Confederate Finance [Paperback]

Confederate Finance, first published in 1954, looks at the measures taken by the Confederacy to stabilize its currency and offer a basis for foreign exchange. By the end of the Civil War, the Confederacy had resorted to a number of financial expedients, including the most desperate of measures. The Confederate government seized the property of enemies, levied direct taxes, and placed duties on exports and imports. In addition, donations and gifts were gratefully accepted. All the while, treasury notes flooded the market, and loans were floated in an attempt to continue the Confederacy's existence.

Richard Cecil Todd shows how these measures were used by the Confederate government to meet its obligations at home and abroad. He also discusses the organization and personnel of the Confederate Treasury Department.

No previous study has brought together the legal and statistical story of Confederate financial transactions in so concise and comprehensive a publication. . . . The work is a sound and convenient reference on an important subject.

By making a diligent study of official manuscripts and documents, together with newspapers and other source material, Todd has presented a well-documented study of the problems the South faced in trying to finance the war and the methods which were used.

Here in the language of finance is the story of the progress of the rebellion. Behind the accounts of Treasury actions, one can visualize the changing fortunes of war, the relentless diminution of wealth, the willing and unwilling sacrifices, the burdens of high interest rates, the piracy of the unscrupulous, and at the end, complete financial disaster as loanslÃÝ