At this time in my life I had not seen Europe with its fuss and feathers, and could not draw the comparison which I now can; but I can conscientiously say now, having been under almost every flag in the world, that America (Canada of course, as well, being the greater part of America) is pre-eminently a land of freedom, first, last and always.
Going on to Chicago I remember I sold gold to pay my expenses; one dollar for $2.86 in greenbacks. Think of $2.86 for one of our dollars! Now was the time, I felt, to buy the bonds, and I was fully alive to the opportunity. My father and I, on looking over the situation, concluded we could put $200,000 of our money into United States currency. Now this sum at the premium of $2.86 would have given me, at a jump, $572,000. Yes, but again the 7-30’s and 5-20’s, as the bonds of those days were called, were sold so low and so much depreciated that one dollar of greenbacks would buy three dollars in bonds, or thereabout, as I now remember. Thus my $572,000 would have given me in bonds $1,716,000, which is another jump so big as to almost take one’s breath.
There is yet more to tell, for after the war was done those very same bonds soon sold at an average of thirty per cent. premium. Of course, I am justified in adding this premium (that would amount to $515,800) to my bonds in calculation, which would give me $2,131,800. These are the millions I had in view all the time I was in Grant’s army when looking about to form an opinion.
I never wavered for an instant in my faith, and I knew all the time that the North would conquer, if Louis Napoleon but kept his hands off and did not aid the South.
Of the pluck of the South and their heroic efforts, which only Anglo-Saxons can and will make, it is not for me to speak in this article. Older men, and men educated in military affairs, told me as I met them in Washington, attached to the embassies, that the North must and would win, and that the God of battles would be on the side of the heaviest ordnance. Why I did not buy the bonds it is now necessary for me to tell to complete this tale.
My paternal great-uncle lived in our family home, he having been born in Massachusetts in 1786, and, coming away with my own forefathers from that State to Upper Canada before things got quieted in New England after the war of the Revolution, he had retained a most vivid recollection of every turn of that most unfortunate struggle, as told him at his mother’s knee.
Among the relics which my forefather brought from Massachusetts was a deerskin-covered saddle-bag, with a brass ring in each end to fasten to the horse. This old saddle-bag was octagonal in shape, and was made in London, England, in 1719. It was used as a receptacle for papers from New England, dating mainly before the Revolution, and as far back as 1720. Within this pile of papers in a roll was a large quantity of money, paper money of different denominations, and made at the various periods of the war. First, I remember, were shilling notes, then notes for pounds, and as the war went on, notes for dollars.
From my earliest boyhood I had fingered these notes, and played with them, but never until this year (1864) did I realize that at one time they meant just that much money to my forefather.
To our scheme the paternal uncle listened, and took it all in. Yes, he understood about buying the bonds just as well as I did, and freely admitted the opportunity to be a good one. Then, arousing himself as if from a fright, he asked me to go and get the Continental money, which I quickly did. Fondly he looked it over, and passed the notes between his fingers, soliloquizing to himself. “No, boy,” he said presently; “they didn’t pay these, and they may not pay their bonds now, and better let well enough alone and not touch them.”
My uncle’s decision settled the matter. The bonds were not bought, and thus I lost the chance of becoming a multi-millionaire at a bound, a chance the like of which never may occur again.