Confederate States of America $5 bank note. Richmond, Virginia, 17 February 1864. Series 4, C No. 38233. 

Engraved in black and red with a portrait of Confederate Secretary of the Treasury Christopher G. Memminger. Verso is printed in blue and features an 8-stanza patriotic poem by Confederate Major Sidney Alroy Jonas inscribed in a fine and exacting hand. 

Sidney Alroy Jones (1838-1915) enlisted at the outbreak of war into Company I of the 11th Mississippi Infantry and was promoted continuously, up to the rank of Major. At the close of the war, he was serving on General Stephen D. Lee's staff and went to Richmond in hopes of finding a way back to Mississippi. Though broke, he was given lodging at the Powhatan Jones. It was here that he wrote this mournful poem, "Lines on the back of a Confederate Note." 

His remembrances of the poem's composition were published in Watson's Magazine in 1912: "Among the guests of the hotel was a vaudeville troupe hailing from Philadelphia, and they were very kind to the ‘Johnnie Rebs,’ as they called us. It happened that among the federal captures was a carload of unfinished Confederate notes, chiefly of large denomination, with backs blank, and these became scattered among the Yanks. Miss Annie Rush, one of the leading actresses, came into possession of quite a ‘bunch’ of this embryo money, and she brought the bills to our lounging room, distributing them with the request that each would ‘write her a sentiment as a souvenir.’ I had some little standing among the boys as a ready scribbler, and I think I wrote all the ‘sentiments’ for the gang on scratch paper, each one transcribing his offering upon the note blank alloted him. Upon my bill I wrote the lines that unwittingly struck a patriotic chord and ‘will not down.’ If I had chosen from the lot I would possibly have taken one of the other poems for mine, as time had not yet given sacred tinge to things Confederate...Of course I did not appreciate my work, writers seldom do, and would have forgotten it but for the fact that the recipient gave it, or a copy of it, to the New York Metropolitan Record, then a Southern sympathizing weekly that had a tremendous circulation South, where it appeared a few months after the war over my signature, and headed ‘Something Too Good To Be Lost.'"

Variations of the poem and Confederate currency have sold at auction, including a $50 bank note with the poem printed to the verso (Raynors', August 2015, Lot 542; University Archives, 30 October 2024, Lot. 329) and a 50-cent note affixed to paper with a pencil transcription of the poem (Alexander, Fall Historical Militaria & Autographs, 8 December 2021, Lot 1160). Later 19th-century lithographs featuring the poem and displaying Confederate currency are also known (c.f. Library of Congress, PGA - Keating--Lost cause). 

We found no other examples of a period manuscript inscription of the poem to the verso of a note. Some have speculated that this may have been from the original cache inscribed by Jones. The piece is unsigned, and we found no other examples of his attributed writing to compare. The attribution, therefore, goes unsubstantiated. 

Regardless, the period manuscript poem is a poignant and beautiful piece.

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