20c Green (13). Horizontal pair, slightly irregular but mostly large margins all around, tiny tear at lower left, tied by "Richmond Va. Nov. 15" (1864) circular datestamp on oatmeal cover to "1st Engineer B. S. Herring, Confederate States Navy, Shreveport, Louisiana", carried by express to Shreveport, then forwarded to Herring at Mobile (he served on the C.S.S. gunboat Morgan), receipt docketing "Received at Mobile, March 13th 1865", backflap removed, lightened stains and some modest cosmetic edge improvements, Fine appearance, rare east-to-west Trans-Mississippi Express cover that was carried back east to a naval engineer at Mobile -- the addressee, Benjamin Simms Herring, served as the second Engineer on the C.S.S. Virginia, better known as Confederate iron-clad Merrimac, during the battle with the U.S.S. Monitor at Hampton Roads on March 8-9, 1862; following the Union naval victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864, the port of Mobile was closed to Confederate blockade-runners; on March 24, 1865, Maj. Gen. Dabney Herdon Maury and the remnants of his army evacuated Mobile, and the city surrendered on April 12; his cover reached Mobile just before Confederate forces evacuated; Herring served on board the C.S.S. gunboat Morgan. -- illustrated in Krieger book (No. E37), ex Walske

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