Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

---

[425] see, fell much lower. It must be observed, however, that these brokers' rates, were invariably a long period in advance of the rates acted upon in the interiour. As late as the summer of 1862, Confederate money was taken at par in the settlement of all transactions originating before the war and made the basis of the general transactions of the country at the old rate of prices. The brokers' rates were either unknown to the people or totally disregarded by them. Not until the volume of the currency had swollen beyond all reasonable proportion, did the people at large consent to fix a depreciated value upon this money. Even then they did so under compulsion. Remorseless speculators had succeeded in engrossing the entire stock of many of the comforts and prime necessities of life. These were held at exorbitant prices; and in order to compass the means of purchasing them, the yeomanry of the country were obliged to rate their own property at higher prices in Confederate money than the old prices obtaining before the war. It is a well-known fact that the Richmond rates of Confederate money were, throughout the war, far below those which prevailed in the Confederacy at large; and it is a general fact, that the rates of this money improved as the distance from Richmond increased. This fact was partly due to the circumstance, that Richmond was the great focus of Government disbursements, and was constantly flooded to excess with the currency; partly to the circumstance, that it was the base from which all smuggling operations were carried on, at which of course gold for the smuggling trade was more in demand, and commanded the highest prices; and thirdly, to the circumstance that it was the centre and resort of the speculating classes, and the principal depository of their wares, at which the final sales and last profits on the commodities bought up in the country for speculation, were realized. It may be remarked, without a material aberration from the truth, that after the first eighteen months of the war had elapsed, and the Confederate money had become very redundant, the business of the country, at a distance from Richmond, was done, for probably as long a period as twelve months, upon the basis of five for one in Confederate currency. After that period, the change of rate to fifteen or twenty for one was rather abrupt; and upon the latter basis transactions proceeded for another twelve months; after which the rate was very unsettled in the interiour.

Another observation must be made with reference to the brokers' prices of gold. A comparison of Confederate money with gold did not, during the war, afford a true criterion of the value of either commodity. Gold was unnaturally scarce and dear in the Confederacy. The old dollar's value, in property not affected by the condition of war, was not sufficient to purchase a dollar in gold. Real estate did not approximate the prices in gold which it had commanded before the war. Boarding at the best hotels could be procured for fifty cents a day in gold, which had cost two dollars