A FOREST FIRE IN NORTHERN WISCONSIN
By John L. Bracklin[1]
I had been running a steamboat on Lake Chetak and Birch Lake in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, during the summer of 1898 and had finished my work September 25. I arrived in Rice Lake with the expectation of having a couple of weeks’ rest before again taking up my duties as foreman of one of Knapp, Stout, and Company’s logging camps for the winter. I had been in town one day, about long enough to get cleaned up, when I went down to the company’s office to draw some money. While I was in the general office some one said: “Your father wants to see you in his office.” I walked into his office and sat down. He had a map showing camp locations and other data spread out on the desk before him, which he studied for a few moments and then turned to me, saying: “John, how soon can you get ready to go to the woods?” This, as you know, could have but one answer, and that was, “Now!” “All right,” he said, “I am somewhat alarmed about this long-continued dry spell and fires might spring up at any moment, and none of the camps or dams in your locality have any fire protection, such as back-firing and water-barrels at hand. Therefore I wish you would pick up a few men and whatever you might need and get up to your camp, make your headquarters there, and look after the camps in that vicinity, namely: Mulvaney’s, Aronson’s, Knutson’s, Max Down’s, Thompson’s, and the old Ahern Camp on Sucker Creek.”
I swallowed the disappointment of a contemplated trip to Minneapolis to see the only girl I ever thought very much of, whom I had not seen for about eight months, and stepping over to the shipping clerk’s desk, I wrote up a list of food supplies and a requisition for a team to move the same, expecting to start the following morning. I went out on the street to pick up some men and came across Lee Miller and Frank Wirth, inseparable pals, who had worked for me the previous winter. I asked them how soon they would be ready to go to the woods, and they said, “Right now.” “All right,” said I, “pack your sacks and be here at six in the morning, and we will load the team and go.” While we were talking, another man came along, Julius Peterson by name, a hunchback, who, notwithstanding his deformity, was considered one of the best sawyers that ever felled a tree. He also was willing to start immediately, so I went over to the hotel and wrote the only girl—who, by the way, has been my wife for the past seventeen years—that I would have to defer that visit for another seven or eight months. I got my clothes packed again, and at six-thirty the following morning we were on our way to my camp at the head of Birch Lake, a distance of about thirty miles.
We arrived at Cedar Lake Dam for dinner and at camp about eight o’clock the night of September 27, 1898. We opened the door of the cook-shanty very cautiously, so as not to disturb a family of skunks who yearly took up their abode under the floors of the camps during the summer months. They did not approve of being disturbed, and from past experiences we decided not to make any unnecessary noise, such as moving tables and heavy boxes along the floors, until such time as they might be more accustomed to our presence. We built a fire in the stove and made some coffee, and after what we called a “store-feed,” consisting of cheese, crackers, and sardines, we spread our blankets upon the floor to sleep as only men of that day could. We arose about five-thirty
on the morning of the twenty-eighth, had another store-breakfast, unloaded the wagon, and started the team back to town. Then the great question confronted us as to who was to do the cooking. The regular cook for the winter, Herman Gottschalk, could not be had for at least two weeks, as he was cooking for the rafting-crews at Reed’s Landing. Frank Wirth finally agreed to a compromise: he was to do the cooking until such time as the first man should kick and then said man was to cook until someone else should kick, to which we all agreed.
Leaving Wirth at the camp to cook up a regular dinner, Miller, Peterson, and I left for Mulvaney’s Camp to see what condition it would be in, if we had the unexpected fire. We arrived there about ten o’clock and opened up the blacksmith shop, got out empty barrels, cooking utensils, and everything that would hold water, and started Miller out to round up a couple of yokes of cattle. He returned in an hour or so with about ten head. We selected two yokes out of the bunch and, hooking them up to a breaking-plow, plowed about a dozen furrows around the camp, after which we turned them loose. They immediately started off in a westernly direction, which you may call animal instinct if you will, for we afterward found that to be the only possible direction they could have taken and evaded the fire, which unbeknown to us was so soon to follow. We sat down and smoked our pipes and joked about the unnecessary precaution of filling the barrels, as at that time it was one of the prettiest autumn days I have ever seen, not a cloud in the sky, not a breeze stirring, no sign of smoke anywhere, and no possible chance, apparently, of there ever being a fire. Nevertheless, we were carrying out instructions and we set to work to fill up the barrels, which took about an hour.
We had just filled the barrels on the roof of the long barns, when Miller, who was on top of one of the barns, called my attention to a cloud of smoke that had suddenly sprung
up on the horizon about five or six miles to the south and west of us. I climbed up on the roof of the barn, where I could get a better view. The wind suddenly arose and within ten minutes it had attained the velocity of a cyclone; what followed happened so quickly it has never as yet been quite clear to me. I can remember the black cloud settling down and in less time than it takes to write this, the fire was upon us—not on the ground as you might imagine, but in the air. The heat became terrific and the first sign of a blaze sprang up in the top of a broken stump about twenty feet in height and a hundred feet from the sleeping-shanty.
I jumped off the roof of the barn, grabbed up a water bucket, Peterson doing the same, and ran for the sleeping-shanty, a distance of about 150 feet. Before we could reach it, it was afire. We threw several buckets of water upon it, but the water might have been kerosene for all the good it did. Seeing it was useless to try to save the sleeping-shanty or the cook-shanty, which were only a few feet apart, we ran back to the barns, thinking to save them. This may sound dubious, but it all happened within twenty minutes of the time we first saw smoke four or five miles away. As quickly as we reached the barn I motioned to Miller to dump the barrels of water which we had placed there; those buildings, if you remember them, were each about sixty feet in length, standing parallel, with a hay shed between, which contained about ten tons of baled hay left over from the previous winter. While Miller ran to the far end of the barn, upsetting the six or seven barrels as he ran, Peterson and I were throwing water on the hay shed. I don’t suppose we had thrown more than ten or twelve buckets when the roof of the barn took fire. As I said before, the fire seemed to be in the very air, for strange as it may seem, the dry grass and leaves around the buildings were not yet burned. In less than a minute the roof was afire from one end to the other. I motioned to Miller to jump off. He did so and ran towards
me. When he got near enough so that I could hear, he yelled: “What in hell will we do now, and which way will we go?”
Then for the first time I realized the danger we were in. A glance around showed only one way open and that was due north towards a wall of virgin green timber, a distance of about 500 yards. The ground between us and the edge of the timber had been logged the previous winter, leaving treetops and brush piled up here and there in great heaps—you know how it would look after being logged. How we got to the edge of the timber I can hardly remember, but in the excitement I still had the empty water-bucket in my hand. We reached the timber to find that the fire had beaten us. Perhaps a burning brand from one of the buildings had dropped just at the edge of the timber among the dry leaves and had burned a strip of ground about 200 feet in width, leaving the ground perfectly bare. Luckily for us the timber was green, with no underbrush to hold the fire, for when we reached there, there was nothing left on the ground but the smouldering ashes of the leaves. We stopped to get our breath, and then it dawned upon us how useless it was to run. I said to Miller, “If we ever get out of this, it will be by staying right here.” He gave me one look, which I shall never forget, as much as to say, “Man, you are crazy,” and again started to run, Peterson following. I then turned and looked back whence we had come. There was a solid wall of fire similar to a great wave, extending as far to each side as one could see and mounting fifty feet in height. It is hard to express just what my feelings were, but I remember that I ceased to be afraid, knowing that our time had come, there being not a possible chance to come out alive. The main body of the fire by that time had reached a point about where the camps had stood. I was almost tempted to start to run, when I turned to find Miller and Peterson again at my side. They had run only a short distance into the tail end of the advance fire and had come back. I remember Miller lying on
his face on the ground with his head stuck into a hole that he had dug out with his hands. The ground at the roots of the trees was damp, and the only way we could breathe was by lying on the ground, for when we stood up the heat and smoke were so thick we could not breathe.
It is interesting to hear people relate their experiences and close encounters with death. After hearing them, I can judge just how close they really have been to real death. For as I see it, it has four stages—first, the excitement; then fear; then resolution; then death itself. At about this time we had reached the point of resolve; Miller and Peterson were on their knees praying, while as for myself, nothwithstanding I have lived a somewhat better life since, I concluded that as I had never asked God for anything prior to that, it was a very poor time to start in now that I was about to die. So I concluded to go just as I was, believing, as I still do, that a death-bed confession would avail me nothing. You can best realize our position when I tell you that we were never over four feet apart for at least four hours and during that period there was not one word exchanged among us. At the end of that time I was standing leaning up against a tree. Other trees were falling all around us, and as I stood there wishing one might fall on me and end it all, it started to rain. It must have poured, for before I realized what had happened I was wet to the skin. That brought me back to my senses and I realized that I was alive and that I still wanted to live. I ran a short distance and it came to me like a flash that I was going the wrong way to get out. I turned and ran back, and as I ran, stumbled over Peterson, who was still on his knees. The first word to break the dull silence of those hours was spoken then, when he said, “What in hell are you trying to do?” We made our way out to the old tote road, and after walking about a mile west, got out of the range of the fire.
We made our way back to camp to find Wirth all excited. His greeting was, “Gee, you ought to have been here this afternoon, for everything at the dam”—meaning Birch Lake dam—“has burned, camps and all, for I could see the hay stacks as they would catch fire and the flames shoot up in the air hundreds of feet.” Then the thought flashed upon me: The dam, suppose it should burn out. With an eleven-foot head of water on Birch Lake and Big Chetak, what would happen to the country below? Miller and Peterson being all in, I asked Wirth if he would go with me and try to make the dam. The rain had lasted only about half an hour and the fire, which had again got under way, but with no wind, was fortunately not burning as furiously as earlier in the day. The road to the dam took us back into the edge of the fire, but on making several detours we reached the dam to find both wings afire. Pete Null, and four or five men who had been stationed there at the Birch Lake Camp, were making a desperate fight to save the dam, but they were almost played out, having fought in vain all afternoon to save the camps.
One glance and I saw what to do. Wirth and I picked up a couple of peavies, and climbing down to the apron, ripped up four or five planks and stuck them on end down under the bed plates, or stringers, leaving them standing pointing up stream at an angle of forty-five degrees. We then climbed back upon the dam and raised the gate four or five inches. When the current struck those planks it threw a spray of water all over both wings of the dam and inside of ten minutes we had the fire completely out.
MAP PREPARED BY MR. BRACKLIN TO ILLUSTRATE HIS NARRATIVE
We all sat down and rested for about half an hour; then Wirth and I took a boat and rowed back to camp, a distance of about two miles. When we reached there, about midnight, the rain set in and it rained until noon the following day. Miller and Peterson were still unable to move around much, as their faces and hands were badly blistered and their
eyes pained them terribly. As for myself, aside from being unable to speak above a whisper, I was in pretty good shape, and knowing it would only be a couple of days until father, as soon as he could reach us, would be there to look the situation over—plans for the coming winter of logging would have to be changed to include all the timber that had been burned, for in that country a tree though slightly burned would be worm-eaten inside of a year unless cut—I started out with Wirth the next morning to find, if we could, just how far the fire had extended east and west and to look up a site for a camp to replace the Mulvaney Camp which had burned. We found that the fire had taken a course similar to that of a cyclone, about three miles in width and about twenty miles in length, extending from a point four miles south and west of Cedar Lake Dam, crossing the narrows between Cedar Lake and Hemlock up the east shore of Cedar Lake to a point about opposite Stout’s Island, and then north to the shores of Big Chetak just west of the Aronson Camp in Section 4—in all an area of about seventeen miles in length and two to four miles in width.
Father and L. S. Tainter arrived the next day and after looking over the site for the new camp we came back to the scene of our experience of a few days before. We had about reached the point when father turned to me saying, “John, did I understand you to say you were here during this fire?” I answered “Yes.” He looked at me for a moment with, you will remember, that peculiar squint of his and then he said, “John, you lie, for no man could have been here when this fire passed and lived to tell the tale.” Nevertheless we were there, and are still living.
[1] The author of this narrative is a native of Rice Lake, Wisconsin. His father, James Bracklin, was for over thirty years superintendent of logging and log-driving for the Knapp, Stout, and Company lumbering corporation. Under his tutelage the son received his training for his life-calling of woodsman and lumberman. The present narrative was prepared in the form of a letter to Mr. Henry E. Knapp of Menomonie, to whom we are indebted for the opportunity to put it into print.
BANKERS’ AID IN 1861-62[2]
By Louise P. Kellogg
When the news of the firing upon Fort Sumter aroused the North, all eyes were turned upon New York, not only as the monetary center of the country, but as a city most closely allied in financial interests with the South. The moneyed men of that city responded to the country’s danger. Upon the stock exchange cheers were given for Major Anderson, and April 17, 1861, resolutions were passed pledging the loyalty of the institution to the government. Anderson and his command from Fort Sumter reached New York on April 18, and on Saturday, April 20, a monster mass-meeting was held in Union Square, where five speaker’s stands had been erected. The resolutions adopted at this meeting not only pledged the loyalty of the city, but provided for a Union Defense Committee, comprising thirty of the most prominent financiers and bankers headed by General John A. Dix, recently secretary of the treasury under President Buchanan. The mayor and the comptroller of the city were ex-officio members of this committee. The city council appropriated $1,000,000 for the immediate needs of the New York troops, and raised the funds by the sale of Union Defense bonds. The Committee of Union Defense acted ex-officio as a federal agent, attending to the equipment and dispatching of regiments, purchasing steamers for transportation, feeding and sheltering the troops, without waiting for the action of the federal authorities. At one time three members of the committee were entrusted with $2,000,000 federal money without security or compensation. By these means the Seventh New York
Regiment was dispatched for the protection of Washington, and other troops were moved toward the front. The Union Defense Committee was maintained for about one year. Its later duties were concerned with the care of funds raised for the benefit of the volunteers and their families. It collected and disbursed for this purpose about $1,000,000.
Meanwhile the city banks were loyally endeavoring to prevent a financial crisis. April 25, 1861 they determined to hold all their specie as a common fund, this being a precautionary measure to sustain public confidence. There were in New York City fifty-four banks with a capital of $69,907,000. Much of their paper was held in the southern states, where debts to northern holders were quickly repudiated. Nevertheless, in the entire state of New York only five banks suspended during 1861, and none of these in New York City.
Following the example of New York, the banks of Boston and Philadelphia pooled all their cash reserves. The Boston banks, of which there were forty-two, with a capital of $38,231,000, and which had a clearing-house system, aided in preventing an immediate panic.
Western banks were less well prepared to meet the emergency. Most of them held southern state bonds as the basis of their currency system. During 1861 bank after bank went to the wall, and the notes of others depreciated with startling rapidity.
All the banks of that period were either state banks or private banking concerns. The national banking-system did not come into being until 1863. The first (though indirect) aid furnished by the banks in the national crisis of 1861 was the preservation of their own integrity, and therewith the entire credit system of the North, from collapse. This was accomplished through the instrumentality of the banks of the three chief cities of the East—New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. In the West, a few banks in Cincinnati, Chicago,
and Milwaukee were strong enough to support the situation, even while the larger part of the western banks went to the wall.
The direct aid furnished by the banks and bankers of the country to the state and federal governments during the early years of the Civil War may be classified under the three heads of contributions, loans, and agencies.
CONTRIBUTIONS
The call for troops awoke a patriotic fervor in many hearts, which led to an offering of money as well as of men. In this outpouring of gifts the bankers took their part, some giving as individuals, many in the name of their institutions. No complete record of these patriotic contributions is available. Harper’s Weekly of May 25, 1861, estimated that the individual gifts of more than $1,000 from counties, cities, societies, corporations, and other organizations totaled $27,000,000.
LOANS
The first necessity was that of temporary loans for both the state and federal governments.
Temporary loans to states. Patriotic impulse prompted the immediate offering of loans by the banks. In Massachusetts the bankers of Boston tendered the state government a loan up to ten per cent of their combined capital. In Illinois the banks of Springfield offered the state $100,000 on the day Lincoln called for troops. This was supplemented by the Chicago banks’ tender of $500,000. Throughout the early days of the war the banks in all localities were called upon for loans on the credit of the state. These were funded at seven per cent, then the usual interest for such transactions.
Temporary loans to the federal government. The treasury of the United States was in a desperate condition at the outbreak of the Civil War. Lacking resources even for its daily needs, it was totally unprepared for the great
strain immediately placed upon it. Secretary Chase did not have recourse to the bankers, however, until after the battle of Bull Run in July had proved that the war was not to be an affair of “three months.”
On the day that the news of the defeat at Bull Run reached Philadelphia, a young banker recently removed to that city from Ohio, an ardent partisan of Secretary Chase, drew up a paper offering to advance to the Secretary of the Treasury specified sums for sixty days at six per cent interest, returnable in specie or interest-bearing treasury notes. With this proposal he visited the principal banks and financial houses in his city, and raised for immediate government needs nearly $2,000,000 in one day. Chase was interested and grateful, and the fortunes of Jay Cooke, the young banker, were made from that day.
Early in 1862, when the government’s daily needs were increasing enormously, John J. Cisco, assistant treasurer of the sub-treasury at New York, made arrangements for a loan from the city banks of their temporarily idle funds. These were received on deposit for thirty days, subject to withdrawal thereafter on ten days’ notice. At first Cisco by this means secured much specie at four per cent; later, five and six per cent were paid for these advances. This money was largely used for the payment of the interest on the public debt. One banker in New York, it is said, became uneasy after lending the sub-treasury $1,000,000, and demanded its return. Cisco told him to send his carts for it immediately. The next day his faith in the government was restored and he concluded to leave his reserve with the sub-treasurer.
An instance of immediate aid to the government’s foreign diplomats is related in the biography of the late J. Pierpont Morgan. Morgan was in London on business for his house at a time when Charles Francis Adams was endeavoring to prove to the English government that certain vessels fitting in British ports were intended for Confederate privateers.
The officials were slow to accept Adams’ proofs, and he was much alarmed lest the commerce-destroyers should get to sea before he had succeeded in having an embargo placed on their departure. The British authorities finally agreed to detain the ships on condition that Adams should deposit £1,000,000 guarantee to indemnify the government should the owners not prove to be Confederates. Adams was in a dilemma: he could not well refuse such a proposition, but long before he could receive the money from America the cruisers would be at sea. He tried to borrow on his personal credit from London bankers, only to be rebuffed. Young Morgan heard of the situation, sought the ambassador, and promised to deliver $5,000,000 in gold into his hands in two days, asking only his personal receipt in return, while stipulating absolute secrecy concerning his patriotic action. In this wise two of the commerce-destroyers were detained in port, and the integrity of the American ambassador was vindicated.
Secured, or long-time, loans to states. Upon the news of the firing on Fort Sumter and the subsequent call for troops every northern legislature then in session appropriated a fund for war purposes. Indiana, for example, voted $500,000 for arms and equipment, and $100,000 for a contingent fund. Connecticut made an issue of $800,000 of war bonds. These funds were raised in various ways. In Massachusetts and Connecticut they were offered for popular subscription and sold at par. The western states placed their bonds on the New York stock market, where in many cases they sold at a considerable discount. Where the state’s credit was poor, and its banking-system insecure, the bonds could not be placed, and were recalled after being offered. Such was the case with Iowa and Wisconsin. Ohio recalled its bonds, after they had been advertised in New York, when it was learned that the federal government assumed all war expenses, and would refund these to the states.
Wisconsin adopted an ingenious plan, suggested to the State Bankers’ Association by Alexander Mitchell. The state banks had deposited with the state comptroller securities for their currency issues. The larger proportion of these securities was made up of the bonds of the southern or border states. Those of the secession states were considered worthless, while those of Missouri, large holdings of which were in Wisconsin, declined rapidly. The comptroller, as required by law, made assessments upon the state banks, which they found it difficult to meet. Mitchell proposed that the banks should purchase the bonds of the state war fund at par, and that the comptroller should accept them for the assessments. In this wise the credit of the state was improved and the currency secured. The details of the arrangement were that the banks took $800,000 of the war-fund bonds, seventy per cent of which was paid at once, three-fifths in specie and two-fifths in sound currency. The remaining thirty per cent was to be met in fifteen annual installments. The adoption of this expedient furnished the state with ready money, placed the banking currency on a sound foundation, and restored confidence to the community. Wisconsin’s banks resumed specie payments at the date fixed by law, December 1, 1861, and maintained them for some time after the New York banks had suspended such payments.
On the basis of these war-fund appropriations state agents flocked to New York to arrange for the purchase of war material. Arms and ammunition had to be largely secured from Europe. The New York banks arranged these transactions, and furnished exchange and information. The competition between the several state agents and those of the federal government raised prices inordinately. This was remedied when the federal government assumed full responsibility for all equipment.
The federal loans. The most important function of the banks was the aid they furnished the Secretary of the
Treasury in floating the great federal loans that were required by the war necessities. The special session of Congress which met in July, 1861, appropriated $250,000,000 for the immediate needs of the government, leaving large latitude with the Secretary of the Treasury as to the method by which this amount was to be raised.
The defeat at Bull Run put a very serious strain on the credit of the United States, and the forced sale of securities in a foreign market would have been disastrous to the future conduct of the war. In the dilemma in which he was placed, Secretary Chase paid a visit to New York, where Cisco, the assistant treasurer, invited the prominent financial authorities to meet him for consultation. Chase frankly stated the serious nature of the situation, and requested assistance and advice. From the standpoint of policy this was a wise measure, since previous to this time the New York bankers had held somewhat aloof from the operations of the federal treasury. Their prompt support at this crisis is to their perpetual credit, for although they largely profited in the end by this government connection, at the time of the operation the transactions were of daring boldness. The banks realized that without a firm government their own operations were imperiled, and thus they risked their all to support the government in its crisis.
At the first conference George E. Coe, president of the Exchange Bank, proposed an association to subscribe for the government loan. A committee appointed to develop a plan reported on August 15 for thirty-nine New York banks. Representatives from Boston and Philadelphia were likewise present, and the loan was apportioned among the three cities in accordance with the bank capital of each; that is, seventy per cent was to come from New York, twenty per cent from Boston, and ten per cent from Philadelphia. The association thus formed agreed to take immediately $50,000,000 of treasury bonds payable in three years with interest at seven and three-tenths per cent. This rate, representing a payment of
two cents a day on each one hundred dollars loaned, had been adopted by Secretary Chase in the hope of popularizing the bonds with the people. The banks composing the association were to pay over to the sub-treasuries of the three cities in specie ten per cent of the amount subscribed; the remainder was to be placed to the credit of the United States upon the books of the subscribing institutions. Meanwhile the bonds were to be offered to the people, both by the banks and the sub-treasurers, and no other United States securities were to be sold, except in Europe, while these subscriptions were being solicited. The associated banks also agreed to float a similar loan of $50,000,000 in October—if it had not by that time been taken by popular subscription—and another $50,000,000 in December.
This was the largest financial operation that had ever been attempted in the United States. Its successful accomplishment at that time was of the greatest possible value in maintaining public confidence, and in uniting the fortunes of the financiers with those of the federal government. It was a tribute to the organizing ability as well as to the patriotism of the founders of the bank association. The capital of the united banks was but $120,000,000, and their coin assets only $63,000,000. Their subscription to $150,000,000 of government securities was thus an act of faith.
In practice this agreement did not work out as the bankers had hoped. Chase refused to suspend the sub-treasury act, though authorized to do so by Congress, in order that the banks might pay the government’s creditors in clearing-house certificates; thus the specie began draining away from the banks into the sub-treasuries. The Secretary also began the issue of demand notes on the treasury in considerable amounts. Moreover, the public sales were less than had been anticipated. The bankers were accused of attempting to dictate to the government concerning the conduct of the war. The inevitable
result of all this friction was the suspension of specie payments by the New York banks December 30, 1861.
With the immense strain upon the government’s resources, the catastrophe of suspension would no doubt have occurred sooner or later; but financial historians believe that had Secretary Chase been more willing to accept the bankers’ propositions, had he coöperated with them more fully, the financing of the Civil War might have wrought less damage in the business world than it did.
AGENCIES
During the sale of the $150,000,000 bond issue Secretary Chase appointed a large number of agents in every part of the United States to secure the popular subscriptions. Most of these were presidents of local banks. The agents were allowed a commission of one-fifth of one per cent on the first $100,000, and one-eighth on later amounts. One hundred and fifty dollars was allowed for advertising purposes. A traveling agent went through the West, arranging for local agencies and assisting in advertising. It was proposed to allow the country bankers a larger commission with a view to stimulating wide sales, but this proposal the Secretary of the Treasury declined to adopt.
The western agents were not very successful in promoting this loan. Jay Cooke, of Philadelphia, sold more than one-fourth of all the bonds issued to the agents; but, in order to do so, spent more than the amount of his commission in advertising.
Secretary Chase became much interested in the measures adopted by this Philadelphia banker. As more and more pressure was put upon him for funds, he often consulted with Cooke, and frequently permitted the latter to buy United States securities to buoy up a falling market. On October 23, 1862 Chase appointed Jay Cooke sole agent for the conversion of legal tender treasury notes into the $500,000,000
six per cent five-twenty bonds authorized by Act of Congress February 25, 1862. By advertising on a larger scale than had hitherto been known, and by employment of 2,500 sub-agents, mostly bank presidents, in every part of the North, Jay Cooke accomplished his enormous task, the loan being finally over-subscribed by $11,000,000. His commission was three-eighths of one per cent on the first $100,000,000, of which one-eighth went to the sub-agent, and one-eighth to advertising and to placating the public press. The loan was sold in small denominations to every class of the population. Cooke patriotically resisted all proposals to sell large blocks of the bonds to European holders. He believed a bond issue held by the people was the safest means of financing and of prosecuting the war. He made the loan a great democratic institution. It is not too much to say that his success in selling this $500,000,000 bond issue “dispirited the South, gave Europe … useful evidence of the determined courage and material wealth of the northern people, and was a factor of vast importance in deciding the fate of the Union.”
[2] This article was originally prepared as a memorandum for the information of the Wisconsin State Council of Defense, in response to the request of Charles McCarthy, secretary of the Council.
HARVEY REID
[From a photograph taken in 1910]