TREASURE & EMPIRE IN THE CIVIL WAR: The Panama Route, the West & the Campaigns to Control America’s Mineral Wealth

Speaker: NEIL P. CHATELAIN

Across North America's periphery, unknown and overlooked Civil War campaigns were waged over whether the United States or Confederacy would dominate lands, mines, and seaborne transportation networks of North America's mineral wealth. The U.S. needed this wealth to stabilize their wartime economy while the Confederacy sought to expand their own treasury. Confederate armies advanced to seize the West and its gold and silver reserves, while warships steamed to intercept Panama route ships transporting bullion from California to Panama to New York. Chatelain examines the campaigns to control North America's mineral wealth, linking the Civil War's military, naval, political, diplomatic and economic elements. All this to wage war!

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