soldiers performing garrison duties. The Bureau also ran intell igence gathering operations fo r the various
armi es until it was abolished in 1866.
Robert M. T. Hun ter was Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 26th Co ngress and was
elected to the U.S. Senate in 1846, re-elected in 1852 and 1858 servi ng until March 186 1, when he
withdrew. In 186 1, he was expelled from the Senate for his Slip port of the rebe llion. He was a del egate
from Virginia to the Confederate Provisional Congress at Richmond, CSA Secretary of State 186 11862, and served in the Senate from Virg inia in the First and Second Co ngresses 1862-1865. 1
In January of 1865, Grant received a message from the Confederates as king for pennission to visit
Washington D.C. with the intention to " hold a conference with President Lincoln upon the subj ect of
the existing war, [with] a view of ascertaining upon what terms it may be tenninated," 2 Grant immediately pennitted the commissioners to enter federal lines and travel to his headquarters at City Point,
Virgi nia. There he wa ited for instructions from Washington regarding the delegation's destination.
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The Confederate Philatelist · Vol. 54 • No. 1
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Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed his friend Hunter, along with Alexander Stephens,
Vice President of the Confederate States of Ameri ca (former representati ve from Georgia), and John
A. Campbell , Ass istant Secretary of War for the Confederacy (former U.S. Supreme Court justice), to
attend a peace conference at Hampton Roads, Vi rgini a. 3
A remarkable scene occurred w hen the Confederate commissioners passed through th e li nes en
route to Grant's headquarters. Fighting ceased and troops on both sides came out of their trenches and
bomb-proofs, cheering loudly and shouting lustily, "Peace! Peace!" 4
The commissioners met with President Lincoln and U.S. Secretary of War William H. Seward on
February 3, 1865, aboard the Federal steamship River Queen, at Fort Monroe, Virginia. The Confederate delegation's insistence that any peace must recognize th e Independent U nion of the Confederate
States doomed the conference to failure. However, Linco ln's liberal amnesty and reconstruction term s,
which hardl y constituted "unconditional surrender" as Davis later charged, offered hope that if Southerners ceased fighting, their rights, except as to slaves, wou ld soon be restored.
5
Two weeks later the mayor of Charleston, South Carolina surrend ered the city to the Uni on Army,
and one month after thi s General Lee evacuated Richmond and surrendered to General Grant at the
village of Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.
Amid the devastation of the South, the forme r officers of the Confederate States of America were
captured and sent to prison, including Hunter and the other delegates to the Hampton Roads Conference. The above semi-official imprinted cover was carried to Hunter aboard the General Burnside,
which was transp0l1ing him to Fort Pulaski where he stood trial and later spent several months in
pri son.
The General Burnside was built in 1862 at Wilmington, Delaware, and sold to the War Department
in 1863. It was chartered by the Navy and commissioned on August 8, 1864, at Bridgeport, Alabama,
with Acting Vo lunteer Lt. H. A. Glassford in command. It became flags hip of the upper Tennessee
River Fleet, Mississippi Squadron. Based at Bridgeport, she patrolled the Tennessee Rive r to Whitesburg, Decatur, and Chattanooga. On December 27, 1864, she helped repulse Confederate attacks and,
in concert with Union land forces, brought about the Confederate evacuation of Decatur and the upper
Tennessee River area. 6
After his prison tern1, Hunter returned to his home in Vi rginia where he continued to serve in pu blic
office for his home state as State treasurer of Vi rginia 1874- 1880. He died in his home in 1887.
As shown above, research in g a sem i-official envelope, w hich may also be class ified as a prisonerof-war envelope, w ith a two line address can provide a wea lth of information. There has been much
written about Robert M.T. Hunter and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference. Further readings listed
in the notes are highly recommended.
Notes:
I. Moore, Richard Randall. "Robert M T. Hunter and the Crisis of the Union, 1860-1861." SOllthem Historian
13 (Spri ng 1992): 25-35. House Document No. 108-222, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
1774 - 2005.
2. Alexander H. Stephens, John A. Campbell, and Robert M. T. Hunter to U. S. Grant, Jan. 30, 1865, The War of
the Rebellion: A Compilation ojthe Official Records ofthe Union and Confederate Armies, 73 vols. (Washington,
D.C. Government Printing Office, 1880-190 I), Ser. I, Vol. 46, PI. 2, p. 297.
3. Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, 2 vols. (New York: Thomas Yoseloff,
1958), 2:616- 17;Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: National Publishing, 1870), 2:591.
4. Robert M. T. Hunter, "The Peace Commission of 1865," SOllthern Historical Society Papers 3 (1877); 17071.
5. Roy P. Basler, ed. , The Collected Works ofAbraham Linco/n, 9 vols . (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953- 1955).
6. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. 8 Volumes. Washington: Navy Dept., Office of the Chief of
Naval Operations, Naval Hi story Division. Supe of Docs., U.S., 1959- 1981.