Greenback (one-dollar United States note)
1 August 1862 (as printed) ・ paper ・ 19th century ・ The United States government
The words 'ACT OF JULY 11TH 1862', and the portrait of Chase. The back is green all over — the origin of the name greenback. Issued in 1862 under the Legal Tender Act, it is a government note with no backing in gold: a United States note. This piece is a one-dollar note dated 1 August 1862 (catalogue number Fr.16c). Federal paper money, on which the Constitution had been silent, appeared for the first time in eighty years since the Continental notes, faced with the plain fact of paying for the Civil War. The paper fell against gold and rose and sank with the fortunes of the war. The birth of the nation's paper, and the first page of its trial.