ACW research question

I've seen some guys post some numbers on the debt both Union and Confederate is there a sight or book I can get that details the war debt of both sides ?
 

frlmerrin

Banned
US debt which is nearly all war debt is tabulated in the US Statistical Abstracts from the mid-1870s when they start onward (the figures themselves go back pre-war).

I have no idea where you would go for a primary source on Confederate debt. Indeed I would expect that it would be hard to calculate the total Confederate debt as the USA, the successor state refused to take up the debt burden.

It is also worth noting that some of the constituent states of the USA also took up debt during the war. So too did some of the Confederate states but I do not know if they honoured the debts.
 
Confederate National debt is mentioned in Look Away by William Davis. By the end of the war, they had over $700 million in bond debt, over $1.5 billion in Treasury notes (graybacks), and about $500 million of goods impressed from civilians, for a total of about $2.7 billion. The Union seems to have had about $2.4 billion in debt at the end of 1864. I've heard the Union also ended the war with $2.7 billion in public debt.

State debt gets a passing mention in Look Away. At the end of 1864, Alabama had $18 million in debts and $7 million in revenue. Other states are not mentioned.
 

frlmerrin

Banned
Fiver,

I mentioned earlier that it would be hard to calculate Confederate debt after the war. I think you have demonstrated this unintentionally. The debt you quote includes $Conf 1.5 billion in Greybacks, this was fiat currency some of which was only redeemable in the event of Confederate victory. This was not debt just unbacked currency. Neither do I think you are comparing like with like as the USA figure you quoted does not seem to include issued fiat currency.

Does the $Conf 500 million of impressed goods include the railways?
 
Fiver,

I mentioned earlier that it would be hard to calculate Confederate debt after the war. I think you have demonstrated this unintentionally. The debt you quote includes $Conf 1.5 billion in Greybacks, this was fiat currency some of which was only redeemable in the event of Confederate victory. This was not debt just unbacked currency. Neither do I think you are comparing like with like as the USA figure you quoted does not seem to include issued fiat currency.

Does the $Conf 500 million of impressed goods include the railways?

The "graybacks" were treasury notes all of which were redeemable at interest within six months of a peace being signed, so they were most definitely Confederate debt. The $500 million in impressed CSA goods is not broken down by type, but since Look Away was talking about financing the CSA government, it seems obvious that it did not include railroads.
 

frlmerrin

Banned
1 No peace no debt at least on much of the notes
2 They are fiat currency they can be replaced with other fiat currency notes. They are not debt as such. Neither are the fiat currency notes. To treat this a debt is disingenuous in the extreme.
3 It is not 'obvious' that the impressed goods did not include railway debt. As you have not described what the debt is made up of I fail to see how you are able to make any statements about it at all.

Thus removing the specious $Conf1.5 billion in fiat currency from the Confederate debt we get a Confederate debt of $Conf 1.2 billion compared with a Union debt of $USA 2.7 billion also excluding currency. About 1:2 which feels about right.
 
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