LINCOLN AND CIVIL WAR NUMISMATICS

Abraham Lincoln. This president is perhaps the best known of all United States chief executives, even eclipsing George Washington. Lincoln’s fame is worldwide, and he has been studied by scholars on an ongoing basis since his death in April 1865. One of the few areas that perhaps has not received its full share of research, however, is the role this president played in the coins and bank notes of the American Civil War, 1861-1865.

Lincoln’s election in November 1860 had intensified Southern concerns about Northern intentions on a variety of topics, including States Rights, the tariff and slavery. By late in 1860, the Southern States had begun to secede from the Union and on March 4, 1861, the date of the inauguration, the new president was faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem.

In the weeks preceding the inauguration, there had been mass demonstrations in many of the larger cities of the North demanding that Southerners be allowed to leave in peace. Lincoln shrewdly realized that the Union could not be preserved unless there was some overt act by Southern military leaders. To this end, the president refused to surrender the Federal forts along Southern shores, thus creating a target for Southern anger.

The flash