Monday, June 4, 2012

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Wednesday, September 11, 1861


I went up to the Fair Grounds and spent the day there. The attendance was good, there being about two thousand present.

Business is becoming quite dull. The war seems to put a stop to all improvements, and there is no demand for farm produce. Money is getting scarce, gold having been out of circulation so long that people have forgotten how it looks, and merchants say that it will not be long until silver goes the same way. For a long time now we have had wild-cat money, but everybody is afraid to go to sleep with any of it on hand for fear that it will be worthless in the morning.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 8

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