Disinfected Or Fumigated Mail

I believe this is a letter sent by a soldier in the Vermont 14th Infantry, possibly Marcellus J. Barber to a family member in Benson Landing, VT.

On July 2, 1863, his unit was in the thick of the fighting along the front of the Battle of Gettysburg. Emmitsburg was on that front line, just behind the Union line I think.

The only indication on the cover then is the snipped corners?

As I understand it, yes. There are some postal markings related to fumigation of mails, but they are rather scarce and certainly not used universally.

Edit: Just as a reminder, there was no understanding of how diseases were transmitted, so the fumigation/disinfection was often based on home/folk remedies. Some involved actual fumigation with smoke, or application of vinegar.

Huh.

That's a really neat cover. I actually just picked up a disinfected cover at NOJEX, 27c French mail to Italy from 1865.

Gettysburg is in Pennsylvania, Emmitsburg is in Maryland. They are about 12 miles as the crow flies apart or a 4 to 5 hour march along the roads with full battle gear and supply wagons.

Emmitsburg is the place the Union Army tried to fortify in hopes of stopping the Confederate army from invading Pennsylvania. There was a large fire in Emmitsburg before the Confederate forces approached it and historians believe the fire was started deliberately by a Union soldier, possibly with the silly idea of preventing the Confederate forces from taking the town and getting supplies, though it could have been for other reasons. In any event Lee went right on by and invaded Pennsylvania and could have easily gone on to capture or burn the state capital of Harrisburg, but unlike the Union army he decided not to make war on civilians and so he turned to march to Gettysburg where the Union Army forces were gathering.

As for this cover being disinfected mail I am not sure I see this as entirely likely unless someone can find a reference to mail from Emmitsburg needing to be disinfected. Clipped corners or slits in the middle of a cover can indicate disinfected mail, but there needs to be corroborating evidence that there was a reason to be disinfecting from a town. Otherwise, anyone with some scissors can snip corners or anyone with a knife can cut slits. There are even some collectors who used to (and some who still do) take scissors to an old cover and "improve" it by cleaning up worn or torn areas such as corners or roughly opened ends.

I simply could have been held in an old album by those corner mounts and someone tidied it up a bit? Without evidence it would be a hard sell.

What would have been the purpose of just clipping the corners? By itself, this surely would not have disinfected the cover

To allow the smoke in that would believe to disinfect the letter!

What kind of smoke? I'm trying to understand this whole process.

The exact tpe of smoke is not stated, but vineger was also used. The concern at the time that germs that cause various illnesses may be on these letters, so this process was created to to solve the problem!

Perhaps it was smoke from a joint? Was that the beginning of medical marijuana?

It seems odd now but they hadn't yet even discovered the importance of washing to control the spread of infection. They used the techniques they were familiar with, which probably were methods adapted from commonly used for food disinfection and preservation, for example smoking meat.

Didn't using vinegar mess up the inks? Just about every method I can think of wouldn't be very friendly to paper, ink or adhesive.

Marijuana in that day and age was used by Dr.s but like today it was frowned upon for recreational use. As far as what kind of smoke; any but pine smoke was preferred because of the turpines that are naturally contained in the wood. It's true that they had no idea about microbes and/or microbiology being the carrier of disease and infection but as we know Louis Pasteur would change all that. in 1864 Pasteur was finally recognized for his sterilization techniques but news traveled slowly and was also met with skepticism if it was known. It's very possible that the cover in question very well could have been fumigated and if the place and time coincide with the facts then why not?

Louis Pasteur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur