100 Dollars

Hoyer & Ludwig were a Richmond lithography firm — commercial printers pressed into currency production because the Confederacy had no established banknote engravers at hand when it began issuing paper in 1861. The result is lithography where a proper government issue would normally show intaglio work, which is why these notes lack the tactile depth of contemporary Union currency and were relatively easy to counterfeit. Northern counterfeit versions circulated widely and were sometimes of better technical quality than the originals.

The watermark is the primary security measure, a thin line of defense for a currency that would collapse entirely within four years as Confederate military fortunes declined and public confidence evaporated.