FREE: The Civil War: 1863 Stamps Sheet of 12 FOREVER Stamps - And a story about the war.

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The Civil War (1861-1865), the most profound conflict in American history, claimed the lives of more than 620,000 soldiers and brought vast changes to the country.

In 2013, the Postal Service continues its commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the war by issuing this souvenir sheet of The Civil War: 1863 (Forever®) stamps featuring two stamp designs.

One stamp depicts the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle of the war, while the other depicts the Battle of Vicksburg, a complex Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River.

Art director Phil Jordan created the stamps using iconic images of the battles. The Battle of Gettysburg stamp is a reproduction of an 1887 chromolithograph by Thure de Thulstrup (1848-1930), a Swedish-born artist who became an illustrator for Harper's Weekly after the Civil War. Thulstrup's work was one of a series of popular prints commissioned in the 1880s by Boston publisher Louis Prang & Co. to commemorate the Civil War.

The Battle of Vicksburg stamp is a reproduction of an 1863 lithograph by Currier & Ives titled “Admiral Porter's Fleet Running the Rebel Blockade of the Mississippi at Vicksburg, April 16th, 1863.”

The background image on the souvenir sheet is a photograph taken by Mathew Brady shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg of captured Confederate soldiers, who reportedly posed for Brady on Seminary Ridge.