Counterfeiting Confederate one during the Civil War was big business for the Northern pressmen. Printers made their fortunes by robbing the South, rich and poor, by handing them fake money fresh off the presses.
Counterfeiting the Enemy’s Money
An interesting story of the Civil War and one that really belongs to its history, was released for publication by the recent death of Winthrop Hilton. During the war, Hilton was a printer, doing business at No. 11 Spruce St., New York.
On April 11, 1863, he inserted the following advertisement in “The New York Illustrated News”:
This advertisement was seen by Blank, a Bureau Government, who cut it out of the paper and pasted it in his scrapbook as a curiosity. Twenty-odd years later, Blank, then living in San Francisco, gave a reception at his residence, which was attended by a number of fashionable people, one of whom introduced his friend, a W.E. Hilton, of whose talents and amiability he spoke highly.
In the evening, while the hose was entertaining his friends in his study, the name and initials of Hilton struck a chord in his memory, and turning to his card index he found the advertisement of W.E. Hilton. Suddenly showing it to his new acquaintance, he asked him if he was the same person. He saw at once that he was.
The man turned pale, stammered out a reply, and requested a private interview. Then he told the following strange story, corroborating it at subsequent interviews by letters, specimens of the counterfeit Confederate money and samples of the water marked paper employed in the work. Upon a promise that none of these particulars would be published in his lifetime, he wrote out and signed a full account of the affair.
Everybody His Own Mint
“You will remember that in December, 1860, after the election of Lincoln, several of the Southern States Seceded, and appointed delegates to meet in convention on February 4, 1861, at Montgomery. At this convention, on February 18, Jefferson Davis was elected President; and steps were at once taken to raise money. On May 21, the Capital of the Confederacy was removed to Richmond, and there the Confederate Congress authorized the printing and issuance of legal tender notes to defray the expenses of the newly formed government.
“Meanwhile, everything in the shape of a gold or silver coin began to disappear from circulation, until tradesmen found it necessary to print and issue their own notes, first with common type, and later on with lithographs from old bank note dies. A few months later these notes were superseded by the genuine Confederate notes, printed in Richmond. Though poorly executed, they were universally accepted throughout the South at par in gold. Indeed, such was the scarcity of currency and so eager were the demands of trade, that everywhere the Southerners jumped at the chance to sell their lands, goods, or slaves for them. Some of these notes having reached the North, their poor execution and the ease with which they could be imitated caused an Irishman named Haney, a news vender in Washington, to counterfeit them.
Replica Confederate money is available on Amazon.com. Sometimes authentic Confederate money is also sold on the site.
“I have no desire to palliate my offense,” continued Hilton, “by putting it upon others, or pretending that it was committed for any other object than gain. I was poor, needy, and a printer by trade; the rest followed. But it is due to my memory to say that I was not the ringleader. This was Haney. He was soon followed by the printer whom he employed in New York, a man named Charles S. Acton, and he by others.
“When I took part in the game it was already in full blast. Haney’s order to Acton was at first executed with wood engravings. The lithographic imitations came later, time being required to make confidential arrangements with lithographic firms. Meanwhile, Haney’s connection with the news venders throughout the country begat such a tremendous demand for the notes that Acton was unable to print them fast enough, and arrangements were made with other printing firms in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Among them I remember a man who kept a store on Chestnut St., Philadelphia. But the biggest money was made by the newsmen and news agents in Chicago, one or more of whom laid the foundations of wealth and financial distinction with Confederate notes. Some of these firms worked entirely for Haney, either directly or through Acton, while I struck out for myself. And thereby hangs my tale.
“The first agencies employed in circulating the notes were the news vendors; afterward the banks in the border States, and finally the banks in Atlanta, Charleston, and other Southern cities bought them. The notes went without question. Everywhere throughout the South they were accepted as genuine issues of the Confederate Government, and eagerly received in exchange for cotton, tobacco, and every description of property. It was in this business that several bankers and business men in New York made their fortunes, buying cotton with these notes and shipping it to England by blockade runners. In some cases they even had the address to get it through the lines into the North.
“There, indeed, came a time when the bank demand slackened, when the counterfeit notes came to be suspected by large dealers and experts in the South; but even then they continued to be accepted by the Confederate soldiers and by the small farmers, traders, and [blacks], who sold their chickens and farm produce for them, only to be disillusioned at last and find themselves ruined. This is the part of it that has occasioned me the most remorse. I had no sympathy for the slave-holders, planters, and brokers who sold their crops for worthless notes; but for the poor whites and the small [black] dealers who were deceived by them, I never ceased to entertain the keenest regrets.
“However, all awakenings of conscience were afterward soothed by the reflection that the genuine notes proved to be as worthless as the counterfeit. It never occurred to me until lately that had there been no counterfeits, there would of necessity have remained in circulation a large amount of coin. When Mr. De Bow told me he had lost three millions by accepting counterfeit Confederate money, I felt no sympathy for him. He was a planter, a slave-holder, cotton speculator, and Confederate official. But when one of his clerks told me he had been totally ruined by the same agency, I helped to set the clerk on his feet again.”
Bankers Wanted Counterfeits
“But I must not anticipate. At this period, Acton had four Hoe presses running on Confederate notes, and nearly every day a boxful of them was shipped from his premises, mostly to news venders throughout the country. The notes were now of a superior character, and purchases of them began to be made by cotton merchants and speculators, and some by banks; but this last did not become a regular trade until some months later. It would surprise you to know that many respectable people were in it.
“In the summer of 1862, a new actor in this drama came upon the stage. This was George H. Briggs, a music teacher, who conspired with a resident of Hartford Connecticut, to circulate a good imitation of the Confederate notes. Receiving from him valuable suggestions as to the type and denominations most likely to pass, Briggs came to New York and made a contract with Acton to produce tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds for ‘the Southern market.’
“In September, Briggs left New York with two millions of this money packed in a trunk provided with a false bottom. After safely passing the lines at Paducah, Kentucky, he made his way to Atlanta, where he delivered the goods to his confederates. In due time they were passed to other banks in the South; and although they created some suspicion in Charleston the matter was quietly arranged, and on they went into the general circulation, until they were entirely lost to view or tracing. From this moment the news vendors were dropped as agents of circulation. Briggs had opened or widened a new and vaster field. This was the banks.
“Briggs now committed a mean action. I will presently give it to you over his own hand. He wrote letters accusing Acton and me of printing the genuine Confederate notes and bonds, and thus of aiding the enemy. These letters he posted in such a way that they were certain to fall into the hands oft the Federal authorities. The result was that several of us were thrown into prison, including, by a sort of poetic justice, the informer himself; he having been traced in spite of his incognito. This brought him to his senses. During the investigation which followed he made a full explanation and was liberated. Then he got Acton out of limbo, and finally he got me out, by writing a letter to the President, explaining that I was innocent, and assuming all responsibility himself.”
Lincoln Refused Recognition
“I now felt pretty certain that I would no longer be interrupted: I had even persuaded myself that my avocation was patriotic. Had not the British Government authorized or connived at the counterfeiting of our Revolutionary currency, as a war measure? Was it not recorded in the Secret Journal of Congress, July 3, 1777, that a large amount of counterfeit Continental notes had been fabricated in England and brought to America in British men-of-war operating in the Delaware, where the notes were put in circulation? Did not General Clinton in 1781 write to Lord George Germaine that ‘the experiments suggested by your lordships have been tried’ no assistance that could be drawn from the arts of counterfeiting have been neglected’? Did not Henry Phillips write: ‘It is a fact, too well authenticated to admit of dispute, that General Sir William Howe (1777) aided the making and uttering of counterfeit Continental bills’? Did not an American privateer in 1778 capture a large quantity of counterfeit Continental notes on their way from Scotland to America?
“You see, I was well up in the literature of the subject, and I could have added a dozen more instances in point. I really felt that I was doing more to defeat the enemy than General Grant. With this conviction, I determined to apply for a legal authorization for my work. So I went straight to Washington and saw Mr. Lincoln. To my great dismay, he refused to say anything to me and referred me to Secretary Stanton, who sent me to Marshal Sharpe. Upon returning to New York, I saw that redoubtable personage and sounded him on the subject. I could get neither authorization nor promise of any kind.
“But I soon found that my dream of rivaling Grant was ended. I sold my presses, gathered up a few momentos of the enterprise, and emigrated to California, where I hoped to be lost and forgotten.
“You ask for an estimate of the ‘queer stuff.’ Well, this is hard to compute. The genuine issues of Confederate notes amounted to six hundred and fifty-four million, five hundred thousand dollars. At a rough guess, the counterfeits were equal to from one-third to one-half as much again; so that it may be conjectured that the whole amount of the latter varied between two hundred and eighteen and three hundred and twenty-seven millions. The Acton and Hilton presses alone turned out over a hundred millions, and there were others.
“Acton? Oh, he died from a mining accident in Northern California. He had made a large fortune in the printing of Confederate notes, some people said a million, but lost it all in Wall Street, and then went mining, to die in a hole under a rock.”
Source: New-York tribune. (New York [N.Y.]), 20 May 1906.
