{"id":5195,"date":"2017-02-10T19:23:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T00:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/?post_type=product&p=5195"},"modified":"2024-06-13T16:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T20:20:00","slug":"history-military-civil-war-the-lost-cause-antique-print-with-confederate-currency-c-1872","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.georgeglazer.com\/wpmain\/product\/history-military-civil-war-the-lost-cause-antique-print-with-confederate-currency-c-1872\/","title":{"rendered":"History, American, Military, Civil War, The Lost Cause, Antique Print with Confederate Currency, c. 1872"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

The poem sympathetically portrays the Confederacy as “Liberty born of a patriot\u2019s dream,” and asserts that the currency, though rendered worthless by the result of the Civil War, still serves as a memento of “our history\u2026from 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\u2019s 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\u2019Hara in Margaret Mitchell\u2019s Civil War novel Gone With the Wind. The poem reads as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

Representing nothing on God’s earth now,
\nAnd naught in the water below it;
\nAs a pledge of a nation that’s dead and gone,
\nKeep it, dear Captain, and show it.
\nShow it to those that will lend an ear
\nTo the tale this this paper can tell
\nOf Liberty born, of the patriot’s dream,
\nOf a storm-cradled nation that fell.<\/p>\n

Too poor to possess the precious ore,
\nAnd too much a stranger to borrow,
\nWe issue to-day, our “Promise to Pay,
\nAnd hope to redeem on the morrow.”
\nDays rolled by, and weeks became years,
\nBut our coffers were empty still;
\nCoin was so rare that the Treasury’d quake
\nIf a dollar should drop in the till.<\/p>\n

But the faith that was in us was strong indeed,
\nAnd our poverty well discerned,
\nAnd these little checks represented the pay
\nThat our suffering veterans earned.
\nWe know it had hardly a value in gold;
\nYet as gold the soldiers received it;
\nIt gazed in our eyes with a promise to Pay,
\nAnd each patriot soldier believed it.<\/p>\n

But our boys thought little of price or pay,
\nOr of bills that were over due;
\nWe knew if it bought our bread today,
\n‘Twas the best our poor country could do.
\nKeep it! it tolls all our history over,
\nFrom the birth of the dream to its last;
\nModest, and born of Angel, Hope,
\nLike our hope of success it passed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Condition: Generally very good with the usual overall light toning and wear. Professionally cleaned and deacidified. Some restorations to chips on Confederate bills, and some nonetheless still having lit chipping to outer edges.\u00a0 Few short marginal tears and minor marginal chips to print overall restored as laid on Japanese paper. Some minor associated abrasions or losses to ruled border supplied in manuscript. Other examples of this print are often in poor condition; relatively this one is very good, as professional restored and presents nicely.<\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

Fisher, David Hackett. Liberty and Freedom, Vol. 3 of America, A Cultural History.<\/em> U.S.: Oxford University Press, 2005. pp. 356-357. Online at Google Books<\/em>. http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=uc8KP_QtW-sC&dq (3 December 2009).<\/p>\n

Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind.<\/em> Reprint ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. p. 715. Online at Google Books.<\/em> http:\/\/books.google.com (3 December 2009).<\/p>\n

Neely, Mark E., Harold Holzer and Gabor S. Boritt. The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause.<\/em> 2nd ed. University of North Carolina Press, 2000. pp. 103-106. Online at Google Books<\/em> (3 December 2009).<\/p>\n

“The Confederate Note.” Valley Virginian.<\/em> 31 January 1866. Online at The Valley of the Shadow: Civil War-Era Newspapers.<\/em> http:\/\/valley.lib.virginia.edu\/news\/vv1866\/va.au.vv.1866.01.31.xml (3 December 2009).<\/p>\n

“The Lost Cause.” Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Collection Online.<\/em> http:\/\/hdl.loc.gov\/loc.pnp\/pga.01734 (3 December 2009).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lewis L. Simons (after)
\nThe Lost Cause, or Deo Vindice<\/strong>
\nJ.B. Wilson, U.S.: 1872
\nLithograph
\n21.25 x 27.5 inches, overall
\n3.25 x 7.25 inches, currency average approximate
\n$2,900<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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