Q. David Bowers
Production of the Mints
The number of pieces here coined is almost incredible. During the year 1860 there were coined 25,164,467 pieces, amounting in value to $22,781,325.50. Among these were 21,466,000 cents. During the first five months of 1861 there have been coined 12,248,037 pieces, in value $31,123,206. The gold demand has been entirely for double eagles, 1,461,506 having been coined. The present interruption of foreign importations has caused a great influx of gold, to be coined for home use.
Since the commencement of the Mint in 1793 there has not been as much value coined in any year (save in 1851), as during the first five months in 1861. The smallest coinage was that of 1815, when only 69,869 pieces were struck, in value $16,385.50. The greatest coinage in value, before 1861, was in 1851, when 24,985,716 pieces, including 147,672 half cents, and in value $49,258,058.43 were struck. The largest number of pieces were coined in 1853, amounting to 69,770,961. The whole amount of coinage at the Philadelphia Mint, up to June 1860, is 671,904,388 pieces, of a value of $423,426,504.24. The coinage of the branch Mints will add $227,803,096 to this value. Very possibly much of this has been coined over two or three times, our specie having been sent to Europe and there melted and coined; then perhaps returned here in shape of sovereigns, to be reconverted into eagles.
There is a melancholy pleasure in seeing these large figures of unrealized, if not untold wealth; and it seems strange that, with such a vast amount in the world, it is so difficult to collect a few paltry thousands.
Counting and Bagging
After being stamped the coins are taken to the chief coiner's room, and placed on a long table-the double eagles in piles of 10 each. It will be remembered that, in the Adjusting Room a difference of one half a grain was made in the weight of some of the double eagles. The light and heavy ones are kept separate in coining, and, when delivered over to the treasurer, they are mixed together in such proportions as to give him full weight in every delivery. By law the deviation from the standard weight, in delivering to him, must not exceed three pennyweights in one thousand double eagles.
The gold coins-as small as quarter eagles being counted, and weighed to verify the count-are put up in bags of $5,000 each. The $3 pieces are put up in bags of $3,000, and $1 pieces in $1,000 bags. The silver pieces, and sometimes small gold, are counted on a very ingenious contrivance called a "counting-board," somewhat resembling a common washboard. They are all subsequently weighed, however, to verify the correctness of the counting.
For the various duties of the Mint there are about 200 persons employed as clerks, workmen, etc.-say 140 and 60 women-the number depending, of course, upon the amount of work to be done.
A Tribute to Franklin Peale
We cannot conclude without a tribute to the skill and genius of Mr. Franklin Peale, brother to the late Rembrandt Peale. In 1833 he was appointed assistant assayer, and ordered to spend two years in examining the European mints, which he did, returning in 1835 laden with plans of improvements much needed in our then very imperfect Mint.
In 1836 he was appointed melter and refiner; and while performing those duties introduced the beautiful process, described in the last number of the [Harper's] magazine, of precipitating chloride of silver by means of common salt-a much quicker and cheaper process than the old one, requiring the use of copper. He is not the discoverer of this method, but the first to apply it to a practical use on a large scale.
In 1838 [sic; actually 1839] Mr. Peale was appointed chief coiner, and we have seen traces of his skill in the various machines employed. It is safe for the visitor to ascribe to his ingenuity-either in design, improvement, or construction-almost any machinery in the Mint which is finished, complete, or compact. In 1854 Mr. Peale was removed by the president. (Franklin Peale was discharged from the Mint because of a number of complaints concerning his activities, -including the use of Mint facilities to run his extensive and lucrative private business of making medals. He petitioned Congress for $30,000 compensation for the Improvements he had made at the Mint over a long period of years, but payment was never received. Taxay, in The U.S. Mint and Coinage, addresses the Peale situation in detail.)
This removal was certainly unfortunate, as mainly to the efforts of Mr. Peale America is indebted for the finest mint in the world. An attache of the Royal Mint, London, recently visited ours at Philadelphia. As he was leaving, he remarked to the coiner, "When you come to London, I beg you not to visit our mint. You are a hundred years in advance of us."
The Year 1861 in History
Following South Carolina's lead, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina seceded from the Union. Delegates from six of these states met in Montgomery, Alabama on February 4th to form the government of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was named president on a provisional basis; in October a general election confirmed the choice. The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 with the bombardment of federal Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina harbor.
Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural address on March 4, 1861 commented on secession: "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or the revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."
On-March 4, the United States Army was comprised of 13,024 officers and men. Lincoln initially called for 75,000 militia for" three months, April 15, 1861. The first three years' volunteers, to the tune of 42,034, were called into service, along with 22,714 regular Army enlisted men, and 18,000 soldiers for blockade service, by proclamation of May 3, 1861. By July there were 30,000 new soldiers in the Washington area under the command of General Winfield Scott, of Mexican War fame. The first Battle of Bull Run ended in defeat for the Union. After other losses, Lincoln appointed General George B. McClellan commander of all Union forces; one of Lincoln's worst errors.
The "Trent affair" was precipitated on November 8th when the Union ship U.S.S. SanJacinto halted the British mail ship S.S. Trent and forcibly removed two former United States senators who were en route to England and France as emissaries of the Confederate government. In England, passions arose against the Union, and war was averted only when Secretary of State William H. Seward released Mason and Slidell early in 1862. The Gatling gun was invented and made it possible to fire hundreds of rounds per minute. The weapon would not be used in the Civil War until 1864.
In the meantime, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a" free state on January 29th. On February 28, Colorado Territory was formed, followed by Dakota Territory and Nevada Territory on March 2.
On August 5th Congress levied the first general income tax, amounting to 3% on incomes over $800 per year.
The public became jittery when it was uncertain whether the Union would be victorious, and they began hoarding coins. On December 30, 1861 banks suspended the payment of gold coins. This had little effect on the typical citizen, but was important to banks and commercial entities. Confidence in the United States government's fiscal policies began to erode rapidly.
Europe had another of its periodic droughts, and relief was secured by the export of 50 million bushels of wheat, a sharp rise from 31 million the year before.
At the start of the year, the director of the Mint was James Ross Snowden, who served from June 1853 to April 1861. Beginning in May 1861 and continuing through September 1866, James Pollock was director. Anthony C. Paquet, engraver at the Mint, produced a new reverse die, with tall letters, intended for use in making business strike double eagles. However, it did not prove feasible and was not used for general circulation, except for a limited coinage at San Francisco produced before the director's orders arrived countermanding the use of the dies.
The Dahlonega, Charlotte, and New Orleans mints fell into Confederate hands. At Charlotte, the C.S.A. coined a few hundred half eagles from worn Union dies; at Dahlonega, possibly as many as a thousand 1861-D gold dollars were made from unused Union dies. Following these ephemeral coinages, both mints closed, apparently from lack of a source of new dies, never again to reopen for coinage. The New Orleans Mint was operated for a brief time by the state of Louisiana and, later in 1861, the Confederacy. During this time a pattern reverse die for a Confederate States of America half dollar was made, and four coins were struck from it, using a regular U.S. government Liberty Seated obverse die. Meanwhile, Bailey & Co., Philadelphia jewelers, transmitted to Robert Lovett, Jr., a commission to coin C.S.A. copper-nickel cents. Lovett made dies and struck a dozen in copper-nickel, about the size of the Union cents, but became terrified that if he furnished the C.S.A. with quantities of them, he would risk trial and execution for treason.