Quite an extensive business is being . . .

. . . done in mutilating the $10 treasury notes. The different parts are cut from different notes and the pieces ingeniously pasted together, so as to form eleven notes from ten. The attention of the Government has been called to it, and it is decided as the only effectual way of checking the evil, not to redeem any not at par value unless it is whole, and to deduct one dollar for every tenth part of a note torn off and in that proportion for larger amounts removed.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 1

A new counterfeit $3 note . . .

. . . State Bank of Ohio, Piqua Branch, has just made its appearance. They are easily detected. The word “Prest.” Is badly printed, being nearly one third larger than on the genuine notes. The counterfeit is intended to be a fac simile of the genuine.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport Iowa, Friday Morning, April 25, 1862, p. 2

Currency

The Cincinnati papers quote North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama money at forty percent discount. Cincinnati money don’t stand quite so fair even as that here, being worth about to cents a bushel.

– Published in The North Carolina Weekly Standard, Raleigh, North Carolina, Wednesday, April 16, 1862, p. 1

Applications for postal currency . . .

. . . can now be satisfied by any of the depositories of the Treasury. Currency to the amount of $15,000,000 has already been issued; $2,000,000 is not yet in circulation, and more is being provided for at the rate of $200,000 a day.

– Published in the Stark County News, Toulon, Illinois, March 12, 1863

Friend Claggett, of the Keokuk Constitution . . .

. . . devotes more than a column to the small article of fifteen lines on currency printed in this paper the other day, and takes occasion to ask us several questions touching law, finance, paper money, coin, &c. We refer him back to that article. If his questions are not answered in that he can infer that we cannot answer them. We said all we had to say and ventilated all our stock of knowledge in that short article, and if we know ourself, as we think we do, we shall not bore our readers with any repetitions or reiterations. He is entirely welcome to have it all his own way. In the mean time if he is really anxious for information on currency and finance he is certainly in a fair way of acquiring it practically. If he continues a year in the newspaper business he will learn a good many things that will be of use to him if he survives. And this is the only kind of teaching that will ever reach his case.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Saturday, April 10, 1862

The Value of Rebel Money

Money, estimated by the gold standard, is now worth about eight cents on the dollar. – The rebels have fixed a standard, however, by which they profess to regulate the value of their money. That standard is wheat. – the price of this cereal is fixed by the rebel government at five dollars per bushel. With this however, many of the farmers are dissatisfied, and assert that five dollars in currency is, in reality, less than fifty cents – The Richmond Sentinel, in this connection says.

“There is a fact to which we think it popper to call the attention of the fair minded, and even the insatiably greedy themselves. All the officers of the government are paid the old salaries, except a slight increase in the salary of some of the clerks. -- According to the rule of the correspondent whom we have noticed, the President gets less than twenty-five hundred dollars a year; the Secretary less than six hundred; the clerks less than a hundred and fifty. Our thrice noble soldiers, also, are paid only the old price. According to the rule now applied, it is less than one dollar per month for the privates. Our field and line officers receive eight to twenty dollars per month, out of which to board and clothe themselves. – All these are receiving the old prices. But not so with the wrathful correspondent. Instead of one dollar per bushel for his wheat, which he would in other times have been glad to get, he now receives five dollars per bushel. He gets five prices for the wheat that he feeds soldiers working at the old price, and he raves over his pay as a mockery, and a cheat, and a swindle.”

This shows very clearly that all the efforts of the rebel press to bolster up the currency are futile. Even the wheat standard will not prevent people from thinking that the confederate money is almost worthless.

– Published in the Stark County News, Toulon, Illinois, Thursday September 3, 1863