We promised to do slang this month, but that will have to wait. This month's topic is money. What did the average soldier use for money and how can we simulate that? First we need to understand the banking practices of the period.

During the first half of the 19th Century there was no Federal Reserve system. Each state issued charters for banks according to the laws of that state. The banks had to keep reserves in specie (hard money) and issued paper notes which promised to pay on demand. Notes from a bank in one state might be discounted by banks from another state, and in fact newspapers had financial informatin on the value of notes from out-of-state banks. Hard money was minted by the Federal government, but never in enough quantity, so several foreign coins were legal tender.

When the war started there were dozens of banks in each state in the Confederacy, and since their charters were given by the individual states, operation went on as usual. Thus they used notes issued by the various banks. In addition there were notes issued by various states and also by the Confederacy itself. You can find reproductions of many of these but be carefull to buy the ones on plain paper and not the ones that are "aged". Also remember that the average soldier didn't carry $500 around in his pocket! Notes were issued in denominations less than a dollar, so carry several small values.

The other type of money is coin. The Confederacy experiment with minting a few coins, but the coins in circulation were the same US coins which were in use before the war. It is also quite likely that many people still used some of the silver foreign coins which had been legal until '58 or '59. Reproductions of some of these foreign coins exist, but for the US coins you will have to find the real thing. Fortunately this is not too hard, and the cost may be less than you think as well. The trick is to find a coin which is worn enough to be of less value to the collector, and yet still legible. Many copper coins are available for well under $10 each, and some of the silver are not much more than that. Flea markets are a particularly good place to look for these. You don't need many, but even one or two jingling in your pocket will make you feel rich. Just don't forget and spend them at the sutlers!