In its early days, the Confederate Treasury made a significant decision that set it apart from the U.S. Treasury: requiring Treasury officials to hand-sign every Treasury note and bond. Initially, this seemed reasonable under the expectation of a short war. However, as the conflict extended over four years, the Confederacy eventually printed over $1.5 billion in notes and more than $700 million in bonds. This required 80 million notes to be hand-signed by the Register and Treasurer, and nearly 1 million bonds to be hand-signed by the Register, initialed by two clerks as Recorder and Enterer, with coupons signed by another clerk.
The enormity of this task necessitated additional clerical help, leading to the hiring of clerks to assist with the signing. By the war’s end, 371 Treasury employees had hand-signed Treasury notes, and nearly 100 employees signed and initialed bonds and their coupons.
In their 2022 book, Confederate Treasury Notes: The Signers and Their Stories, the authors explored the origins of Treasury notes and shared the stories of their signers. While the workforce was initially male, by the end of the war, all Treasury note signers were women. Overall, two-thirds of the note signers were women, many of whom were young, privileged, educated, and possessed excellent penmanship. Employing women as Treasury clerks had significant social implications, providing them with experiences and opportunities that paved the way for post-war employment and new societal roles.
The authors’ new book, The Signers and Issuers of Confederate Bonds, continues this narrative by detailing the Treasury’s operation in issuing bonds. Like the Treasury notes, the bonds were signed by numerous employees: six men served as Register or Assistant Register, 32 women and 22 men signed bond coupons as clerks, and nearly 40 men initialed bonds as Recorders or Enterers to verify the bonds in the Treasury’s registers. This book includes biographies of these individuals and features a section that pairs each signer’s or initialer’s name with an image of their signature or initials, allowing readers to identify the signers and initialers of any bond or coupon easily. The book also describes the Treasury Department’s operations and the professional activities of these employees, including the bond issuance process.
Many of the bond signers and initialers led remarkable lives. For instance, Martha “Mittie” Morris, a signer of bond coupons and notes, became a prominent figure in the Richmond art scene into the 20th century. Sarah Pumphrey, a coupon signer, owned an estate as a “feme sole” with her husband as trustee, an uncommon arrangement at the time. Margaret Bronaugh, another coupon signer, served as a U.S. government clerk before and after signing Confederate bond coupons. Monimia Cary, an affluent single mother, signed bond coupons and notes while also working as a hospital nurse. William W. Dennison, who signed coupons, was a controversial U.S. agent for the Pawnee and Otoe-Missouria tribes in Nebraska before the war and the father of Eliza Dennison, who signed Confederate Treasury notes. George Dabney, a coupon signer, and James M. Boyd, an Enterer who initialed bonds, were respected university professors. Henry D. Capers, Chief Clerk of the Treasury who initialed bonds as Enterer, had a multifaceted career as a physician, soldier, lawyer, financial officer, entrepreneur, professor, and biographer. William R. Teller, a coupon signer, worked as a coal merchant in Cuba with former Confederate General Fitzhugh Lee. Robert Tyler, the Register of the Treasury who signed bonds and coupons, was the son of former U.S. President John Tyler.
Together, these two volumes bring to life the financial documents of the Confederate Treasury, which are highly valued by collectors. They place the documents and the people who created them in their historical and societal context, providing a personalized perspective on Treasury bonds and notes and offering numismatists new ways to appreciate and collect these artifacts.
To order The Signers and Issuers of Confederate Bonds, the cost is $29.95 plus $5 for domestic postage. Payments can be made electronically via Venmo to @Charles-Derby-1 or Zelle to . Alternatively, checks can be mailed to Charles Derby at 204 Sycamore Ridge Drive, Decatur, GA 30030.