The Confederate States of America dollar was first issued just before the outbreak of the Civil War by the newly-formed Confederacy. It was not backed by hard assets, but simply by a promise to pay the bearer after the war, on the prospect of Southern victory and independence.
As the war began to tilt against the Confederates, confidence in this currency diminished, and inflation followed. By the end of 1864, the currency was practically worthless.
The Confederate Dollar (or "Greyback") remains a prized collector's item, in its many versions, including those issued by individual states and local banks. The various engravings of leading Confederates, Gods and Goddesses and scenes of slave-life, on these hastily-printed banknotes, sometimes cut with scissors and signed by clerks, continue to stimulate debate among antique dealers, with even some of the counterfeit notes commanding high prices.
Read more about Confederate States Of America Dollar: Background, Designs, Signatures, Coinage, Banknotes
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“Figure a man’s only good for one oath at a time. I took mine to the Confederate States of America.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Figure a man’s only good for one oath at a time. I took mine to the Confederate States of America.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Well, you Yankees and your holy principle about savin’ the Union. You’re plunderin’ pirates that’s what. Well, you think there’s no Confederate army where you’re goin’. You think our boys are asleep down here. Well, they’ll catch up to you and they’ll cut you to pieces you, you nameless, fatherless scum. I wish I could be there to see it.”
—John Lee Mahin (1902–1984)
“If the Union is now dissolved it does not prove that the experiment of popular government is a failure.... But the experiment of uniting free states and slaveholding states in one nation is, perhaps, a failure.... There probably is an “irrepressible conflict” between freedom and slavery. It may as well be admitted, and our new relations may as be formed with that as an admitted fact.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I thought that when they said Atlantic Charter, that meant me and everybody in Africa and Asia and everywhere. But it seems like the Atlantic is an ocean that does not touch anywhere but North America and Europe.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)