MORE ON THE NEW ORLEANS MINT

For anyone who’s interested in a blow-by-blow description of some of the events in New Orleans in early 1861, I highly recommend Secretary Dix’s report to Congress on the seizure of the New Orleans Mint (and the collection of import duties and the fate of the revenue cutters), which was printed as House Executive Document No. 72, 36th Congress, 2nd Session and is available via Google Books.

The letter that supplied the information that appeared in last week’s issue of The E-Sylum is included in the Document, as Attachment A.

Some additional information on the events of the period is available in the Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume I, which is also available via Google Books. The section that deals with early 1861 begins on page 362.

It is fortunate for future coin collectors that Director Snowden’s recommendation to repudiate all of the 1861 coinage from New Orleans was not adopted.

Perhaps it wasn’t adopted because an attempt to discredit the coinage from one mint might have caused America’s commercial partners to question the 1861 coinage from the other American mints or, even, past coinage from the New Orleans Mint and, therefore, the repudiation might have ended up causing more difficulties than it was intended to solve.

Also, it’s interesting to note that James Pollock, who succeeded James Snowden as Mint Director, took a less adversarial position on the New Orleans coinage in his Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1861 (dated October 10, 1861) and a somewhat milder tone in his report for Fiscal 1862 (dated October 27, 1862).

To read the complete article, see:
House Executive Document No. 72

To read the complete article, see:
MEMOIRS OF JOHN ADAMS DIX

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
THE NEW ORLEANS MINT UNDER SOUTHERN FLAGS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n40a14.html)

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