Year: 1878

/ day in the financial world as the full equiv
alent of gold. The premium on gold ante
dates the passage OF the Legal Tender act,
that act having been passed February IA,
| 1862, and the premium on gold having be-
gun in the preceding month. The original
comparison was between gold and the
notes of the State banks, which varied
between par and gold premium of
| five per cent in January, 1862 We do not
| know the precise date when thu first legal
| tender notes were issued, but it could not
| have been earlier than March, 1862, since
| time was required for engraving and print
| ing after the passage of the Legal Tender
act. But in March, 1862, the lowest pre-
MUM on gold was 1-8 per cent, and the
highest 1-2 per cent. But it rose very
rapidly afterward, and reached an enor-
nous height in critical stages of the war.
Now, when the volcano Of public passions
| and fears has burnt out and become extinct
and gold has finally sunk to par, it is Curl
Gus to inspect record Of the fluctuations
in the price of gold for the sixteen years
during which it has been at premium,
and especially the rapid and violent fuctu-
ations in critical stages OF the civil war.
As physician judges of the condition Of
patient by marking the varying rapidity Of
his pulse. 50 the national hopes and fears
and the varying prospects Of success and de-
feat during the civil war are registered in
the sudden fluctuations of the gold pre-
MUM which were the consequence Of mill
tary events. The premium reached its
highest point in July, 1864, when gold was
rated one day at the stupendous price OF
285, making the value Of the greenback
darkest period Of national gloom, the tre-
nendous crisis when citizens and the gov
ernment itself came nearest to despairing of
the Republic. In those dark days steam
was kept up on government vessel in the
Washington Navy Yard on which the Presi-
dent and Cabinet would have embarked
with the public archives had the rebels
under Early forced their way into the cap
ital. Lee, sorely pressed by Grant at
Petersburg, had sent Early around into
Maryland, and it was owing to mere luck
and accident that Washington was not cap
tured and the government put to flight
Grant had despatched the Sixth corps of
the Army of the Potomac to Washington,
| and by a fortunate coincidence Gen
eral Emory, with the Nineteenth
corps, which had been ordered from
New Orleans after the failure of the
Red River expedition, had just arrived at
Hampton Roads. and, without debarking, it
was sent up the Potomac to follow the
Sixth. But even that timely assistance
would have proved unavailing if Early had
not quailed in the very pinch of the crisis
On the morning Of the 11th OF July his van
was close up to the fortiications covering
the northern approach to Washington, and
| in the afternoon the Confederate infantry
had come up and was arrayed in front Of
| Fort Stevens. The works were slightly de-
Tended, and Early might easily have made
a dash into Washington and driven
out the government if his vigor had been
equal to his opportunity. The capture of
Washington and flight of the government
would have led to the immediate recog-
milton of the Confederacy by France and
England, and the war for the Union would





hung the destiny of great nation! 1t was
in that trying time that gold reached its
| highest price Of 2S5, and the greenback
dollar was worth only thirty-fve cents.
| From the calm waters in which we now find
ourselves, with gold at par, it is interesting,
and, even at this distance, almost exciting,
to look back upon the dangers we have
passed.


The most compendious and suggestive
history Of the civil war anywhere recorded
consists of the tabular statement in which
is set down, month by month, the fuctua-
tions in the price of gold during those
four eventful years. The astonishing
rises and falls within brief periods, cor
respondent to the violent fluctuations Of
public feeling arc the surest index to the
important events of the war. A person
may take up military history of the war
and read on and on with little profit
to his judgment; but if he will take
tabular statement OF the changing
premiums on gold and attempt TO trace
out their causes in contemporaneous occur
rences he will acquire q just appreciation of
the relative importance Of the events as es-
timated by the shrewdest observers of the
period. The suddenness Of the fluctuations
attests the extreme anxiety and sensitive
ness of public feeling and the trying alter
nations of hope and depression while the
fate of our country seemed to tremble in
the balance. Even in that gloomy and ap-
palling July, 1864, there was but q transient
approach to despair. for although tho high
est price of gold was 2S5 its low
est was 222. In the preceding month
it had Auctuated between 1G9 and 251,
and in the September following between
1856 and 255. Those extraordinary GIBBS and
flows did not result from redundancy of the
circulating medium. but from the interpre-