Updated April 11th: Photos from the first day ceremony can be found here.

Updated March 24th: First day ceremony information:
Civil War April 9, 1:30 p.m. in Appomattox, VA
1:30 p.m., Thurs., April 9 (note: April 8 overnight encampment on-site; April 9 events begin at 7:30 a.m. There will be a reenactment of Lee surrendering to Grant at the McLean House that starts at 1 p.m.)

Appomattox Court House
111 National Park Dr.
Appomattox, VA 24522

(Although travel time is several hours from LaPlata, MD, anticipate significant traffic congestion upon entering the Appomattox area April 8-12. The National Park Service will provide shuttles from satellite parking areas.)

Updated March 19th: Here’s the invitation to the ceremony, which is open to the public: Updated March 8th: Here are the first-day postmarks for this issue, and they are confusing! All will have the location as “Appomattox, VA.” The postmarks for the Appomattox stamp have a shield icon. The DCP size 2.42″ x 1.24″ and the black-and-white postmark is 2.63″ x 1.17″. Here are the postmarks for the Five Forks stamp: The icon on these is crossed pistols. The sizes are the same: 2.42″ x 1.24″ for the DCP and 2.63″ x 1.17″ for the B&W.

Note that first-day servicers must send requests for cancels to the particular city and, if past practice is followed, requests sent directly to Cancellation Services by registered servicers must have a minimum of 50 for each city!

Updated March 4th: From the Postal Bulletin:

On April 9, 2015, in Appomattox, VA, the U.S. Postal Service® will issue the Civil War: 1865 (Forever® priced at 49 cents) commemorative se-tenant First-Class Mail® stamp pair in two designs, in a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) souvenir sheet of 12 stamps (Item 589300). The $5.88 Civil War: 1865 souvenir sheet may not be split, and the stamps may not be sold individually.

The stamps will go on sale nationwide April 9, 2015.

In 2015, the U.S. Postal Service concludes its commem­oration of the 150th anniversary of The Civil War with this souvenir sheet, which includes two new stamps. One depicts the Battle of Five Forks, near Petersburg, VA, on April 1, 1865. The other depicts Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The background image on the sheet is a pho­tograph of Federal rifles stacked in the vicinity of Peters­burg during the siege. The 12-stamp sheet also includes period quotes and lyrics from a parody of Patrick S. Gilmore’s famous Civil War song, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” The Civil War Sesquicentennial stamp series was designed by art director Phil Jordan.

How to Order the First-Day-of-Issue Postmark:
Customers have 60 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at their local Post Office, at The Postal Store® website at www.usps.com/shop, or by calling 800-STAMP-24. They should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes (to themselves or others), and place them in a larger envelope (please indicate which postmark you are requesting) addressed to:

The Civil War: 1865 Stamps (Five Forks postmark)
Postmaster
791 Court Street
Appomattox, VA 24522-9998

The Civil War: 1865 Stamps (Appomattox postmark)
Postmaster
791 Court Street
Appomattox, VA 24522-9998

After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark up to a quantity of 50. For more than 50, customers have to pay five cents each. All orders must be postmarked by June 8, 2015.

There are twelve philatelic products for this stamp issue:

• 589306, Press Sheet with Die cuts, $35.28, (print quantity 500)
• 589308, Press Sheet without Die cuts, $35.28 (print quantity 1,000)
• 589310 Keepsake with Digital Color Postmark (set of 2), $9.95
• 589316 First-Day Cover (set of 2), $1.86
• 589318 First-Day Cancelled Full Sheet, $8.38
• 589319 First-Day Cover Full Pane, $8.38
• 589321 Digital Color Postmark (set of 2), $3.28
• 589324 Framed Art, $39.95
• 589327 Folio, $16.95
• 589330 Ceremony Program (2 stamps, 2 cancels), $6.95
• 589331 Stamp Deck Card, $0.95
• 589332 Stamp Deck Card with Digital Color Postmark (2 stamps, 2 cancels), $2.98

Technical Specifications:

Issue: Civil War:1865 Stamps
Item Number: 589300
Denomination & Type of Issue: First-Class Mail Forever
Format: Pane of 12 (2 designs)
Series: Civil War Sesquicentennial
Issue Date & City: April 9, 2015, Appomattox, VA 24522
Designer: Phil Jordan, Falls Church, VA
Art Director: Phil Jordan, Falls Church, VA
Typographer: Phil Jordan, Falls Church, VA
Modeler: Donald Woo
Manufacturing Process: Offset
Printer: Banknote Corporation of America/SSP
Printed at: Browns Summit, NC
Press Type: Alprinta 74
Stamps per Pane: 12
Print Quantity: 10,800,000 million stamps
Paper Type: Phosphor Tagged Paper, Block Tag
Adhesive Type: Pressure-sensitive adhesive
Processed at: Banknote Corporation of America, Browns Summit SC
Colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black, Warm Grey6,
Warm Grey 10, PMS 193 Red, PMS 072 Blue
Stamp Orientation: Horizontal
Image Area (w x h): 2.00 x 1.06 in./50.81 x 26.87 mm
Overall Size (w x h): 2.10 x 1.20 in./53.45 x 30.42 mm
Full Pane Size (w x h): 8.88 x 6.75 in./225.55 x 171.45 mm
Full Press Sheets Size (w x h): 17.89 x 20.50 in./ 454.28 x 520.70 mm
Plate Size: 72 stamps per revolution
Plate Numbers: N/A
Marginal Markings: Back: © 2015 USPS • USPS logo • Plate Grid • Civil War 1865 Bio • UPC Code

Updated February 20th: The first day is April 9th in Appomattox, Va. The ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. The village in which the surrender took place is/was called “Appomattox Court House” (county seats in that area were named similarly, such as “Spotsylvania Court House”) but the village is now entirely a National Park, with no post office. I’m not sure if the actual Courthouse in ACH could hold a ceremony.

Here are the stamp designs: From the USPS:

The Civil War: 1865
The Postal Service concludes its commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the war by issuing a souvenir sheet with two new stamp designs for 2015.

One stamp depicts the Battle of Five Forks, near Petersburg, Virginia, on April 1, 1865. The other stamp depicts Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9.

Art director Phil Jordan selected historic paintings for the stamp designs. The Battle of Five Forks stamp is a reproduction of a painting, circa 1885, by French artist Paul Dominique Philippoteaux. The Appomattox Court House stamp is a reproduction of the 1895 painting “Peace in Union” by Thomas Nast, depicting Robert E. Lee’s surrender.

For the background image on the souvenir sheet, Jordan used a photograph of a number of Federal rifles stacked in the vicinity of Petersburg, Virginia, during the siege.

The 12-stamp souvenir sheet includes comments on the war by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Union General Joshua L. Chamberlain. It also includes lines parodying the lyrics of Patrick S. Gilmore’s famous Civil War song, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Civil War (2)

First Day Of Issue: Not announced yet, but best guess is early April, in Appomattox, VA.

Designs are still being finalized, but, yes, the two events are the Battle of Five Forks and Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. Mark Saunders of the USPS notes that the two sites are only about 20 miles apart. He didn’t say, but I’d guess that means just one first day ceremony, at A.C.H., some time in April.

For those who don’t know, Appomattox Court House is and was a different town than Appomattox. All of A.C.H. is now within the National Park. And another fun bit of trivia: The house in which the surrender was signed was, in the late 1800s, dismantled and taken to Washington, where the purchasers hoped to display it with an admission fee. It never happened. Some time in the early 20th century (1930s? About 1940?) the Park Service purchased the pieces, took it back to A.C.H. and reassembled it on the same site.

The address for mailed-in FDCs is:

The Civil War:1865
Postmaster
791 Court St.
Appomattox, VA 24522-9998

The ceremony location is The Appomattox Courthouse, 113 National Park Drive, Appomattox, VA, at 11:00 a.m.