The brief piece in the January 5, 2014 E-Sylum on the origin of Civil War greenback currency thrust Eldridge G. Spaulding, Congressman from New York, into the your limelight. He left a fabulous numismatic legacy in the form of this lazy deuce that your readers will be certain to drool over. This attractive note from Buffalo is particularly significant because of the penned president’s signature of Eldridge G. Spaulding.

Spaulding, a New York Republican Congressman and member of the House Subcommittee of Ways and Means, was the first in Congress to attempt to introduce national currency legislation on behalf of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, which he did in 1861. Spaulding’s bill died under the weight of opposition from Thaddeus Stevens, Republican from Pennsylvania and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Spaulding then introduced legislation that did pass that authorized the Legal Tender notes (greenbacks) in 1862. He organized the Buffalo bank after leaving Congress. Photo courtesy of Jesse Lipka.