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Browsing named entities in a specific section of Thomas C. DeLeon, Four years in Rebel capitals: an inside view of life in the southern confederacy, from birth to death.. Search the whole document.

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1st (search for this): chapter 28
erchandise-anything but the paper money, was grasped at with avidity. It has often been charged that speculators ruined the currency. But, to give the children of the devil their due-we can scarcely think but that the currency made the speculators. Had the plain system been adopted, by which the currency dollar could have ever approximated to coin, it would have been simply impossible for the holders of supplies to have run prices up to extortionate figures. Not that I would for one instant excuse, or ask any mercy for, those unclean vultures who preyed upon the dead credit of their Government; who grew fat and loathsome while they battened on the miseries of the brave, true men who battled for them in the front ranks of the fight. But while the fault and the shame is theirs, it may not be disguised that the door was not only left open for their base plundering, but in many cases they were urged toward it by the very hands that should have slammed it in their faces. Whe
August (search for this): chapter 28
ies their material, at public disposition, for the bare cost of existence. Farmers and graziers cheerfully yielded all demanded of them! And how the women wrought-how soft hands that had never worked before plied the ceaseless needle through the tough fabrichow taper fingers packed the boxes for camp, full from self-denial at home-shall shine down all history as the brightest page in story of noble selflessness. In the deadly hail of hostile batteries; in the sweltering harvestfield of August, and at the saddened and desolate fireside of December, the southern people wrought on-hoped on! And the result of all this willing sacrifice was greatly to reduce the burdens on the treasury. For reasons before stated the southern army was smaller, and its transportation cost far less, than that of the enemy. Its equipment was far cheaper, and its subsistence for every reason infinitely smaller. Still, with an outlay per diem scarcely more than one-tenth that of the North--which a
December (search for this): chapter 28
e cost of existence. Farmers and graziers cheerfully yielded all demanded of them! And how the women wrought-how soft hands that had never worked before plied the ceaseless needle through the tough fabrichow taper fingers packed the boxes for camp, full from self-denial at home-shall shine down all history as the brightest page in story of noble selflessness. In the deadly hail of hostile batteries; in the sweltering harvestfield of August, and at the saddened and desolate fireside of December, the southern people wrought on-hoped on! And the result of all this willing sacrifice was greatly to reduce the burdens on the treasury. For reasons before stated the southern army was smaller, and its transportation cost far less, than that of the enemy. Its equipment was far cheaper, and its subsistence for every reason infinitely smaller. Still, with an outlay per diem scarcely more than one-tenth that of the North--which amounted to near $4,000,000! daily; with the teeming fi
1861 AD (search for this): chapter 28
the inevitable outcome of their united efforts; with the thinkers of the South still evolving their theories of the philosopher's stone to change all this mass of paper into gold; and with the press of the country blatant about the speedy and certain collapse of northern credit; above all, with millions of pounds of cotton rotting in our warehouses-Confederate money, little by little, bought less and less of the necessaries of life. At first the change was very gradual. In the summer of 1861, persons coming to Richmond from Europe and the North spent their gold as freely as the Treasury notes. Then gold rose to five, ten, fifteen, and finally to forty per cent. premium. There it stuck for a time. But the issues increased in volume, the blockade grew more effective, and misgivings about the Treasury management crept into the minds of the people. Gold went up again, ten per cent. at a jump, until it touched a hundred--then rapidly to a hundred and fifty. The whole system l
1863 AD (search for this): chapter 28
desolation, to procure it even then. In the cities, it was a little better; but when beef, pork and butter in Richmond reached $35 per pound; when common cloth was $60 per yard, shoes $200 to $800 per pair, and a barrel of flour worth $1,400, it became a difficult problem to fill one's stomach at any outlay. And all this time the soldiers and Government employes were being paid on a gold basis. The private received eleven (afterward twenty-one) dollars per month-amounting at the end of 1863 to just fifty-five cents in coin! At the last payments, before the final actions at Petersburg, the pay of a private for one month was thirty-three cents! Nor were officers of the army and navy better paid. With their rank in the old service guaranteed them, they also received about the same pay, when gold and paper money were of equal value. Later Congress believed it would be a derogation from its dignity to practically reduce the value of its issues, as one member said, by raising of
Banks (search for this): chapter 28
ithout costing the central government one dollar; and in some instances — as of that spotless knight, true gentleman and pure patriot, Wade Hampton-raised by the energy, paid for by the generosity, and led to death itself by the valor of one man! Corporations came into this general feeling. Railroads put their rolling-stock and their power in the hands of the Government; agreeing, as early as the origin of the Montgomery government, to take their pay at half rates and in government bonds. Banks put their facilities and their circulation, manufacturers their machinery and foundries their material, at public disposition, for the bare cost of existence. Farmers and graziers cheerfully yielded all demanded of them! And how the women wrought-how soft hands that had never worked before plied the ceaseless needle through the tough fabrichow taper fingers packed the boxes for camp, full from self-denial at home-shall shine down all history as the brightest page in story of noble selfless
Jefferson Davis (search for this): chapter 28
was false; that the moment for utilizing the cotton supply had indeed been lost; and they murmured loud and deep against the Secretary and the President; whom they believed not only retained him in office, but endorsed his destructive policy. Mr. Davis, the people said, was autocratic with his Cabinet, and would have displaced Mr. Memminger summarily, had he not favored that peculiar financial system. Mr. Davis, too, was known to have been hostile to the absorption and exportation by the GovMr. Davis, too, was known to have been hostile to the absorption and exportation by the Government of all the cotton. He had, moreover, recommended against any legislation by Congress to contract the currency and stop the issues. Now, therefore, the inflation and utter inadequacy of the paper money was laid at his door, as well as Mr. Memminger's; and the people, feeling there was no safety for them, began to distrust the good faith of such reckless issue. A system of barter was inaugurated among the country people; and they traded off things only needful for others absolutely ess
C. G. Memminger (search for this): chapter 28
urrency had reached such expansion that its value was merely nominal for purposes of subsistence, when the devices of Mr. Memminger to lessen it began to be pressed in earnest. The people had now begun to see that the whole theory of the Treasurdorsed his destructive policy. Mr. Davis, the people said, was autocratic with his Cabinet, and would have displaced Mr. Memminger summarily, had he not favored that peculiar financial system. Mr. Davis, too, was known to have been hostile to the p the issues. Now, therefore, the inflation and utter inadequacy of the paper money was laid at his door, as well as Mr. Memminger's; and the people, feeling there was no safety for them, began to distrust the good faith of such reckless issue. A on, ever on to the darkness coming faster and faster down upon them — to declare that the cause of their trouble was Mr. Memminger; with the President behind him. But, though the people saw the mismanagement and felt its cause --though they suf
Pickwick (search for this): chapter 28
ot badly hurt, getting more in equivalent of wines, cigars and jolly dinners than they gave. They looked upon the hell as a club-and as such used it freely, spending what they had and whistling over their losses. When they had money to spare they played; when they had no money to spare-or otherwise --they smoked their cigars, drank their toddies and met their friends in chaff and gossip, with no more idea that there was a moral or social wrong than if they had been at the Manhattan or the Pickwick of to-day. I do not pretend to defend the habit; but such it was, and such all the men who remember the Capital will recognize it. Of that other class, who went in for blood --some got badly hurt in reputation and in pocket. But the dead cause has buried its dead; and their errors — the result of an overstrained state of society and indubitably of a false money-system-hurt no one but themselves. And so, with the enemy thundering at the gates; with the echoed whoo! of the great
Johnny Reb (search for this): chapter 28
ce it that the human hyenas of speculation did prey upon the dying South; that they locked up her salt while the men in the trenches perished for it; that thrice they stored the flour the people felt was theirs, in such quantities and for so long, that before their maw for gain was glutted, serious riots of the starving called for the strong hand to interfere. And to the credit of Government and southern soldier, be it said-even in that dark hour, with craving stomach and sickening soul--Johnny Reb obeyed his orders and guarded the den of the hyena — from his own hungering children, perhaps! No weak words of mine may paint the baseness and infamy of the vultures of the market. Only a Dor6, with a picture like his Frozen Hell, or Ugolino-might give it faint ideal. And with the feeling how valueless was the money, came another epidemic — not so widespread, perhaps, as the speculation fever; but equally fatal to those who caught it — the rage for gambling! Impulsive by natu<
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