A Counterfeiter's Paradise (48 page)

200, The law suited

Cincinnati lynch mob: Blue,
Salmon P. Chase
, pp. 28–30. Chase’s views on slavery: ibid., pp. 45–46. His opinion of Jackson: ibid., pp. 11–12, 40–41. At his inaugural address as governor of Ohio in 1856, Chase announced that coin provided “the best practicable currency,” quoted ibid., p. 150.

200, After Fort Sumter

Chase’s heavy work schedule: ibid., pp. 137–138, 207.

200–201, Chase presented his

Chase’s measures: Hammond,
Sovereignty and an Empty Purse
, pp. 37–47; Blue,
Salmon P. Chase
, pp. 144–145; and Mihm,
A Nation of Counterfeiters
, pp. 310–311.

201–202, A hundred miles

Memminger’s physical appearance: Henry D. Capers,
The Life and Times of C. G. Memminger
(Richmond: Everett Waddey, 1893), pp. 23–24. For a photograph of Memminger, see Judith Ann Benner,
Fraudulent Finance: Counterfeiting and the Confederate States: 1861–1865
(Hillsboro, TX: Hill Junior College Press, 1970), p. 40. The Confederate Treasury occupied the Richmond customhouse, which was designed by Ammi B. Young, the same architect who had overseen the recent expansion of the Treasury in Washington. The other non-native-born member of Davis’s cabinet was Judah P. Benjamin, born a British subject in the West Indies.

202, A small, slightly built

Memminger’s early life: Capers,
The Life and Times of C. G. Memminger
, pp. 7–36; for his career as a lawyer and politician, see pp. 136–289. See also Hammond,
Sovereignty and an Empty Purse
, pp. 258–259.

202–203, If Chase’s job

Difficulty of Memminger’s position: Mihm,
A Nation of Counterfeiters
, pp. 319–321. Confederacy’s first Treasury notes: Richard Cecil Todd,
Confederate Finance
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1954), pp. 90–93.

CHAPTER EIGHT

204, The prisoners began

The scene:
Daily Richmond Examiner
, June 30, 1862, and Joseph Gibbs,
Three Years in the “Bloody Eleventh”:
The Campaigns of a Pennsylvania Reserves Regiment
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), pp. 127–130.

204–205, An onlooker caught

“a counterfeit of the Philadelphia manufacture”:
Daily Richmond Examiner
, June 30, 1862.
“This note is well calculated…”:
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, April 15, 1862.

205, In May, the editors

“Who is this man Upham?…”:
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, May 31, 1862.
“well known to many Virginians…”: Richmond Daily Dispatch
, June 2, 1862. The
Dispatch
probably had the largest readership in the South, according to Ford Risley,
The Civil War: Primary Documents on Events from 1860 to 1865
(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004), p. 5.

205–206, The venom of

“The attempt to pass…”:
Daily Richmond Examiner
, June 30, 1862.

206, Upham’s method had

Upham’s advertising campaign: George B. Tremmel,
A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency: History, Rarity, and Values
(Atlanta, GA: Whitman, 2007), pp. 40–41. On p. 40, Tremmel reproduces the March broadside.

206–207, At first it seemed

A copy of the May flyer, dated May 30, 1862, is held by the Books & Other Texts Department of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

207–208, Upham faced lots

Origins of counterfeit Confederate notes: Judith Ann Benner,
Fraudulent Finance: Counterfeiting and the Confederate States: 1861–1865
(Hillsboro, TX: Hill Junior College Press, 1970), pp. 26–35, and Tremmel,
A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency
, pp. 23–28. Illicit cotton trade, including figure about prices: Stuart D. Brandes,
Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America
(Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1997), pp. 92–95.

208, The biggest passers

Role of soldiers in passing counterfeits: Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, pp. 26–30, and Tremmel,
A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency
, p. 26. Philadelphia was a railway transfer point for soldiers from New England, New York, and New Jersey heading south, according to Russell F. Weigley, “The Border City in Civil War, 1854–1865,”
Philadelphia: A 300-Year History
, ed. Russell F. Weigley, Nicholas B. Wainwright, and Edwin Wolf, 2nd (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), pp. 398–399.

208–209, Without the Northern

Pope’s command and the influx of counterfeits: Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, pp. 28–29.
“subsist upon the country”:
from Pope’s General Order No. 5, quoted in John J. Hennessy,
Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas
(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999 [1993]), p. 14; see pp. 14–20 for more on Pope’s orders.
“fortified with exhaustless…”:
Edward Alfred Pollard,
Southern History of the War: The Second Year of the War
(New York: Charles B. Richardson, 1864), p. 94; on the same page, in a footnote, Pollard quotes an Upham circular found on a Yankee prisoner. Aside from northern Virginia, the Ozarks region between Missouri and Arkansas was another major entry point for counterfeit Confederate money passed by Union soldiers; see John Bradbury, “‘The Bank of Fac Simile’: Economic Warfare in the White River Valley, 1862–1863,”
White River Valley Historical Quarterly
32.3 (Spring 1993), pp. 7–8.

209–210, Most Union commanders

Nathan Levi’s arrest and
“confederate notes were not money…”
:
Lowell Daily Citizen and News
, September 16, 1862. Accusations that Sherman knowingly allowed soldiers in his jurisdiction to pass counterfeits: Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, p. 31. Case in Culpeper, Virginia: George Alfred Townsend,
Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and his Romaunt Abroad During the War
(New York: Blelock, 1866), pp. 244–245. Another Union officer who didn’t approve of counterfeiting was Brigadier General
Milo S. Hascall, who issued an order in Ohio threatening to punish his men for passing fake bills; quoted in Tremmel,
A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency
, p. 70.

210, The role of Union

“wherever an execrable…”:
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, May 31, 1862. A key factor in the Southern view of Northern economic practices was the Panic of 1857, which reaffirmed the belief among Southerners that their economy was beholden to irresponsible Yankee speculators; see Kenneth M. Stampp,
America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 [1990]), pp. 229–230.
“[s]peculators and thieves…”:
from a diary entry dated February 16, 1863, included in Julia Ellen LeGrand Waitz,
The Journal of Julia LeGrand, New Orleans, 1862–1863
, ed. Kate Mason Rowland and Agnes E. Croxall (Richmond: Everett Waddey, 1911), pp. 131–132.

211, On March 10, 1862

The article, including all quotes:
Philadelphia Inquirer
, March 10, 1862.

211–212, The counterfeiter almost

I’m grateful to George Tremmel for corresponding with me about the
Inquirer
article. He made a persuasive case that the unnamed counterfeiter in the report couldn’t have been Upham.

212, If Seward or Stanton

Union sponsorship of counterfeiting is the subject of endless speculation. Brent Hughes, in
The Saga of Sam Upham: “Yankee Scoundrel,”
rev. ed. (Inman, SC: Published by the author, 1988), p. 12, sketches a potential scenario whereby federal officials gave English banknote paper seized from Confederate blockade-runners to Upham in order to aid his business. Paper wouldn’t be the only material officials could provide; Confederate plates also fell into Union hands, according to Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, p. 12. However, as Stephen Mihm points out in
A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 325, no evidence exists to support the theory that Union authorities conspired to aid Upham or any other counterfeiter of Southern currency.

213, The legislation took

Impact and significance of the Legal Tender Act: Bray Hammond,
Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks and Politics in the Civil War
(Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970), pp. 225–229. The law specified that the greenbacks couldn’t be used to pay import duties or the interest on government bonds and notes; in those cases, payment had to be in coin.

213, Such a dramatic

Debate in Congress over legal tender: ibid., pp. 179–224. Representative Lovejoy’s argument: Mihm,
A Nation of Counterfeiters
, p. 313.

214, While Hamilton had

For more on the radical nature of the expanded federal role, see Hammond,
Sovereignty and an Empty Purse
, pp. 25–26, 226–227. Union’s suppression of civil liberties: Clinton L. Rossiter,
Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), pp. 224–239. The Confederacy also suspended habeas corpus, although to a more limited degree.

214–215, To adapt the Constitution

“If no other means…”:
from an address by Thaddeus Stevens, dated January 22, 1862, quoted in Hammond,
Sovereignty and an Empty Purse
, p. 193.

215, Among the many

Chase’s stubbornness on the specie issue and opposition to the Legal Tender Act: ibid., pp. 60–186, and Frederick J. Blue,
Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics
(Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1987), pp. 145–150.

215–216, The qualities that

December crisis: Hammond,
Sovereignty and an Empty Purse
, pp. 131–163.
“a thousand dollars…”:
from a letter by Chase to John T. Trowbridge, quoted ibid., p. 82.

216–217, Christopher Memminger

Financial plight of the South: ibid., pp. 254–260, and Mihm,
A Nation of Counterfeiters
, pp. 319–321. Proliferation of shinplasters and
“greasy, smelt bad…”:
Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, pp. 16–17. Some of the Confederate notes bore interest; the March 1861 issue bore an annual interest rate of 3.65 percent, or one cent a day for each one hundred dollars, due in one year. Memminger hoped that people would consider them an investment and hold them rather than spend them.

217, None of these

Confederacy’s resistance to making paper notes a legal tender: Hammond,
Sovereignty and an Empty Purse
, pp. 255–257.

217, Memminger also dealt

Memminger’s logistical problems: Mihm,
A Nation of Counterfeiters
, pp. 321–323, and Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, pp. 5–10. Stone lithography technique and its -disadvantages: Tremmel,
A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency
, pp. 3, 309–310. Number of different engraving firms and note varieties: Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, pp. 11–12. It wasn’t until the December 2, 1862, issue of Confederate Treasury notes that Memminger issued only one design for each denomination, according to Tremmel,
A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency
, p. 17.

218, Counterfeiters exploited the

“[W]e are well aware…”:
from a letter by Memminger to Ebenezer Starnes, dated August 20, 1861, included in Raphael P. Thian,
Correspondence of the Treasury Department of the Confederate States of America, 1861–’65
, appendix, pt. 4 (Washington, DC, 1879), pp. 176–177. I’m grateful to George Tremmel, Bob Schreiner, and Tom Carson for digitizing the works of Raphael P. Thian.

218–219, Nearly a thousand

Absence of news from the front:
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, August 22, 1862. Scene at the jailhouse and the gallows and
“a number of painted…”
:
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, August 23, 1862. Relative calm in Richmond after McClelland’s failed Virginia campaign: Emory M. Thomas,
The Confederate State of Richmond: A Biography of the Capital
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), pp. 100–102; on p. 22, Thomas includes a detailed map of Civil War–era Richmond showing the route of the Virginia Central Railroad.

219, John Richardson, alias

Richardson’s backstory, trial, and sentencing: Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, pp. 40–42, and
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, 1862: April 2, 7; May 8, 22; August 14, 18, 21, 22, and 23. Richardson was convicted in the Eastern District of Virginia on April 5, 1862, and sentenced to “be hanged by the neck until he be dead,” according to William Morrison Robinson,
Justice in Grey: A History of the Judicial System of the Confederate States of America
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941),
p. 206. Robinson discusses the cases of other convicted counterfeiters; many were pardoned or saw their sentences commuted by Jefferson Davis.

219–220, Executing an immigrant

“skulking out of…”:
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, April 7, 1862. Counterfeiting crisis: Tremmel,
A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency
, pp. 5–7, and Benner,
Fraudulent Finance
, p. 15.
“The panic and excitement…”:
from a letter by B. C. Pressley to Memminger, dated August 25, 1862, included in Raphael P. Thian,
Correspondence of the Treasury Department of the Confederate States of America, 1861–’65
, appendix, pt. 5 (Washington, DC, 1880), pp. 604–605. See also various letters to Memminger on subject of counterfeiting on pp. 601–607.