lung that gave her the breath of life! Will the cute
Yankee of New England submit to be ruined, and starved, and taxed in
addition? Will the great commercial metropolis let the grass grow in
her streets and the vessels rot at her wharves, that once laughed with
southern cotton? Will the granary and meat-house of the Union yield all
her produce for baseless paper promises and, in addition pay heavy tax
to carry on a war, suicidal as she must see it?

Such were the delusions of the South--based, it may be, upon reason,
and only delusions because underestimating and despising the great
ingenuity of the enemy, and the vast cohesive power of _interest_!

If the Washington government could not make the war popular, it could
at least make it a great money job. If it could not bring it at once to
the hearts of its people, it could at least force it directly upon
their pockets.

The vast increase in army and navy gave sudden and excitingly novel
employment to thousands of men then out of situations; the unprecedented
demand for materials of war--arms--munitions--clothing--supplies--turned
the North and East into one vast armory and quartermaster's store;
while the West was a huge commissary department. Then the Government
paid well and promptly, if it did pay in greenbacks. These daily
changed hands and nobody stopped to inquire on what the promise to pay
was based.

Great contracts were let out to shrewd and skillful moneyed men; these
again subdivided became the means of employing thousands of idle
hands--while each sub-contractor became a missionary to the mob to
preach the gospel of the greenback!

But above all was the shrewdness and finesse with which the bonds were
manipulated. The suction once applied, the great engine, Wall street,
was pumped dry; and self-preservation made every bondholder a _de
facto_ emissary of the Treasury Department.

Banker and baker, soldier and seamstress, were equally interested in
the currency. It became greenback or nothing, and the United States
used the theory of self-preservation on which to build a substantial
edifice of public credit.

These were the hard, real reasons that dissipated at last the dream of
the South; that kept the greenback promise of the manufacturing North
at little below gold, while the grayback of the producing South went
down--down--from two--to ten--twenty--at last, to one thousand dollars
for one.

CHAPTER XXVII.

DOLLARS, CENTS, AND LESS.

A