Jay Cooke, Financier of the Civil War Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...appearance. It was generally the case that bank notes current in one state could not be circulated in the other states, and it was impossible for any one but those skilled in handling money in vast quantities to detect the innumerable counterfeits and altered notes which were in circulation. The banks were breaking constantly and in many instances circulating notes became almost worthless. Fifty millions of dollars per annum, it is safe to say, would not cover the loss to the people of this country growing out of broken banks, counterfeits, altered notes and cost of exchange between different points. A hundred excuses were available and the most trusted merchants of the west and south did not think it necessary to be prompt in the payment of their eastern obligations, often pleading the scarcity and high prices of exchange and expressing their belief that in a short time prices would be more reasonable." Secretary Chase was not long in making the discovery that these state banks were not equal to the tasks to be imposed upon them in a great national emergency, and when they suspended specie payments and failed to fulfil their engagements with the Treasury Department in reference to the third loan of $50,000,000 in 1861 he had practically abandoned hope of receiving further aid from this source. Not being under national, or indeed any central direction, they were so many separate fiscal units, useless to the government after their first outburst of patriotic enthusiasm. If the War Department had been compelled to treat with the states for troops and supplies as in the Revolution, receiving their quotas of soldiers, wheat, fodder, cattle, horses and woolen cloth, the result can be imagined. Not much less essential to the successful conduct of the war was...