by Ben Tarnoff
226, Upham posed a
Upham’s effect on grayback depreciation: Marc D. Weidenmier, “Bogus Money Matters: Sam Upham and his Confederate Counterfeiting Business,” Business and Economic History 28.2 (Winter 1999), pp. 313–324. “The people, among whom…”: Daily Richmond Enquirer, October 9, 1862.
226–227, In late 1862
Hilton’s shop was located at 11 Spruce Street. Hilton’s career: Tremmel, A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency, pp. 54–55. Printing House Square: Lee E. Gray, “Type and Building Type: Newspaper/Office Buildings in Nineteenth-Century New York,” The American Skyscraper: Cultural Histories, ed. Roberta Moudry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 86–89, and Sarah Bradford Landau and Carl W. Condit, Rise of the New York Skyscraper, 1865–1913 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 50–52. A color lithograph of Printing House Square in 1866 by Endicott & Co. can be seen in the New York Public Library Digital Gallery, http://digitalgallery.nypl.org. “perfect fac-similes…”: Harper’s Weekly, October 4, 1862.
227, It didn’t take
Upham’s response ad: Harper’s Weekly, October 18, 1862. “$500 in Confederate…” and “so exactly like…”: Harper’s Weekly, January 10, 1863. “sent, post-paid…”: Harper’s Weekly, January 31, 1863.
CHAPTER NINE
229, It was raining
Weather in New York on New Year’s Eve: New York Herald, January 1, 1864. Astor House ball: New York Herald, January 1, 1864, and New York Times, January 1, 1864. Background and description of the Astor House: Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 600–601. Murray’s operation and the details of Hilton’s arrest: New York Times, January 3, 1864, and January 4, 1864; see also New York World, January 4, 1864.
230, Upham had left
Upham stopped printing notes on August 1, 1863, according to his October 12, 1874, letter to William Lee, included in William Lee, The Currency of the Confederate States of America, a Description of the Various Notes, Their Dates of Issue, Varieties, Series, Sub-Series, Letters, Numbers, Etc.; Accompanied with Photographs of the Distinct Varieties of Each Issue (Washington, DC: Published by the author, 1875), p. 24. A gold dollar cost two grayback dollars on August 8, 1862, and by August 7, 1863, the same amount of gold cost twelve grayback -dollars; see Marc D. Weidenmier, “Turning Points in the U.S. Civil War: Views from the Grayback Market,” Southern Economic Journal 68.4 (April 2002), pp. 887–888. On p. 883, Weidenmier discusses the impact of Gettysburg on the grayback.
230–231, In an irony
One of the three code-breakers, David Homer Bates, wrote an article for Harper’s in 1898 about the case: David Homer Bates, “A Rebel Cipher Dispatch. One Which Did Not Reach Judah P. Benjamin,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol. 97 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898), pp. 105–109. Aside from Bates, the “Sacred Three” also included Arthur B. Chandler and Charles A. Tinker; see Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 19.
231, Two days later
“Say to Memminger…”: Bates, “A Rebel Cipher Dispatch,” p. 109.
231, Murray’s sweep went
Murray’s sweep and “a great victory…”: New York Times, January 4, 1864. Pleas of Hilton’s friends: New York World, April 29, 1864. One of Hilton’s friends, A. J. Williamson, wrote President Lincoln a letter, dated June 29, 1864; see George B. Tremmel, A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency: History, Rarity, and Values (Atlanta, GA: Whitman, 2007), p. 58.
231–232, Although it would
“The Treasury has no connection…”: from Memminger’s letter to Major General Whiting, dated January 21, 1864, included in Raphael P. Thian, Correspondence of the Treasury Department of the Confederate States of America, 1861–’65, appendix, pt. 4, pp. 570–572.
232, The details eventually
The long, somewhat convoluted story appeared in the New York World, April 29, 1864.
232–233, The Confederacy had
In 2001, a portfolio of twenty-five of Upham’s facsimiles was discovered at an auction in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. The portfolio was prepared by Upham for his friend George William Childs, a journalist and the publisher of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. See George B. Tremmel, “The Rosetta Stone of Sam Upham,” Paper Money 45.2 (March/April 2006), pp. 138–152, and A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency, pp. 48–53. The historian was William Lee; Upham’s letter of October 12, 1874, appears in Lee, The Currency of the Confederate States of America, pp. 24–25.
233, More than a decade
Upham’s move: Tremmel, A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency, pp. 36–37. Upham’s new location was 25 South Eighth Street. McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1865 (Philadelphia: E. C. & J. Biddle, A. McElroy, 1865), available on microfilm at the Philadelphia City Archives, lists Upham’s shop on Eighth Street as selling “patent medicines.” He advertised Upham’s Bay Rum on the back page of a pamphlet of one of his poems, “Columbia’s Centennial Greeting,” published in 1876; the item is held by the Broadsides Collection of the American Antiquarian Society, accessible online through Readex American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1760–1900. In the ad, he lists his South Eighth Street address as his “principal depot and laboratory.” A broadside advertising “Tish-Wang,” from 1863, is held by the Graphics Arts Collection of the American Antiquarian Society, also accessible online through Readex American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1760–1900. The “Tish-Wang” ad includes the warning “Beware of Counterfeits.”
233, Upham had moved
Upham’s credit record and business reputation: “Upham, Samuel C.,” Pennsylvania, vol. 140, p. 78, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School. Hilton’s record: “Hilton, Winthrop,” New York, vol. 194, p. 749, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School. It’s not clear when Hilton was released from prison. According to an online database accessed through Ancestry.com, Civil War Prisoner of War Records, 1861–1865, drawn from microfilm records housed at the National Archives, Hilton was captured on December 31, 1863, in New York City, and released by order of General Dix in April 1864. Either the date of his release is incorrect or he was transferred to another facility, because A. J. Williamson wrote his letter to Lincoln on Hilton’s behalf on June 29, 1864, when the printer was still imprisoned.
233–234, Hilton had been
“so indelibly photographed…”: from a speech by Upham at the “Second Annual Re-union and Banquet of ‘The Associated Pioneers of the Territorial Days of California,’” dated January 18, 1877, included in the appendix to Samuel Curtis Upham, Notes of a Voyage to California via Cape Horn, Together with Scenes in El Dorado, in the Years 1849–’50 (New York: Arno, 1973 [1878]), p. 435; for the full speech, see pp. 432–436. The appendix includes a range of Upham’s writings on California, including “Ye Ancient Yuba Miner, of the Days of’49,” an unsentimental and darkly funny poem about the gold rush days.
234, In 1876, America
1876 Centennial: Dorothy Gondos Beers, “The Centennial City, 1865–1876,” Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, ed. Russell F. Weigley, Nicholas B. Wainwright, and Edwin Wolf, 2nd (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), pp. 465–470. Associated Pioneers celebration: S. C. Upham, Notes of a Voyage to California via Cape Horn, pp. 400–423.
234–235, While Upham and
Technology of the Centennial: Beers, “The Centennial City, 1865–1876,” p. 469, and Linda P. Gross and Theresa R. Snyder, Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition (Charleston: Arcadia, 2005), p. 73.
235, To Upham, the
Upham’s death certificate, obtained from microfilmed records at the Philadelphia City Archives, provides the details; his occupation is listed as “Manufacturer, Chemist.” His will and the inventory of his estate: Brent Hughes, T
he Saga of Sam Upham: “Yankee Scoundrel,” rev. ed. (Inman, SC: published by the author, 1988), pp. 15–17. Obituary: Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1, 1885.
236, Initially the federal
Sixteen hundred state banks: Bray Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks and Politics in the Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 291. Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky: Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991 [1957]), pp. 566–571. Inflationary effect of greenbacks: Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, p. 300.
236, Treasury Secretary Salmon
Chase’s national banking idea: Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, pp. 285–292, and Frederick J. Blue, Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1987), pp. 157–159. As Chase acknowledged, national banking would give “little direct aid” to the war effort right away; “the constitutional supremacy of the nation over states and citizens” provided the real impetus for the measure; see Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, p. 292.
236–237, The secretary’s stubbornness
Abraham Lincoln had believed in the necessity of a national currency since 1839, when he gave a speech defending the Bank of the United States: “no duty is more imperative on [the federal] government,” he said, “than the duty it owes the people of furnishing them a sound and uniform currency”; see Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, pp. 24–25. As a result, Lincoln energetically supported Chase’s national banking measure. Republican opposition: ibid., pp. 296–297, 303–309.
237, To get the legislation
Chase’s campaign: ibid., pp. 293–295, and Blue, Salmon P. Chase, pp. 159–160. “Without it…”: Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, p. 293.
237–238, Chase’s persistence could
Sherman’s background: Allan Burton Spetter, “Sherman, John,” American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00704.html. For Sherman’s speeches, see John Sherman, Selected Speeches and Reports on Finance and Taxation, From 1859 to 1878 (New York: D. Appleton, 1879), pp. 32–79; “You cannot prevent…” appears on p. 42.
238, Sherman’s use of Jefferson
Sherman’s strategy: Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, pp. 300–301, 326–327.
238–239, The Civil War
“accursed heresy of…”: New York Times, February 3, 1863, quoted ibid., p. 326. “become inseparably united…”: New York Times, February 2, 1863, quoted in Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, p. 333. “The policy of this country…”: Sherman, Selected Speeches and Reports on Finance and Taxation, p. 70.
239, Between Sherman’s rhetoric
The bill passed the Senate 23 to 21, and the House 78 to 64; see Hammond, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse, pp. 328, 332. Sluggish growth of national banks and tax on state banknotes: ibid., pp. 345–347. The National Currency Act was later superseded by a revised version of the law, passed June 3, 1864.
239–240, The United States emerged
Design and printing of national banknotes: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 335–338.
240, Counterfeiters felt the
Impact on counterfeiting: ibid., p. 347.
240–241, This was evidently
Incompetence of local authorities and U.S. marshals in tackling counterfeiting: David R. Johnson, Illegal Tender: Counterfeiting and the Secret Service in Nineteenth-Century America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1995), pp. 40–41, 85–86, 109.
241, Lafayette Curry Baker
Baker’s physical appearance: Jacob Mogelever, Death to Traitors: The Story of General Lafayette C. Baker, Lincoln’s Forgotten Secret Service Chief (New York: Doubleday, 1960), p. 17, and J. H. Harris, “Introduction,” in Lafayette Curry Baker, History of the United States Secret Service (Philadelphia: published by the author, 1867), p. 20. Baker’s San Francisco days and early espionage career: Mogelever, Death to Traitors, pp. 29–80.
241–242, Northern intelligence was
Union intelligence confusion: Johnson, Illegal Tender, p. 67, and Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 16–17.
242, In early 1862
Rise of the National Detective Police: Mogelever, Death to Traitors, pp. 85–95, 109–117, and C. Wyatt Evans, “Lafayette Baker and Security in the Civil War North,” North and South 11.1 (September 2008), pp. 44–51. Treasury investigation: Mogelever, Death to Traitors, pp. 248–278; Ernest B. Furgurson, Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (New York: Knopf, 2004), pp. 292–293; and Baker, History of the United States Secret Service, pp. 310–327. After the war, a woman named Loreta Janeta Velazquez published a memoir in which she claimed to have been a Confederate double agent in Baker’s employ; among other things, she said Baker used counterfeit Confederate currency to fund covert activities in the South. It’s still unknown whether her account is a fraud; see Tremmel, A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency, pp. 72–84.
242–243, Baker had no scruples
Baker’s curtained coaches: Mogelever, Death to Traitors, p. 117. “Baker became a law…”: Lucius Eugene Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1904 [1891]), p. 346.
243, Whatever his vices or virtues
Baker’s innovations: Mogelever, Death to Traitors, p. 111. Counterfeiting raids: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, p. 343, and New York Times, August 11, October 9, and October 14, 1864.
243–244, When the prisoners
Old Capitol Prison: Curtis Carroll Davis, “The ‘Old Capitol’ and Its Keeper: How William P. Wood Ran a Civil War Prison,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, DC, vol. 52 (Washington, DC: Historical Society of Washington, DC, 1989), pp. 207–208, 212–214.
244, The prison’s superintendent
Wood’s appearance and character as warden: ibid., pp. 211–212, 214–219. “strange compound…”: from the diary of Catherine V. Baxley, a prisoner of Wood’s, quoted ibid., p. 234.
244–245, Wood liked to let
Wood’s interrogations: ibid., pp. 220–222, and Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 341–342.
245, By questioning the
Wood’s path to the Secret Service: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 344–346, and Johnson, Illegal Tender, pp. 70–71.
245–246, This wouldn’t have been
Obstacles faced by the Secret Service and Wood’s solutions: Johnson, Illegal Tender, pp. 72–77.
246–247, Wood absorbed these
Putting counterfeiters on the payroll: ibid., pp. 122–124, and Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, p. 354. Criminal background of Secret Service operatives and questionable methods: Johnson, Illegal Tender, pp. 76–77.
247, Despite his men’s
Arresting more than two hundred counterfeiters: Johnson, Illegal Tender, p. 76. Wood’s analysis of the national counterfeit market: ibid., pp. 129–132. Extensive files on counterfeiters: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, p. 347.
248, In 1867, Wood
Raid: Johnson, Illegal Tender, p. 132. Backlash to Wood’s tactics: ibid., pp. 156–157.
248, That summer, Wood
Wood’s defense of Brockway: New York Times, June 27, 1867. “We have thus…”: New York Times, July 2, 1867. Indignant editorial: New York Times, June 28, 1867.
249, Wood made halfhearted
Secret Service’s first handbook: Johnson, Illegal Tender, pp. 77–78. Gradual rehabilitation of the agency: ibid., pp. 79–108, 114–115. Counterfeit currency accounting for one-third and one-half of money supply: Philip H. Melanson with Peter F. Stevens, The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002), p. 4. Less than one-thousandth of one percent: New York Times, January 29, 1911, and Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, p. 373.
249, Wood’s aggressive leadership
Crisis of confidence among counterfeiters and tougher sentencing: Johnson, Illegal Tender, pp. 135, 1
40, 149. Decline of counterfeiting industry: ibid., pp. 174–180.
250, The national notes
Campaign against toy money and “Securities and Coins…”: ibid., p. 177.
CONCLUSION
252–253, While the federal government
Regular panics: Wesley C. Mitchell, “Business Cycles,” in National Bureau of Economic Research, Business Cycles and Unemployment: Report and Rec-ommendations of a Committee of the President’s Conference on Unemployment (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1923), pp. 5–6. The Panic of 1907 and the founding of the Federal Reserve: Kenneth Weiher, America’s Search for Economic Stability: Monetary and Fiscal Policy Since 1913 (New York: Twayne, 1992), pp. 19–22, and William G. Dewald, “The National Monetary Commission: A Look Back,” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 4.4 (November 1972), pp. 930–935.
253, The architects of the Federal
The Fed and the money supply: Weiher, America’s Search for Economic Stability, pp. 22–23, and Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), pp. 11–15.
253–254, The United States had
Congress passed the Gold Standard Act in 1900, legally cementing the gold standard that had been effectively in place since 1879. The struggle over greenbacks and the gold standard: Stephen Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 363, 369. The Federal Reserve Note: Arthur L. and Ira S. Friedberg, Paper Money of the United States: A Complete Illustrated Guide with Valuations, 18th ed. (Clifton, NJ: Coin & Currency Institute, 2006), p. 126.
254, The Depression severed
Roosevelt’s monetary policies: Lester V. Chandler, American Monetary Policy, 1928–1941 (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 272–295, and Weiher, America’s Search for Economic Stability, pp. 79–82. Nixon closing the gold window: Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), pp. 62–64.
