Money Value

NH Civil War Gal

Captain
* OFFICIAL *
CWT PRESENTER
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Regtl. Quartermaster Antietam 2021
Joined
Feb 5, 2017
Taken from the Confederate Veteran 1893

"In January of 1864 we were in camps at Dalton, Ga. I had just been paid off, and a great deal of my money was in one dollar bills. The dollar bill of the Confederacy was a red-backed piece of paper about six or eight inches long and about three inches wide. Of course, when a soldier is paid he wants to buy something to eat; so, as I heard if a man who was selling ginger-cakes in a camp about a mile away, I went at once. I resolved to spend a whole dollar in ginger-bread. My memory recalled with delight the generous square that I used to buy for five cents from the old cake woman when I was a boy. I found my man. He had constructed an oven on a hillside, and he baked bread in one cake about three feet square. I imagined that my dollar would about buy a whole square -- would probably exhaust his stock. So, with an air of riches, I handed him my red-back and said, "give me the worth of that." He wasn't disconcerted, but just took my dollar and laid it on his square of cake and cut out the exact size of my dollar and handed it to me. I never realized before that money is a measure of value!"
 
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