5 Dollars Bank of Lexington - North Carolina

The Bank of Lexington was a small state-chartered institution in Davidson County, and by 1860 it was operating in the final window before secession rendered North Carolina's antebellum banking infrastructure effectively obsolete. When the state left the Union in May 1861, notes from banks like Lexington continued circulating under increasingly strained conditions — Confederate currency and state treasury notes soon competed for public confidence, and smaller bank issues were frequently discounted or refused outright.

The American Bank Note Company engraving is characteristically fine work for the period. Notes from minor Southern institutions printed in New York are sometimes found with pen-cancelled or rubber-stamped alterations made after the printer relationship became politically untenable.