Intro (1 Min)
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“Hey, everyone! Thanks for tuning in!
This is the UCSB Undergraduate Journal of History Podcast. This season, we are sharing our archive stories of unboxing the stuff of history from the vaults of the UCSB Library Special Research Collections.
I’m your host, Ben Ortiz. I’m an outdoor enthusiast, a lifter of heavy things, and a huge American history buff.
In today’s episode of Unboxed, we are exploring American history, specifically the American Civil War, from the perspective of Confederate currency.
For some images of today’s archival collection, follow us on Instagram at @ucsbhistjournal.
Ok. Let’s see what that gray Hollinger box has in store for us today.
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Act I Duration: (3 Mins)
Inciting incident: The official name of the archive is the Confederate Collection, circa 1831-1910 (bulk 1860-1860), with the abstract saying it contains documents, correspondences, currency, and photographs. However, this is not an accurate name as the vast majority was confederate money. While I think the name could be revamped a little, this money is more than just the currency of a failed state. It tells the history of the Civil War and the values that the Confederate States of America held. It shows the value of states’ rights, the effect of war on the south, and the inflation that the Confederates dealt with. Through these bills, you see the American Civil War and a microcosm of the values that led to it and the reasons that led to their defeat.
Before we start, I think it would be good to describe what states’ rights are at this time. At this time and to this day, there is a debate fueled by the 10 Amendment, which, in summary, says anything not stated in the constitution as a role of the Federal government is a job reserved to the state government. At this point, this meant things like interstate commerce, banking and financial regulations, and most famously, the right to own another man. I want to be clear: while this episode will delve into what the Confederates considered “states rights” and how the value system of the South led to the failure of the Confederacy, The Civil War was not fought over states’ rights; it was fought over THE question of whether or not states had the right to say a man could be an enslaved person based off the sole principle of the color of their skin.
With that, I welcome you to The American Civil War and the story of inflation in the CSA, told through the lens of Confederate money.
To start this off, we must start the same year the war began, 1861 as while both sides believed this would be a quick war, it would be the opposite and become the bloodiest war in American history. The first Confederate bills were printed in April 1861, and the first bills we have as part of the UCSB collection were printed in September 1861. Our first bill was issued on September 2 and was printed in Richmond, Virginia. For this story, I recommend you visit our Instagram account to see the pictures and get the full experience. As we go on, no bill looks alike. I told you that these bills show a microcosm of the values of the Confederate states, right? One of these values was a decentralized monetary system. For example, five of the bills from 1861 had the Confederate States of America printed on them, and the bills were printed in Richmond.
This makes sense as Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy, meaning this area had some of the most fervent support for the Confederacy. Compare this to a state farther down south like Georgia. We have a 50-cent bill from December 1861 from Savannah, Georgia.
This does two things to expand on the story of the Confederacy and the Civil War. One, we see a very rudimentary banknote as they did not have the silver for coins. More than that, this adds to the story of inflation that would later wreck the CSA, as this money had no backing. While we grew up in a world where it was customary to have a currency not backed by some hard asset such as gold or silver, in 1861, this was unheard of. Combined with the lack of a unified image for currency in the CSA, counterfeiting became a huge problem. The second part shows the values of the CSA. As I mentioned, the CSA believed in a non-centralised banking and believed this to be a state’s right. This is why we see “The Bank of the State of Georgia” and not “Confederate States of America” as Georgia, like many deep southern states, was in the confederacy out of a situation of desperation as they feared losing enslaved people, not because they wanted an extensive federal system but just based around the South.
More than anything, the bills from Richmond show a true desire to be an independent country, as the Confederates created proper-looking bills in an attempt to create a proper country. Let’s look at the 50-dollar bill, for example. Ironically, it has Washington’s portrait in the bottom right corner. I say ironically because Washington would not have supported succession had he been alive. Washington believed in an America that should not have political parties as it divided the fellow citizens among themselves. Had Washington lived to see the Civil War, the sight might’ve killed him as Washington as to see his greatest accomplishment tear itself apart would have made him see his worst fear come to realization.
Act II Duration: (3 Mins)
As I said, this is a story of the Civil War through the lens of currency. In late 1861, it was not a far-fetched idea that the CSA might win their independence, as the Union had been dealing with military incompetence when trying to defeat Lee and had still failed to win a significant battle. As I mentioned, the bills, regardless of the state, would rarely look similar to those of another state or even those of a different bank within the same state.
For example, these bills are from Rome, Georgia, and have no resemblance to those made less than 500 miles away and within the same state. As I mentioned before, the decentralization of the monetary system in the Southern states made counterfeiting a huge problem in the later years of the Civil War because you had no idea what was real money and what wasn’t, as there was no unified image of a “Confederate Dollar.” This became even worse when people realized the money had no hard asset as a backing, making inflation inevitable.
Let’s leave Georgia and go to its neighbor Alabama, another strong advocate of states’ rights.
The Five dollar bill was printed in February, and the 1 was printed in March 1862, both from Montgomery, AL Farmers Bank of Alabama. Again, it differs entirely from other printed bills and does not mention the CSA. The South, from the origin of the US, was more in favor of the Articles of Confederation, which gave printing money and many more governmental duties to the states. These bills remind me of this because if you didn’t know the year, it would not be easy for anyone other than a scholar of the period to tell whether these were pre-Constitution or CSA bills.
The only bills we have with CSA on them are from Richmond. This shows how divided the Confederacy was. They wanted an Articles of Confederation-style government where each state had a much larger role in governing, a system that was bound to fail in a large-scale war.
This bill, from December 2, 1862, from Richmond is, again, different even from those of Richmond one year ago. This would be a downfall of the Confederates; at this point, the Union had begun to pick up steam, capturing Fort Henry and Donelson in February of 1862. By December, the Union had de facto control of Tennessee, New Orleans, and most of the Mississippi, and a naval blockade that made shipping cotton to Europe nearly impossible, adding to financial issues and exacerbating inflation. It had become clear that the longer the war, the better the Union’s chance of victory.
[UCSB History Club Sponsor Message] (30 Seconds): The UCSB History Club is a big supporter of the Undergraduate Journal of History, and we hope that listeners of Unboxed will consider joining us at History Club Events. The History Club at UC Santa Barbara is a student-run campus club that meets weekly during the academic year. We host faculty and graduate student speakers as part of our Fireside Chat series, get together to play games and study, host potlucks, holiday-themed events, and travel to local heritage sites around Santa Barbara. You can find us on Instagram – address here. We hope to see you at a History Club meeting soon. Ok. Now, back to this episode of Unboxed. Let’s hear how this one ends!
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Act III Duration: (3 Mins)
Going into 1863, this year, more than any other year, shows how decentralized the CSA’s banking system was. Georgia, and specifically the city of Augusta, really drives this point home.
If you look at these two pictures on our Instagram account, you will see how terrible a decentralized banking system is. These notes from the same bank, printed on the same day, have different fonts. This is a counterfeiter’s dream, as it makes deciphering what is real and what is fake nearly impossible.
This is even worse because it wasn’t as if you could have a list of what banks were allowed to print money or money orders. This 75-cent money order is from the same town, Augusta, Georgia, but from a different bank. The fact that you didn’t know who or what banks were allowed to print money made inflation run wild. This is the last year we have any examples from money orders in cents, as, after July 1863, the Confederacy would be split in half, leading to inflation running wild.
More than just inflation, it is clear that paper became more challenging to come by as paper, while nice for writing, was also used for storing cartridges of gunpowder for troops. At this point in history, rifles still largely were muzzleloaders, meaning instead of putting in cartridges, usually brass with primer gunpowder and bullet all in one, you had to put each part of the cartridge in separately loading from the barrel. This meant that troops had to carry gunpowder, the most common way being paper cartridges. This meant that paper could not only be used for the printing of bills but also directly used for fighting, meaning a shortage of paper meant a shortage of the ability to fight.
Let’s return to the bills. These two one-dollar bills from the Arkansas Treasury were printed one month apart in 1864 but on two clearly different types of paper, showing this struggle to find paper. This was when hyperinflation started rampant, and counterfeiting only worsened.
This 100-dollar bill was barely worth the paper it was printed on. In September 1864, one Confederate dollar was worth only three cents in the Union. This means the money paid to Confederate soldiers was in essence worthless. This of course hurts the Confederate army’s morale when fighting to create a nation as the Confederate’s economy crumbled before it even won its independence.
While many aspects, such as decentralized banking, led to inflation, counterfeiting contributed considerably.
As I mentioned before, the fact that money did not have a consistent look made counterfeiting too easy. These two bills were printed in the same bank, but over four years, they have zero similarities. The font is different, and the numbering is different. This makes counterfeiting almost too easy, and who is to tell you your bills are fake when no one knows what the bills in one state or even one town look like?
By 1864, counterfeiting had become a significant problem in the CSA, and the Confederates realized their decentralized system would not work. To try to fix this problem, the CSA outsourced the creation of printing plates to London.
These new printing plates are much more intricate. However, we must remember the war situation at this time. In 1864, the naval blockade had been completed and had successfully choked off any resources coming in or out of the Confederacy. This includes the shipment of these new plates as they were captured by the US blockade and could never help the Confederacy’s counterfeiting problem. How much these really would’ve helped is debatable as at this point inflation was already running rampant. The picture I have picked is of a 500-dollar plate.
I picked this plate because this bill was only 15 Union dollars. Had the Confederacy had a more unified image of a nation and monetary system, it might have outsourced the creation of plates before the blockade took hold, preventing inflation from running out of control.
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Summary (1 Min)
This episode of Unboxed revisited the American Civil War and looked at the plight of inflation that wrecked the CSA’s economy. I showed why inflation and counterfeiting became such an issue, as they left money printing up to the state and multiple banks within one state, leading to a non-uniform image of currency and making counterfeiting easier. This and a monetary system with no hard assets made inflation inevitable. Had there been a more unified monetary system with a unified image of money, the inflation that wrecked the economy of the Confederacy would have been less detrimental to the war effort by 1864; inflation made the continued fight impossible as the Confederacy had no real assets to continue the battle as their money was in effect worthless leading to soldiers to desert after it became clear they had nothing fight for and the money they were being paid to fight, was not worth the paper it was printed on.
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OUTRO –
Thanks for joining me on this journeyinto this poem from the Confederate Collection. Be sure to join us for our next episode when Sherry shares her archive story of unboxing the story of planes and trains in the late 1800’s early 1900’s from the UCSB Library Special Research Collections. To see some images of today’s archival collection, check out our Instagram page @ucsbhistjournal, and be sure to follow us on Spotify at the Undergraduate Journal of History: The Podcast.
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