DARIEN Ga. DEC 23 (1861) with matching PAID with manuscript “5¢” (type A, CCV $200) on commercially made envelope addressed by CSA Navy First Lieut. John McIntosh Kell to Mrs. John M. Kell Care Mr. Nathan C. Munson Macon Georgia; a small amount of back flap damage. Nice little cover from the well-known CSA Navy executive Officer aboard the CSS Alabama. $400. Listed in both Georgia Stampless and Miscellaneous, Section 2.

John McIntosh Kell (1823-1900) was born in Darien, Georgia, and died at Sunnyside, Georgia. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1848, and later participated in Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan and the Paraguay Expedition of 1858. When the Civil War began, Kell resigned his U.S. commission; he served briefly in the Georgia Navy before it was absorbed into the Confederate States Navy. Kell served as the executive Officer to Admiral Raphael Semmes aboard the CSS Alabama. Following the war, Kell retired to farming at his home in Sunnyside. In 1856, Kell married Julia Blanche Munroe of Macon. Together they bore ten children, of whom two died in 1863. In 1886, Governor John B. Gordon appointed Kell adjutant-general for the state of Georgia. Source: Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, where the Kell papers are housed.