Like-new Confederate cash found in Alabama courthouse

By: Associated Press | Opelika Auburn News
Published: June 23, 2009

DECATUR, Ala. (AP) — No one is sure how $493 in uncirculated Confederate currency wound up in a north Alabama courthouse file, where it apparently has been stashed since the 1860s, but the loot could be linked to slavery.

It was found in a Morgan County court file containing documents about the estate of slave owner Riley S. Davis, who died without a will in 1860, the year before the Civil War began. The bills, in near mint condition, turned up earlier this year after being discovered a decade ago and then forgotten.

Records on the money were unclear, but The Decatur Daily reported Monday that Morgan County archivist John Allison may have solved the mystery.

A document filed in chancery court almost a month after the Civil War ended in 1865 gave an itemized list of people hiring slaves who had belonged to Davis, along with the amount of money that was due to his estate.

The tally showed the file was $493 short, Allison said. He speculated that the clerk made up the difference with Confederate cash that was worthless because the war was either over or near its end.

"I think he took this new money, which is public money, and added it to the estate file to balance the books," Allison said. "That's the only logical conclusion that makes sense."

The Confederate bills had been spotted nearly 10 years earlier by a volunteer looking through old court documents, but were forgotten until her 2005 death.

"I heard rumors that there was a large amount of Confederate cash around here, and we were cleaning out our main vault and found it ... two or three months ago," he said.

The like-new condition of the cash suggested it came to the local court system directly from the Confederate Congress. The bills are in $1, $5, $10 and $50 denominations, and some had consecutive serial numbers.

"We're just planning on keeping them here. I'm fairly confident it's public money," he said. "We've discussed doing some kind of display."

Davis owned 16 slaves who were hired out after his death to settle debts, Allison said. They included a 12-year-old girl named Mary and a couple with seven children.