I've been reading up a bit about the Civil War in the US. It wasn't actually that long ago, and there's many interesting accounts. And now since I understand money more, those sections interest me. Here's a few excerpts from the book The War-time Journal of a Georgia Girl by Eliza Frances Andrews
Currency becoming worthless
The country seems to have pretty well recovered from the effects of Sherman’s march, so far as appearances go; the fields are tilled and crops growing, but people are still short of provisions, and nobody wants to take Confederate money. The rumors about Lee’s surrender, together with the panicky state of affairs at home, have sent our depreciated currency rolling down hill with accelerated velocity.
The pinch of want is making itself felt more severely every day, and we haven’t the thought that we are suffering for our country that buoyed us up during the war. Men with thousands of Confederate money in their pockets cannot buy a pin. Father has a little specie which he was prudent enough to lay aside at the beginning of the war, but he has given a good deal of it to the boys at different times, when they were hard up, and the little that is left will have to be spent with the greatest care, to feed our family. I could not even pay postage on a letter if it were necessary to write one.
Fred and Arch had to walk, the wretched team being hardly able to carry Mett and me and the trunks. We traveled at the rate of about two miles an hour and a cost of one hundred dollars a mile. The day was intensely hot, and the dust stifling. I tried to relieve the poor mules by walking up some of the worst hills, but the blazing sun got the better of my humanity and I crawled into the wagon again.
Alternatives to government currency
A number of paroled men came into our grove where they sat under the trees to empty the cartridges they had seized. Confederate money is of no more use now than so much waste paper, but by filling their canteens with powder they can trade it off along the road for provisions. They scattered lead and cartridges all over the ground. Marshall went out after they left and picked up enough to last him for years. The balls do not fit his gun, but he can remold them and draw the powder out of the cartridges to shoot with. I am uneasy at having so much explosive material in the house, especially when I consider the careless manner in which we have to live.
They have no money, but each was provided with a card of buttons with which they count on buying a meal or two on the way. Cousin Liza added to their store a paper of pins and Cora another card of buttons. We laughed very much at this new kind of currency.