When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Five Original Confederate States $4 Interest Coupons — Loan of August 19, 1861
Offered here is a researched group of five original $4 semiannual interest coupons from $100 Confederate States of America bonds issued under the Loan of August 19, 1861.
Each coupon represents six months of interest on a $100 bond at an 8% annual rate.
The group includes:
• Bond No. 155 — Interest due July 1, 1862 — signed A. Gilliam
• Bond No. 400 — Interest due January 1, 1866 — signer appears to be S. Johnson
• Bond No. 661 — Interest due January 1, 1866 — signed S. Johnson
• Bond No. 643 — Interest due January 1, 1868 — signed S. Johnson
• Bond No. 833 — Interest due January 1, 1869 — signed S. Johnson
Historical significance
This group provides an unusually clear illustration of Confederate wartime borrowing and the collapse of Confederate sovereign credit.
The July 1, 1862 coupon matured while the Confederate government still existed and was actively administering its Treasury.
The coupons dated 1866, 1868 and 1869 were contractual future-interest obligations that were scheduled to mature after the Confederacy had ceased to exist.
Together, the five pieces form a compact chronological record of Confederate funded debt extending from the Civil War into the postwar period.
Signer research
A. Gilliam and S. Johnson are both documented names associated with Confederate bond-coupon signing. The No. 400 signature is less clear than the others and is therefore described conservatively as appearing to be S. Johnson.
