Official

Got It

Anne Rice trading card, with thanks to Candi Strecker.

Mail While-U-Wait

The More Things Change

“The President, suspicious of honest men but credulous when among rogues, had swallowed the theory… that the whole affair had been blown up as a political stunt.”

— Gerald Carson, writing about President Ulysses S. Grant and his appointees’ involvement in the “Whiskey Ring” in 1875, in The Social History of Bourbon (1963)

Rude

On July 11, 1864, Confederate General Jubal Early took over “Silver Spring,” the Maryland home of U.S. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, as headquarters for his army, a force bent on invading Washington in the third and last such attempt of the Civil War. General Early smoked Blair’s cigars, drank his wine and the next day, before retreating, burnt down his house.

Wheels to Wings

George “Tornado” Smith, who thrilled crowds with his Wall of Death motorcycle ride, posts a letter from a penny-farthing on the Earls Court Road, London, circa 1935. The ‘L’ he is wearing is a “Learner” sign.

Dog in Fog

River Postman

Kind

“I do not wish to injure the captain by mentioning his name. He probably acted according to his lights, which were dull.”

— James D. Bulloch in The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe (1881)