Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/443

Rh treasury notes to carry on the war. Official reports show that all Confederate troops at this time enrolled constituted a force entirely insufficient to meet the large armies which the United States were calling into the service.

Confederate finances required the attention not only of Congress but of the experienced financiers of the Confederacy. A convention of bankers had met in Atlanta, June 3rd, and after electing Mr. G. B. Lamar, president, and Mr. James S. Gibbs, secretary, passed resolutions to advance funds to the government until its treasury notes could be issued, and then adjourned to meet in Richmond, July 24th, during the sitting of Congress. At that time the patriotic bankers again met, in larger numbers, comprising representatives from all the principal banks of the South, and pledged their full financial support of the government.

The Congress laid a direct tax assessed by States which it supposed would yield fifteen millions, and authorized the issue of one hundred millions in treasury notes, but the fifteen millions borrowed in February, the loans on produce, and the measures of the former and the present Congress, all combined, placed at the control of the government very little above two hundred millions of dollars to carry on the war. The States, however, acting separately, made special and large appropriations, and individual resources were used in generous donations for the equipment of volunteers. Confederate money was freely received and used everywhere by the banks, and in commerce by the people. So great, however, was the paper issue even in 1861, by States, counties and corporations, which could not be absorbed in trade, on account of the blockade, that depreciation took place at once. In the summer of 1861 specie went to a premium of 15 percent for the best currency, and at the close of the year the depreciation had gone to nearly fifty cents on the dollar. Congress endeavored to preserve the Confederate credit by all measures it could devise. Sustained by