Palmetto Past & Present: How Columbia Became the Confederacy’s Currency Capital

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I had just arrived in South Carolina some fifteen years ago and a local resident was kindly showing me around my new home. Knowing I was a diehard War Between the States buff, he pointed to a long brick building located on the north side of Huger and Gervais Streets in Columbia and proudly stated, “they printed Confederate money there.” 

It’s a claim I’ve often heard repeated over the years. And recent research shows it wasn’t true. However, a mountain of Confederate currency was printed in the Soda City. It reminded me that the very first relic of that period I ever received, a $10 Confederate note gifted to me over Thanksgiving weekend 1971 – contained the words in tiny print, “Keatinge & Ball, Columbia S.C.”

This made me wonder: If the Confederate capital was located in Richmond, Virginia, why were they making money 375 miles away in the heart of the Palmetto State? The answer, it turns out, was due to two interesting South Carolinians.

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Christopher Memminger faced a major challenge when he accepted his new job in February 1861. As the first treasury secretary of the brand-new Confederate States of America, he had to build a national economy from scratch. That would be a daunting task even in the best of times — but Memminger had to do it as America’s deadliest war was getting underway.

Born in what’s now Germany, his father died when he was an infant. His mother took the child and moved to Charleston, S.C., where she soon died of yellow fever. Stuck in an orphanage at age four, Memminger wouldn’t stay down for long. Taken under future governor Thomas Bennett‘s wing at age 11, he graduated from South Carolina College at sixteen and quickly got on the fast track. He passed the bar exam, married well, and served in the state legislature – slowly amassing personal wealth (including a summer home in North Carolina) along the way. 

When the split between North and South came in December 1860, Memminger wrote South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession. And when the Confederacy was being formed a few weeks later, he was given the treasury spot in Jefferson Davis’ cabinet.

With no precious metals on hand (minus a small amount of gold seized from U.S. mints in the South), Memminger tried to finance the government with bond sales and tariffs. The Union naval blockade of Southern ports severely hampered international trade, so he turned to an income tax. That went over like a lead balloon, too.

So, Memminger began printing money. Lots and lots of it. Since it wasn’t backed by bullion, it was supported solely by the trust of the Southern people. Unfortunately, the more currency that went into circulation, the more it decreased in value – which sent prices shooting up. Memminger’s remedy? To print still more money, making inflation spiral out of control (are you listening, Joe Biden?).

By the time the war ended, the C.S.A. had printed a staggering $1.7 billion – about $61 billion in today’s dollars. 

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By the summer of 1863, public fury over horrible economic conditions (there had been bread riots in several Southern cities that spring) forced Memminger to walk the plank. He handed in his resignation on July 1 and he was immediately replaced by his BFF from Charleston, George Trenholm.

In many ways, Trenholm was the academically aloof Memminger’s opposite. Handsome and oozing confidence, this business leader and political gadfly was literally the life of the party. 

Already Richie Rich-wealthy before 1860, his business interests ranged from cotton and land to hotels and steamships. When the war came, his fleet of 60 blockade runners brought tobacco, cotton and turpentine to international markets – drastically increasing his fortune. Some have even speculated the caddish character of Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind was loosely based on Trenholm. 

Arriving in Richmond, the new secretary launched a charm offensive, wooing members of the Confederate Congress and newspaper editors with lavish parties. These fêtes insulated Trenholm from personal blame as the economy continued to deteriorate.

Like his predecessor, Trenholm kept Confederate dollars flowing off the printing presses – albeit with one important difference: Location. The Union’s primary military objective was the capture of Richmond, and the threat of battle always swirled around it. In the summer of 1862, George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac had come so close that soldiers could see the city’s church spires in the distance. If Richmond fell, the government’s ability to print the money keeping it afloat would go with it.

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In the spring of 1864, newly installed federal commander Ulysses S. Grant was amassing a force of almost 120,000 to take on Robert E. Lee’s 65,000 men in gray. Trenholm and other officials felt it wasn’t wise to continue keeping all of the Confederacy’s economic eggs in one basket.

Which is where Columbia enters the picture…

Memminger had started the ball rolling during McClellan’s scare. On April 18, 1862, he ordered the Confederate Treasury note division to relocate to the South Carolina capital. It was far enough away from the fighting to continue making money in safety. Columbia was centrally located in the Confederate interior – and rail service meant the new bills could be shipped all over Dixie. The financial benefit accruing to businesses in Memminger’s and Trenholm’s home state was icing on the cake for them.

Unlike today’s federal government, the C.S.A. didn’t print its own money; it paid contract printers to do that. Memminger likewise requested them to pack up their presses and head south. Only two complied.

By the end of May, today’s Main Street (called Richardson Street until 1892) was the hub of Confederate money-making. The firms of Blanton Duncan, Keatinge & Ball and James T. Paterson all operated there. Evans & Cogswell joined them in early 1863. Keatinge & Ball engraved all plates while the others printed using them.

They were assisted by dozens of women known as “Treasury Girls” or “Treasury Ladies.” When Memminger took office in 1861, he initially signed each piece of currency that was printed. It didn’t take long to see that was a huge time waster.

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Enter the “Treasury Girls.” Dozens of women were hired to individually sign their names, one at a time, on each note for the Register and Treasurer. (On current U.S. bills, these signatures are printed directly on the money.) Some made the move to Columbia; others quit rather than leave Richmond and were replaced by Palmetto State hires.

In February 1864, the Confederate Congress updated the agency to the Confederate Note Bureau and transferred all remaining operations to Columbia. The move was completed by April, just weeks before Grant launched his Wilderness/Overland campaign.

That year is memorable for another reason: That’s when the Confederacy let its printing presses run wild. Most of the bills we think of today whenever someone says “Confederate money” are the 1864 issue – and they were produced here in South Carolina in beyond ample supply.

The presses continued running almost up the minute Sherman came calling. Shortly before Union forces arrived in Columbia in February 1865, Southern wagons high-tailed it out of town for Anderson, carrying the engraving plates, thirty-five printing presses, a few barrels of ink and reams of paper. The goal was to set up shop in some other secure location. Before that could happen, though, the war was over – and all that Confederate currency was utterly worthless.

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Which brings us back to that brick building located on the edge of The Vista in downtown Columbia. A marker identifies it as the Confederate printing plant and claims, “Confederate bonds and currency were processed in this building.”

Except they weren’t.

So, what happened? For the answer, we are indebted to the superb research of Paul Armstrong – the “Columbia history buff.” Armstrong uncovered an October 7, 1930 article in The State newspaper which quoted eyewitness James F. Williams, who lived in Columbia during the war. According to Williams, “none of (the Confederate money) was printed in the Gervais Street plant, which was used for other printing and (the) lithographing business of Evans and Cogswell.”

The money, it turned out, was all printed on today’s Main Street – and nothing remains of those sites today. If you’ve seen photos of downtown Columbia in 1865, it looked like Berlin at the end of World War II.

And so, as always, history was right – yet also wrong. A big chunk of all Confederate money was indeed printed in Columbia… just not where most of us thought it was.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.

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