Slithering to Savannah
Near the eastern entrance to Central Park there stands a gilded bronze statue of a man sitting high and proud on a magnificent horse. He is preceded by Nike, the Goddess of Victory, presumably leading him into battle. His name is William Tecumseh Sherman and if anyone needs reminding about his most notable campaign, the limb of a Georgia pine tree lies under the rear hoof of his steed, crushed and disfigured.
The year was 1864. Sherman and his troops had just finished off Atlanta with an epic bonfire. There remained only token Confederate military forces in Georgia; the bulk of the fighting was far away in Tennessee and Virginia. The war was all but lost for the South, whose economy, infrastructures and society were in ruins. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox was a mere five months away. There were several ways for Sherman to go. He could have stayed put and watched it play out. He could have gone to the north searching for a battle. Instead, he headed for Savannah, and became forever branded as either a hero or a war criminal, depending mostly on where you live.
He left Atlanta on November 15th with 60,000 troops spread out so as to cut a sixty-mile swath of destruction through the heart of Georgia. His objective was clear and simple; to destroy everything in his path and thus, so the theory went, to destroy the will of the people to continue the conflict. He foraged provisions for his troops along the way and then destroyed what food he couldn’t take with him. He killed all the cattle, pigs and poultry. When the citizens begged him to spare the crops they had stored for the winter, he refused and burned their barns to the ground. He razed all the factories, warehouses and businesses. And just for good measure, he burned all the courthouse records, throwing generations of property rights into darkness.
And before you absolve him based on the Greater Good of emancipation, you should know about the crossing of Ebenezer creek. Some 5,000 slaves along the way had left their homes to follow Sherman’s army to their freedom. They were mostly tolerated and some were put to work, until they neared Savannah. On December 9th, just twenty miles from the port city, the slaves were told to wait behind until the army had crossed the temporary bridge over the deep, wide and ice-cold Ebenezer Creek. Once across, the bridge was pulled up, stranding the slaves on the other side without food or shelter and facing the violent wrath of those behind them. Hundreds would drown trying to follow. None would succeed.
Yes, Uncle Billy was quite a guy. He and his army reached Savannah unscathed and well fed on December 21st and he sent Lincoln a telegram presenting him the city as a Christmas present. I wonder how Christmas was in the little towns of Milledgeville, Statesboro and Millen that year. Or for the thousands he betrayed at Ebenezer creek. Peace on Earth? Good will to whom?
Yet there he sits on that big horse in Central Park, a gift from the people of New York, dedicated some thirty-five years after he left human decency behind on a two hundred mile rampage through middle Georgia. As a Southerner, it’s impossible for me to look at that statue with any emotions other than contempt and disgust. Then again, I’m sure that many a Northerner driving through Atlanta on I-75 looks at the modern version of the Confederate battle flag flying over the state capital and wonders, “What’s that all about, people? It’s over.” No, not really. The echoes of the whole sad thing remain, all the way from Central Park to Savannah.
Confederate Currency. The Rise and Fall … and the Rise Again.
At the end of the war, the currencies that had been issued by the Confederate States of America (CSA) became worthless, since they were based on a promise to pay by the CSA six months after the treaty with the USA. The treaty never came and the CSA dissolved, so the currencies became the 1860’s equivalent of Enron stock. The notes themselves sat in drawers and trunks and much of it vanished in the mists of time. In the late 1800’s, the notes were considered of such little value that they were used for advertising, with retailers stamping their logos on the back and giving them away as premiums.
But then, the inexplicable doctrine of collectables kicked in around the early 1900’s. What was worth nothing fifty years prior suddenly started gaining value because it had historic virtue and a finite number of pieces. Catalogs popped up in the 1950’s, most notably Criswell’s, which assigned numbers to each type of bill according to their issue dates, denominations and variations. Today, there is a thriving and active market for CSA notes, as well as the state and local currencies that were issued during the period.
There were seven different issues of CSA currencies, beginning in March 1861 and ending in February 1864. As a general rule, the earlier issues have the greater value today, based on the fewer numbers that were printed. The denominations ranged from 50 cents up to $1,000. Most of the lower valued notes were printed on pink paper with the $50 and up being white, some with bright green accents. A notable feature with all authentic notes (there are thousands of counterfeits) is that they were all hand cut from their printed sheets. The uneven and inconsistent edges bring to life the challenges of creating a new currency for a new nation, making it all up as they went along.
Condition is king, along with scarcity, when it comes to assigning values. With all of the issues, the lower denominations were circulated in much greater numbers than the $50’s on up. Thus the greater value for the higher denominations. For example, a $5 note in good condition from 1864 would bring $40 to $50 in today’s market. A $50 or $100 note is worth between $60 and $70. The 1864 $500 in good condition would be valued in excess of $375. Some of the 1861 and 1862 notes can get way up there in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars for a rare piece.
We currently have on display at the Knitting Mill several CSA and State issued notes from a local private collection. These represent a wonderful cross section from many different issues and denominations from beginning to end. We’ve also added a couple of notes from the Bank of Chattanooga that were issued before the war. I wonder if you could still redeem those around here? Maybe for Krystal’s and MoonPies? 
