BY DONALD H. KAGIN, PH.D.
Editor’s Note: Th is is an exclusive excerpt from Donald H. Kagin’s new book, “Th e Treasury Notes of the War of 1812.”
It is now clear that the first circulating currency issued by the United States was not the Demand Notes of 1861 as was commonly believed for decades, but the Treasury Notes of the War of 1812 printed in 1815 forty-six years earlier.