Confederate Currency- Ten Dollars, B. Duncan

Numerous printers and engravers were engaged to satisfy the demand for paper money in the Confederacy. One of these printers was Blanton Duncan who had a firm in Columbia, South Carolina. On this denomination of a ten dollar bill, there is a portrait of Robert M.T. Hunter, who was the Secretary of State for the Confederacy. In the center of the bill is a vignette of the "Sweet Potato Dinner," which is based on a painting by John Blake White. The subject matter consists of a dinner between General Francis Marion and a British officer sometime during the Revolutionary War. General Marion offered a meal consisting of sweet potatoes to the British officer. Upon seeing Marion's poorly equipped men and how they lived off the land, the British officer became convinced that the Americans could not be defeated because of their loyalty to the cause. This scene was chosen for a Confederate note because it represented the same ideals as during the American Revolution: the strife for an independent nation. To the right of the bill is an engraving of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom.