The Lost Currency of a Civil War Tragedy
A $10 Confederate note, exchanged for a canteen of water amidst the chaos of the Battle of Cedar Creek, surfaced in Seattle sixteen years later.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A short time since an item appeared in the DISPATCH concerning the finding of a Confederate note of the value of $10. A gentleman named George Whitaker now writes to the Olympia Transcript from Snohomish City, saying: 'In your issue of Feb. 9th, I find the following: A man on the streets of Seattle the other day, picked up a $10 Confederate note. This note, Mr. Editor, has a history. I have carried that note in my pocket-book for 16 years. Sixteen years ago, when the battle of Cedar Creek, in the Shenandoah Valley, was raging, and Sheridan’s army was being driven out of its works by Early’s troops, a Confederate soldier gave me the note for a canteen of water, he being an old acquaintance of mine before the war. I have carried the note for 16 years, and lost it in Seattle.' The note is still in our possession, and Mr. Whitaker can have the same on application.
“Sixteen years ago, when the battle of Cedar Creek... was raging... a Confederate soldier gave me the note for a canteen of water.”
This story highlights the lingering, tactile reality of the American Civil War on the Pacific frontier, where veterans from both sides settled into new lives in Washington Territory. Just as today’s local papers often report on forgotten artifacts surfacing in the soil or in attics, this note served as a physical tether between the distant, violent past of the East and the rapidly developing streets of 1878 Seattle.
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