Preview
Creation Date
1875
Description
Poster depicting Confederate currency in the amounts of $10, $20, $50, and $500 as well as scenes of Civil War battles. It includes the poem "Line on a Confederate Note" by Major Sidney Alroy Jones of Mississippi. This was composed on the back of a $100 Confederate note after General Joseph Eggleston Johnston surrendered in North Carolina in 1865. It reads:
Representing nothing on God's earth now,
And naught in the waters below it --
As the pledge of a nation that passed away.
Keep it dear friend and show it --
Show it to those who will lend an ear
To the tale this trifle will tell;
Of Liberty born of a patriot's dream,
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.
Too poor to possess the precious ores,
And too much of a stranger to borrow
We issued to-day our "promise to pay."
And hoped to redeem on the morrow.
The days rolled on and weeks became years,
But our coffers were empty still;
Coin was so scarce the Treasury quaked
If a dollar should drop in the till.
But the faith that was in us was strong indeed,
Though our poverty well we discerned,
And this little check represents the pay,
That our suffering veterans earned:
They knew it had hardly a value in gold
Yet as gold our soldiers received it.
It gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay.
And every true soldier believed it.
But our boys thought little of price or pay
Or of bills that were over due --
We knew if it bought our bread to day
'Twas the best our poor country could do
Keep it, it tells all our history over.
From the birth of the dream to its last.
Modest and born of the Angle Hope
Like our hope of success. IT PASSED.
Keywords
Confederate States of America, Numismatics