Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Greenback Raid


If I had lived on this day in 1864, I would have joined Mosby's Rangers. People had creative ways of making money during the Civil War. Merchants traded with the enemy, Union soldiers and officers plundered cotton plantations and Northern factory owners sold shoddy goods. However, Mosby and his men carried out their Greenback Raid.
On this day, Mosby's Rangers tore out the tracks to a railway at a site between northwestern and West Virginia. The next train to arrive derailed. The Confederates were overjoyed when they realized that they had struck the train carrying the wages of Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah. They absconded with $173,000 and burned the train.
I am going by the date listed in the Civil War Interactive. Some list October 14th as the date of the raid, but I'll go by the Interactive date. I stand corrected if mistaken.
If only my ancestors had come to America during the Civil War. They could have joined the Rangers and we would have been Old Money by now.

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