The area included all of Texas, Arkansas, the Indian territories and most of Louisiana. The area which was strategic to the confederacy due to raw materials, manpower and to access Mexico by land to avoid the Union blockade. The union realized the importance of the area and devised a strategy to cut the confederacy in two along the Mississippi river early in the war. Two years later, by July 1863 the confederacy west of the Mississippi was cut off. It had been isolated since late 1862 as the union navy controlled most of the river. The distance from eastern printers and having no facilities to print CSA money, the Trans-Mississippi department was short of cash. General E.?Kirby Smith took over the department on March 7 1863. Cash was almost nonexistent and the department was in arrears. Smith ordered earlier CSA notes that were stored or canceled to be re-issued. He used a variety of stamps to indicate the notes were revalidated or good for commerce, despite having been rendered and/or redeemed obsolete by the act of March 23, 1863, which had provisions for retiring notes that pre-dated April 6, 1863 issues. The act of February 17, 1864 made matters worse as this act taxed away the value of notes issued prior to that date. Smith stopped using revalidated notes, which caused problems. Retaining men in the army and paying suppliers were the main problems. He substituted interim deposit receipts (IDR's) which indicated that the bearer of the older notes had returned them and was entitled to new notes when they arrived in the Trans-Mississippi area from the east. Trans-Mississippi notes were issued at Huntsville, Texas with one of several different varieties of stamps. These included round and straight line stamps, which could be black or red and dated February or March. Reissued notes also came from Shreveport, Louisiana and Houston, Texas with a black stamp on the reverse.
Nice example, the T41 is one of the much better CSA designs. Nice handwritten issue from Monroe, LA on the back...
I have a number of notes but nothing real special. Then there's the CSA notes. Those are special and I have a number of them. I have some great ones too as I love the CSA's. So much history to them.
Yes it is. As soon as I saw this the first thing I said was "How much?" Now it's mine. It's a shame so many others don't care for or appreciate them.
