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Item# 7073
Price: $1,500
JOHNSON’S ISLAND: U.S. #65, 3¢ rose tied by blue Sandusky, O Apr 19, 1865 dc and target cancel on cover with "Summit Miss." large dateless circle handstamp where it entered the Southern mails, ms. "due 3¢" U.S. rate rather than 10¢ Confederate rate (Lee surrendered ten days before this was mailed), some restorations and repairs but still a fascinating use. It was sent as a thru-the-lines prisoner-of-war letter, but by the time it reached Summit, the Confederate postal system was no longer operating, thus it was charged U.S. postage. Johnson's Island O. oval examiner's handstamp "Prisoner's Letter, Johnsons Island, Examined, Jarvis" to “Mrs. T. E. Ellis (care of E. P. Ellis Esq.) Amite City La. N.O. & J. R. R. St. Helena Parish, Louisiana”, flag-of-truce endorsements including "Care of Comdg Officer U.S. Forces at Vicksburg, Miss" and “From E. J. Ellis, Capt 16th La Regt & Prisoner of War. Ex-Gunter
As a measure of how incomplete the official military records are, they show Ezekiel J(ohn) Ellis (1840-89) as having enlisted as a captain and serving in Companies F and H of the 16th Louisiana Infantry. That’s it - no record of being a prisoner. Further online searching easily turns up the Ellis family papers at Louisiana State University. Ezekiel Park Ellis of Amite was a judge and member of the Louisianalegislature. He was married to Tabitha Emily Warner, daughter of Louisiana Judge Thomas C. Warner. The POW letters of E. J. Ellis (no doubt including the one that belonged to this cover) show him as serving in the 16th LA and being confined to Johnson’s Island. After the war, E. J. Ellis was admitted to the bar in 1866 and became a U.S. representative from Louisiana. Congressional bio included.