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Souvenir Given to Emannuel F. Snipe by Jefferson Davis, on 1859 silver dollar

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in Civil War & Lincoln Medals (currently in collection)

1865. Silver. Diameter 37mm, 23.1 grams. Emannuel Snipe was Jefferson Davis' bodyguard. This specimen and the following 3 other engraved silver coins were all quite obviously hand-engraved by the same artisan on April 25 & 26th, 1865 at Greensboro, North Carolina, the scene of a massive Confederate surrender to the Union. Why the 8 reales coins? The Confederate Treasury, when dissolved by the Union at surrender , consisted almost exclusively of Mexican silver coinage (note the considerable wear of the 1859 US silver dollar in just a few brief 6 yrs). It was this Confederate Treasury that was paid out to the discharged, dispirited and bedraggled South's defeated soldiers and officers as they laid down their arms and returned home from the War. Evidently, just outside the surrender, a "Sutler" of sorts was engraving the distributed coins as War souvenirs or remembrances for, perhaps, 25 or 50 cents apiece. All of these 4 pieces were acquired over years from different sources. John J. Ford had only one piece in his coll'n -the Snipe piece.

Item record created Feb. 15, 2009.
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item record in VRA Core 4.0