Since you have the entire mail piece, let's discuss its facets as "postal history" 1. The stamp: is an extremely common workhorse stamp of the era with literally billions printed for the 2 cent letter rate of the time. By itself, the stamp is virtually worthless. 2. The cancel: is a common "Universal" brand machine cancel applied to vast quantities of mail (Note in the circular town mark this was machine "8" at this facility.) 3. The envelope: I suspect the survival rate of these envelopes is quite small. The appeal is clearly to the civil war or local postal history specialist. This envelope is nice by having an illustration of a ribbon on it. The Betsy Ross connection is to the Revolutionary War, rather than the civil war, so may not add much, but there are Betsy Ross collectors out there too! 4 The sender/recipient and the local organization: This might be interesting to research into them and see what backstory might evolve. Who are the soldiers connected to this? 5. Overall condition:is rather rough. It is not in "exhibitable" condition for the advanced collectors. I would see a retail value in the $3-10 range depending on who needed it at the moment.
Though the cover is " a wounded veteran " itself and has little monetary value, it can open up the captivating tangents to Philately. The organization still exists. It had over 47,000 members in 1926 but was relatively rapidly declining in membership even then. Apparantly daughters could receive a portion of a Civil War veteran's pension. The last recipient deceased in 2021and her father actually fought for both the Union and Confederacy during the civil war. During the 1880s Civil War Pensions made up the major portion of Federal Budget. The Pension Building in downtown Washington, DC near 4th and F handled the large staff that processed pension administrative functions. The building has a rather unique design and is now a museum and used for Presidential Inauguration Balls. I worked in the building in the early 1970s for a brief time for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was designed to house horses used for commuting and Government functions on its top floors as there was no air conditioning and horses can get fairly stinky. One cover, a few minutes googling, priceless.
The envelope is addressed to: Mrs Eva Lookabaugh, with her Find-A-Grave page here containing a link to her father, David Wilson Rea, a member of the 8th Iowa Infantry: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial...a-lookabaugh
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