Help To ID A 1852 5c Paid Envelope With Seal On Back To John H. Patterson?

Hey everyone!

Still going through some stuff from an estate sale.

Having a hard time with this one, the font of the 5 LOOKS like the one from Milledgeville, GA (Confederate States) but I know these didn't come out until 1861.

It looks like it is address to Civil War hero/medal of honor recipient John H. Patterson (unconfirmed)

Also, it is of course missing the common "PAID" that usually comes accompanied with it.

On the back is a seal that says "United We Stand Divided We Fall"

Would love to get some info. on this and if it has any value?

Thank you!

Year date is 1854.
The rate at this time is 3 cents for a prepaid letter and 5 cents if sent collect (unpaid). Thus it is perfectly normal to NOT have any "paid" notation with a 5 cent rated cover.
Value is modest due to the below average quality of the postmark strike as well as the poor condition of the envelope itself. The 5th edition of the American Stampless Cover Catalog lists this mark at $15, so this item may be $5-7.

Before April 1 1855 prepayment of postage was not required. The rate was Under 3000 miles, 1/2 oz prepaid 3c per, collect 5c .
Over 3000 miles, 1/2 oz prepaid 6c collect 10c

The "5" was struck at the same time as the Frankfort, Kentucky cds cancel.

This probably contained a legal document. See the note "Remission/of fine" written in the corner. Further, that's the Kentucky state seal and motto on the flap, so probably sent from state offices in what was and still is the state capital.

I'd certainly like to see more or your other finds.

The cover was sent to Harrodsyburg, Mercer County, just a few miles south of Frankfort.

Just three things to build on to the great information the others have already given:
1. The name John Patterson is an extremely common one and there must have been quite a few men with that name around in 1854 in Kentucky when this was mailed.
2. Kentucky was never a Confederate state. At the opening of the war they tried to be neutral but then they quickly went to the Union side. Like all of the border states some of their men decided to go and fight for the Confederacy, but it was a Union state and most of their men fought in Union regiments. As there was no Confederacy in 1854, this letter would not have gone to a Confederate officer.
3. To reinforce the observation about condition - unless there is something especially rare about an old cover its condition is going to have a major effect on its commercial value. The condition of this otherwise relatively unremarkable cover will make it difficult to sell to most collectors unless there might be a person who specializes in Rockford, KY letters or such. And even then the price you might hope to get would likely be in the $1 to $5 range.

To clarify Kimo's statement about Kentucky's status during the U.S. Civil War, it was a "border state." This means that while it never left the Union and was considered Union, it was also a slave state.

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the reality of slavery still in the border states will eventually force the United States to abolish slavery as Lincoln stated in the Emancipation Proclamation that


This was initially a war measure, designed to disrupt the economy of the Confederate States, but once the United States won the war, slavery ceased to exist in those states "formerly in rebellion."

So what do you do when you have all the non-slave states of the Union and the now slave-free former Confederate states separated by four states where slavery was still legal? I imagine this was a bit of a quagmire for Congress after the war ended.

The end of slavery was not an easy one. The idea of this was first begun formally in Congress in early 1864 and will take until January 1865 to iron out the details. By January 1865, it was becoming clear that the Confederacy was not going to survive the war.

The end result, then, was that the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed on January 31, 1865 and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865 ending slavery in the United States.

It is very unlikely that it is John Henry Patterson, the medal of honor winner. That one would have been 11 years old at the time of the letter. That one was born in New York and enlisted there also.

And another complication in Kentucky was that it was not only whites who owned slaves, blacks did as well. For example, by 1830 there were black slaveholders in 29 of Kentucky's counties. Some of them were just free blacks buying slave family members but some of them were free black land owners buying slaves to work their farms. The whole ware between the states was about many issues between the northern and southern states and the border states were conflicted because they had one foot in each side in terms of their overall economies and levels of industrialization as to whether to support the dominance of the northern industrial states or the subservience of the southern agrarian states. It was complicated.