Identifier: menofourdayorbio00broc (find matches)
Title: Men of our day, or, Biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statesmen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action : including those who in military, political, business and social life, are the prominent leaders of the time in this country
Year: 1868 (1860s)
Authors: Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893
Subjects: United States -- Biography United States -- History Civil War, 1861-1865 Biography
Publisher: Philadelphia : Zeigler, McCurdy & Co.
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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ant of the sinews of war, the means of paying the troops, ofsupplying rations, clothing, arms, and ammunition. At thiscrisis, when the treasury of the confederation was bankrupt,and there seemed no more room for hope, a Philadelphiabanker, Eobert Morris by name, came forward, and taking uponhis own shoulders the financial burden of the nascent republic,obtained for it, by the pledge of his own credit and private re-sources, the aid it could not otherwise command. To this noble, self-sacrificing patriot, as much perhaps as toany other man of the revolutionary period, not less even thanto Washington himself, do we owe it, that we are not, to thisday, dependencies of the British crown. In our second war of independence, so recently passed, a war which has had no parallel in ancient or modern times, in the extent of the forces brought into the field, or the vast scale of its expenditure, we had at one time drawn fearfully near the vortex of national bankruptcy. Our currency was greatly524
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ENGRAVED By SAMUEL SAREAlK.PHIl.-f JAY COOKE. 525 depreciated, the paper dollar being ai one time worth, in themarket, but about thirty-six cents in coin, and the prices of allgoods of permanent value being inflated to such an extent asto alarm the cautious, and portend speedy ruin. Meantime theexigencies of the war demanded a constantly increasing force inthe field, and the expenditure of the Government, mainly forthe army and navy, was enlarging till it approached three mil-lions of dollars a day. At this juncture, when the ablest financial secretary who evercontrolled the national treasury was almost in despair, anotherPhiladelphia banker, Jay Cooke by name, brought to the aidof the Government his enterprise, financial skill and extensivecredit, and undertook for a pittance which, if he had failed ofcomplete success, would not have been sufiicient to have savedhim from ntter ruin, to negotiate and sell a loan of five hundredmillions of dollars, an amount which would have staggered

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