Item: Rare 500 Dollar Stonewall Jackson Note With Others On 1872 Litho Rare 1 Of 3
Sold For: $2,125.00
Bids: 15
Date: Jun 15, 2012
Auction: Ebay
Description and Image By: goldrush2013
Rare original stonewall jackson $500 note as well as 100 50 20 10 5 2 1 , these are applied to a rare 1872 the lost cause. All information will follow. There is only 3 known that i have found, one hangs in the library of congress. Following information taken off the internet in reference to this item.
Lithograph commemorating the short-lived confederate states of america on which a previous owner has affixed eight actual confederate bills over those illustrated in the print. The currency, in denominations of $1, $2, $5 (two bills), $10, $20, $50 and $100, is arranged in an octagonal design around a sentimental poem by north carolina author p.c. Carlton originally titled confederate states money. A central illustration of a confederate flag against a starry sky is set within a shield, which in turn is surrounded by five oval portraits of southern leader jefferson davis and the generals robert e. Lee, stonewall jackson, joseph e. Johnston and pierre gustave toutant de beauregard. The motto “deo vindice” appears above the shield, and a ribbon bearing the inscription “fort sumter 1861, appomattox c.h. 1865,” marking the beginning and the end of the civil war. Border designs celebrate the cause, the palmetto of south carolina, the virginia seal, the battle of ironclads at sea, and the blasted ruins of fort sumter. Evidently versions of this print with actual currency attached to them are rare — two recent sources note that there is “at least one known copy” in which actual bills were pasted over their lithographic representations (neely et al., fisher). The library of congress has this print in their collection, but, unlike this one, with no publication information; theirs’ also lacks the heavy black border. In comparing the two versions, the currency that is attached matches those in the lithograph, with the exception of the one-dollar bill, which is a different design. The poem sympathetically portrays the confederacy as “liberty born of a patriot’s dream,” and asserts that the currency, though rendered worthless by the result of the civil war, still serves as a memento of “our history…from the birth of the dream to its last.” in this print, the poem has been retitled “the lost cause,” a defiant phrase that caught on a year into reconstruction with the publication of secessionist edward pollard’s book, the lost cause: a new southern history of the war of the confederates. According to historian david hackett fisher, “the legend of the lost cause was born in the hour of confederate defeat, and it flourished longer in the south than the confederacy itself, even to our own time.” fisher identifies this lithograph as a leading example of the iconography promoting the romantic image of the “lost cause.” as early as 1866 a romantic legend also grew up around the poem itself, that it had been written by a despondent southern soldier, sometimes identified as major sidney alroy jonas, on the back of $500 confederate bill after the army surrendered. A bill with the first and last lines of the poem inscribed on the back is even shown to scarlett o’hara in margaret mitchell’s civil war novel gone with the wind. The poem reads as follows: Representing nothing on god’s earth now, and naught in the water below it; as a pledge of a nation that’s dead and gone, keep it, dear captain, and show it. Show it to those that will lend an ear to the tale this this paper can tell of liberty born, of the patriot’s dream, of a storm-cradled nation that fell. Too poor to possess the precious ore, and too much a stranger to borrow, we issue to-day, our “promise to pay, and hope to redeem on the morrow.” days rolled by, and weeks became years, but our coffers were empty still; coin was so rare that the treasury’d quake if a dollar should drop in the till. But the faith that was in us was strong indeed, and our poverty well discerned, and these little checks represented the pay that our suffering veterans earned. We know it had hardly a value in gold; yet as gold the soldiers received it; it gazed in our eyes with a promise to pay, and each patriot soldier believed it. But our boys thought little of price or pay, or of bills that were over due; we knew if it bought our bread today, ’twas the best our poor country could do. Keep it! It tolls all our history over, from the birth of the dream to its last; modest, and born of angel, hope, like our hope of success it passed. Full publication information: “entered according to act of congress by j.b. Wilson in the year 1872 in the office of the librarian of congress at washington.” I feel this is the rarest and the finest of the 3 known copies, because of the 500 stonewall jackson bill.