Criswell
Type 41 (678,000 issued)
Keatinge & Ball, Columbia, South
Carolina, printers
This is an interesting bill from a number of angles. Grover
Criswell lists almost a thousand variations of 72 different
Confederate notes.* This bill alone has 36 variations.
Also of interest is the fact that interest was paid on the
note during the war and there are stamps on the back of
the note to prove it. In small print at the bottom of the
note it reads "With Interest at Two Cents Per Day".
That works out to 7.3% interest annually. Not bad rates
if you could get the Confederate Treasury to pay. You may
notice that interest on this note was only paid to January,
1862. The note has held its value, though. Even today it
would probably fetch about $100.
The picture at the top center is "slaves weeding cotton"*.
On the right is the "Confederacy personified"*.
On the left is pro-slavery Senator John C. Calhoun. Sumner
became the personification of the pro-slavery movement when
he caned abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner over the head
during a debate on the Senate floor.
"More than any man of his time, Calhoun articulated
the constitutional, political, and moral assumptions that
led the South out of the Union, and the nation into Civil
War"**. It might be an interesting note to trot out
the next time you are debating the causes of the war.
*Criswell, Confederate Paper Money, 1996, p. 144
**Bowman, Who Was Who in the Civil War, 1995,
p. 43
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Interest Stamps, back
of note |
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Pro-slavery Senator
John. C. Calhoun |
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