The Confederate Period in American history begins on December 20, 1860 when South Carolina seceded from the Union. Other states would soon follow to form a confederacy, but official stamps issued by the Confederates would not appear until nearly a year later – October 1861. In the absence of a government-issued postage stamp, Confederate postmasters were faced with a dilemma: how to keep the mail (and postal finances) moving. Most of the time they simply accepted payment in cash and applied a ‘PAID’ hand stamp to the envelope.
 
Confederate Postmasters Provisionals –Civil War era postmasters in small Southern towns were able to handstamp mail to keep it moving while waiting for Jefferson Davis’ government to issue Confederate stamps. But the time-consuming process was inefficient for busy post offices in larger cities. This led to the creation of Civil War Postmaster’s provisionals. Some provisionals are envelopes pre-stamped with a postmark hat has been modified to say ‘Paid.’ Other provisionals are envelopes with pre-stamped amounts printed on them. Some of the most interesting provisionals of the period are traditional stamps produced by local printers.

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