5 - Economic and Social Values in the Civil War

Summary

Levin Smith Joynes, a Richmond physician, professor, and superintendent of the Medical College of Virginia, kept a scrapbook he entitled “The War: – 1861–65.” In it, he pasted newspaper columns labeled “Financial and Commercial,” Confederate government lists of fixed prices for agricultural produce, restaurant bills of fare, and advertisements for the sale of blockade goods and slaves. He included examples of the means of exchange people used throughout the war: Confederate treasury notes, Southern state currencies, and municipal and corporate notes called shinplasters that served as crucial means of exchange in hard times when other currencies had lost value. He also made handwritten notes and drew pictures: at the end of 1863, he recorded that a dry goods store on Main Street was selling a “large doll” and a tiny mahogany chair for it to sit in for $1,000; in January 1865, he sketched the dimensions of a 3½ ounce, $1 loaf of bread.