Civil War History - General DiscussionFor Discussions on Civil War Era Personalities, Politics, Issues, Campaigns, Battles, and more. Serious Civil War Discussions Only Please! All other posts will be deleted.
Just before Jefferson Davis fled Richmond the estimated value of the Confederate treasury was given at $550,000.When Davis and his cabinet arrived in Danville North Carolina the treasury was given a new value at $327,022.Rumors dogged Davis for years that he had stolen the missing money.Many have said he did not take it.Has anyone here heard this?Does anyone know for sure what happened?
I will assume Davis took it and planned to start a new political system based upon a failed one from the past with no hope for the future.
How this could be done and what was going on in his mind are left to wonder.Yes,maybe he planned to put his ideas for a new government into motion.Then again maybe (if he did steal it) old Jeff just got greedy and planned on drinking,gambling and living it up for a while.
Maybe the money got burned with all the Confederate records.
I know for a fact that Davis arrived in Mississippi after his imprisonment, broke and nearly destitute. He was offered a home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Beauvoir, to live out his life and write his memoirs by a close friend.
I had always heard of this as a bunch of nasty charges by old enemies; does anyone know if anything new has ever been written on this?
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
I don't know the exact answer, but am interested. Davis would have brought some funds south with him on his escape route into Georgia, but anything he might have carried would have been confiscated when he was arrested. Each man left standing after the surrender of the Army of Tennessee was given a dollar in Mexican coin and each seventh man two dollars because the average amount available amounted to 1.7 dollars per man. The ANV by that time had already surrendered.
I don't know the exact answer, but am interested. Davis would have brought some funds south with him on his escape route into Georgia, but anything he might have carried would have been confiscated when he was arrested. Each man left standing after the surrender of the Army of Tennessee was given a dollar in Mexican coin and each seventh man two dollars because the average amount available amounted to 1.7 dollars per man. The ANV by that time had already surrendered.
This is what I have read....that it was given to the troops.
If Davis stole any of it...where did he keep it? (He was in prison for two years.)
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
