opulation in the field and the rest working
for them, there was no real demand for this inordinate issue. One-tenth
the volume of currency properly distributed, with a coincident issue of
bonds, would have relieved the actual necessities of buyer and seller.
But still the wheels worked on--still Treasury notes fluttered out,
until every bank and store and till was glutted with them.

Then the results of the inflation came with relentless and rapid pace.
With the people still convinced of the inevitable outcome of their
united efforts; with the thinkers of the South still evolving their
theories of the philosopher's stone to change all this mass of paper
into gold; and with the press of the country blatant about the speedy
and certain collapse of northern credit; above all, with millions of
pounds of cotton rotting in our warehouses--Confederate money, little
by little, bought less and less of the necessaries of life.

At first the change was very gradual. In the summer of 1861, persons
coming to Richmond from Europe and the North spent their gold as freely
as the Treasury notes. Then gold rose to five, ten, fifteen, and
finally to forty per cent. premium. There it stuck for a time. But the
issues increased in volume, the blockade grew more effective, and
misgivings about the Treasury management crept into the minds of the
people. Gold went up again, ten per cent. at a jump, until it touched a
hundred--then rapidly to a hundred and fifty.

"The whole system looks devilish blue," said Styles Staple, who was
curing an ugly wound in his thigh. "I've been writing 'the house' about
it, and the Gov. thinks the hour has passed for utilizing the cotton.
If that can't be impressed by the Government, the whole bottom will
fall out of this thing before many months."

"If it ever passes the two hundred," solemnly quoth the colonel in
answer, "egad, sir! 'twill go up like a rocket! Up, sir! egad! clean
out of sight!"

I candidly answered that I could not see the end of the inflation.

"I do," Styles growled--"Repudiation!"

"Well, that's no end of a nobby thing!" cried Will Wyatt, who was
always bored about anything more serious than the last book, or
charging a battery. "Cheerful that, for a fellow's little pile to go up
like a rocket, and he not even to get the stick."

"He can have the smoke, however," answered Styles more cheerily, as he
hobbled over and gave a $5 note for a dozen cigars.

And this began rapidly to be t