The letter is accompanied by a clipped forwarding address, in Savage's hand, directing mail to Hamilton's Crossing in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, care of Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart. The relationship of this address to the letter is not clear. It does suggest, however, that at some point Savage was attached to Stuart's staff; he had, after all, served in the cavalry before being detailed to the Signal Corps. And Stuart is mentioned in the body of the letter, as having issued an order that Corps personnel be sent to his command at Orange Court House. Stuart died on 12 May 1864 from wounds suffered the day before, at Yellow Tavern. On 15 May 1864, Savage was captured (or arrested) at King George Court House in King George County, and sent to the Federal prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. He was transferred to the military prison in Elmira, New York on 15 July 1864, and was finally exchanged on 10 March 1865. Savage's letter is addressed to his older sister Emily Savage Crump (b. c1828), whose family had relocated to Richmond during the war. Two additional sisters mentioned in the letter, Mary E. Savage (b. 1843) and Maria Parker ("Parkie") Savage (b. 1846), were at various times employed as clerks in the Confederate Treasury Department. Because it was felt that the hand signing of Treasury notes helped prevent counterfeiting, and because the amount of currency being printed was excessive, clerks were hired to sign their names to newly issued bills, in place of the Department's Register and the Treasurer. Mary and Parkie Savage were two of the 200-odd people hired over the course of the war to perform this task, people whose names may today be found on pieces of Confederate currency.