“Great Nooze from Chattanoogy, Tennessee!

“Great Nooze from Chahlston, Sou’ Cahlina!

“Great Nooze in depapahs!”

It did not matter to him that the Rebels had not been at some of these places for months.  He would not change for such mere trifles as the entire evaporation of all possible interest connected with Chattanooga and Alexandria.  He was a true Bourbon Southerner—­he learned nothing and forgot nothing.

There was a considerable trade driven between the prisoners and the guard at the door.  This was a very lucrative position for the latter, and men of a commercial turn of mind generally managed to get stationed there.  The blockade had cut off the Confederacy’s supplies from the outer world, and the many trinkets about a man’s person were in good demand at high prices.  The men of the Army of the Potomac, who were paid regularly, and were always near their supplies, had their pockets filled with combs, silk handkerchiefs, knives, neckties, gold pens, pencils, silver watches, playing cards, dice, etc.  Such of these as escaped appropriation by their captors and Dick Turner, were eagerly bought by the guards, who paid fair prices in Confederate money, or traded wheat bread, tobacco, daily papers, etc., for them.

There was also considerable brokerage in money, and the manner of doing this was an admirable exemplification of the folly of the “fiat” money idea.  The Rebels exhausted their ingenuity in framing laws to sustain the purchasing power of their paper money.  It was made legal tender for all debts public and private; it was decreed that the man who refused to take it was a public enemy; all the considerations of patriotism were rallied to its support, and the law provided that any citizens found trafficking in the money of the enemy—­i.e., greenbacks, should suffer imprisonment in the Penitentiary, and any soldier so offending should suffer death.

Notwithstanding all this, in Richmond, the head and heart of the Confederacy, in January, 1864—­long before the Rebel cause began to look at all desperate—­it took a dollar to buy such a loaf of bread as now sells for ten cents; a newspaper was a half dollar, and everything else in proportion.  And still worse:  There was not a day during our stay in Richmond but what one could go to the hole in the door before which the guard was pacing and call out in a loud whisper: 

“Say, Guard:  do you want to buy some greenbacks?”

And be sure that the reply would be, after a furtive glance around to see that no officer was watching: 

“Yes; how much do you want for them?”

The reply was then:  “Ten for one.”

“All right; how much have you got?”

The Yankee would reply; the Rebel would walk to the farther end of his beat, count out the necessary amount, and, returning, put up one hand with it, while with the other he caught hold of one end of the Yankee’s greenback.  At the word, both would release their holds simultaneously, the exchange was complete, and the Rebel would pace industriously up and down his beat with the air of the school boy who “ain’t been a-doin’ nothing.”