Confederate money

“ The Confederate money in the hands of the Southern people, paper money signed by the Confederate government without any security behind it, had by the collapse of the Confederacy become entirely worthless. Only a few individuals of more or less wealth had been fortunate enough to save, and to keep throughout the war, small hoards of gold and silver, which in the aggregate amounted to little. Immediately after the close of the war the people may be said to have been substantially without a "circulating medium" to serve in the transaction of ordinary business. ”

“ Capital and Credit Destroyed.—The fluid capital of the South, money and credit, was in the same prostrate condition as the material capital. The Confederate currency, inflated to the bursting point, had utterly collapsed and was as worthless as waste paper. The bonds of the Confederate government were equally valueless. Specie had nearly disappeared from circulation. The fourteenth amendment to the federal Constitution had made all "debts, obligations, and claims" incurred in aid of the Confederate cause "illegal and void." ”

“ The poor must be fed and protected, if they be relied upon to defend the country. The rich bribe the conscription officers, and keep out of the ranks, invest their Confederate money and bonds in real estate, and would be the first to submit to the United States Government; and the poor, whom they oppress, are in danger of demoralization from suffering and disgust, and might also embrace reunion rather than a prolongation of such miseries as they have so long experienced. The patriotism of 1861 must be revived, or independence cannot be achieved. ”

“ Lincoln's reëlection the Confederate cause was doomed. The cheering of the troops which greeted the news from the North was heard within the lines at Richmond and at Petersburg; and although the leaders maintained their attitude of defiance, the impression rapidly gained ground among the people that the end was not far off. The stimulus of hope being gone, they began to feel the pinch of increasing want. Their currency had become almost worthless. In October, a dollar in gold was worth thirty-five dollars in Confederate money. ”

“ Many would have given their lives if confederate money could have been as good as the money of the invaders, but it was not and never could be, and it was not an hour after the enemy was in Montgomery before people who had been loyal to the south up to that hour and believed in its currency, went back on it completely, and they cherished the greenback and hugged it to their bosoms like an old friend. ”

“ He had been playing poker recently with his usual success, and as the bets were in Confederate money, he had accumulated quite a wad of promises to "Pay in gold, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States." He would make some mountaineer family supremely happy by giving them more money than they had ever seen in their lives, in exchange for their stock of meal, chickens and sidemeat. ”

“ It is impossible to believe that when the Union Bank lent this money-General Butler being then in occupation of the city-and allowing the circulation of Confederate money, only 'till further orders'-it is impossible to believe that the directors or officers of the Union Bank lent Confederate notes to be returned at the borrower's pleasure in kind. ”

“ Southern merchants feel that they are ruined. At the commencement of the war they had made large purchases in the North, mainly on credit. The rebel Congress passed a law that all who were indebted to the North must pay two-thirds of the amount of their indebtedness to the Southern Confederacy. This the merchants did. They then sold their goods, taking cotton and Confederate money in pay. The cotton was destroyed by order of Beauregard, and the Confederate scrip is worthless, and the Federal generals are enforcing the payment of Northern claims. ”

“ There were three of us in the mess, and I did the buying and cooking for the party. The above purchase was only one of many, but will serve to show how much it cost us to live. When it is considered that five dollars in Confederate money was only equal to one dollar in greenbacks, and that a dollar greenback was only about forty cents in gold, it will be conceded that the price paid after all was not so very high, especially when it is remembered the scarcity of provisions at that time, May, 1864; for instance, the ham, for which I paid fifty-six dollars was only four dollars and fifty cents. ”

“ It was by this government, said the court, exercising its power through an immense territory, that the Confederate notes were issued early in the war; that they became in a short time almost exclusively the currency of the insurgent States; that while the war lasted they were used as money in nearly all the business transactions of many millions of people; and that they must, therefore, be regarded as a currency imposed on the community by irresistible force. ”

“ Confederate money still depreciates, in spite of the funding act. Some of the brokers are demanding ten dollars Confederate notes for one in gold! That is bad, and it may be worse.
The enemy are advancing from Corinth, and there are not sufficient troops to resist them. Gen. Johnston says if men are taken from Bragg, his army may be destroyed; and none can be ordered from Mobile, where there are only 2500 for land defense.
March 20th.—The snow is eight inches deep this morning, and it is still falling fast. ”

“ But, again, suppose the Federal Government were to propose a sweeping amnesty, and exemption from confiscation to all who should subscribe to a reconstruction of the Union—and this, too, at a time of suffering and despondency—and so large a body were to embrace the terms as to render a prolongation of the war impracticable? What would the money the farmers now possess be worth? And what would become of the slaves, especially in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri? ”

“ The people had no faith in paper money of any kind, and thought that greenbacks would become worthless in the same way as Confederate currency. All sense of values had been lost, which may account for the fabulous and fictitious prices in the South for several years after the war, and the liberality of appropriations of the first legislature after the surrender, which in small matters was severely economical. ”

“ An error was committed in placing Northern men in high positions to the exclusion of Southern men, quite as capable of filling them.
March 8th.—Judge Meredith’s opinion, that foreigners, Marylanders, and others, who have served in the army, have become domiciled, and are liable to conscription, has produced a prodigious commotion. Gen. Winder’s door is beset with crowds of eager seekers of passports to leave the Confederacy; and as these people are converting their Confederate money into gold, the premium on specie has advanced. ”

“ In the states and cities there was a strong tendency to relax or postpone taxation in view of the other demands upon the people.
With no revenue from taxation, and with the disastrous effects of the wholesale issue of paper money before it, the Confederate government made every effort to borrow money by the issue of bonds. The initial 15-million loan was soon followed by an issue of one hundred millions in bonds, which it was, however, difficult to place. ”

“ Though the whites were conservative and economical during the period of the provisional government and did not spend money or pledge credit recklessly, yet when the carpet-baggers began to loot the treasury, the people were not at first alarmed. Many were in sympathy with any honest scheme to aid internal improvements. Their Confederate experience made them accustomed to the appropriations of large sums—in paper. ”

“ Of course grown persons could not be fooled by the Confederate bills, but boys, who had never seen any of that money, might be easily deceived. And it was on boys that the man played his tricks, giving them bad twenty dollar bills for some small purchase, and getting good money in change.
"He just waited until Mr. Mack went out of his store," explained Frank, "and he knew only a boy was left in charge. That's how he tricked me, waiting until Mr. Mason was out of the office." ”

“ Our paper is constantly depreciating; and I think it is past redemption, unless we adopt Mr. Moseley’s plan, and cause some six or eight hundred millions to be canceled, and fix a maximum price for all commodities necessary for the support of life. Congress will never agree upon any measure of relief. But if the paper [Pg 102] money be repudiated, nevertheless we shall have our independence, unless the Southern people should become mad, divided among themselves. Subjugation of a united people, such as ours, occupying such a vast extent of territory, is impossible. ”

“ People owning hundreds of acres of land often were as destitute as the poorest negro. The majority of people who had money to invest had bought Confederate securities as a patriotic duty, and all the coin had been drawn from the country. ”

“ The English-speaking peoples had the rest of the world to trade with, and it seemed that there was nothing to do but to wait until some of the countries affected by chaotic financial conditions became bankrupt and repudiated their worthless paper money, as revolutionary France had repudiated the assignats and the American Southern States had seen their Confederate dollars become worthless. ”

“ If the Confederate Government could have made some provision, by which its soldiers would have been regularly paid, the men would have been far better satisfied, for there is something gratifying to human nature in the receipt of money even when it is smartly depreciated. ”

“ There is little money to be seen anywhere; in which respect these scenes are very different from those witnessed during the last years of Confederate rule, when it was said that people went to market with baskets to carry their money, and wallets to bring home what it would buy. The markets are not kept open during the evening, and as the hour for closing them arrives, the bargaining and loud talking grow more and more vivacious, while prices decline. I remember one fellow who jumped upon his table, and made a speech, designed to attract the patronage of the freedmen. ”

“ It was a green paymaster from the Chicago offices who furnished the last straw. He tried to pay off with paper money. Since those early postbellum days, when the black brother, being newly freed from servitude and innocently devoid of the commercial instinct, thought the white man's money, whether stamped on metal disks or printed on parchment rectangulars, was always good money, and so accepted much Confederate currency, to his sorrow at the time and to his subsequent enlightenment, he has nourished a deep suspicion of all cash except the kind that jingles ”

“ In like manner the power of the majority section was employed to appropriate to itself an unequal share of the public disbursements. These combined causes—the possession of more territory, more money, and a wider field for the employment of special labor—all served to attract immigration; and, with increasing population, the greed grew by what it fed on. ”

“ The Southern Express Co. has monopolized the railroads, delivering cotton for speculators, who send it to the United States, while the Confederate States cannot place enough money in Europe to pay for the supplies needed for the army. ”

“ The judicial power of the Confederacy shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the States of the Confederacy, by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.
Section 8.—1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts ”

“ While stating to you that our country is in danger, I desire also to state my deliberate conviction that it is within our power to avert the calamities which menace us, and to secure the triumph of the sacred cause for which so much sacrifice has been made, so much suffering endured, so many precious lives been lost. This result is to be obtained by fortitude, by courage, by constancy in enduring the sacrifices still needed; in a word, by the prompt and resolute devotion of the whole resources of men and money in the Confederacy to the achievement of our liberties and independence. ”

“ The “associated press” publishes an unofficial dispatch, giving almost incredible accounts of Gen. Forrest’s defeat of Grierson’s cavalry, 10,000 strong, with only 2000. It is said the enemy were cut up and routed, losing all his guns, etc.
Sugar is $20 per pound; new bacon, $8; and chickens, $12 per pair. Soon we look for a money panic, when a few hundred millions of the paper money is funded, and as many more collected by the tax collectors. Congress struck the speculators a hard blow. One man, eager to invest his money, gave $100,000 for a house and lot, and he now pays $5000 tax on it ”

“ The lack of coin in the country, the inability of the people to bear more taxation, and the spirit of speculation fostered by the enormous issues of paper money, hastened the financial ruin of the Confederacy. ”

“ Whatever obstinacy may be displayed by the enemy in his desperate sacrifices of money, life, and liberty in the hope of enslaving us, the experience of mankind has too conclusively shown the superior endurance of those who fight for home, liberty, and independence to permit any doubt of the result. ”