During the Civil War, the Confederate States of America printed large amounts of its own currency—Confederate dollars—to fund the war. By the end of the war, the Confederate government had printed...

During the Civil War, the Confederate States of America

printed large amounts of its own currency—Confederate

dollars—to fund the war. By the end of the war, the Confederate government had printed nearly 1.5 billion paper

dollars. How would such a large quantity of Confederate

dollars have affected the value of the Confederate currency? With the war drawing to an end, would southerners have been as willing to use and accept Confederate

dollars? How else could they have bought and sold goods?

Source: Eric Nielsen, “Monetary Policy in the Confederacy,” Federal

Reserve Bank of Richmond Region Focus, Fall 2005, pp. 40–43.