50 Dollars

By 1863, the Confederate treasury was printing currency in volumes that the economy could not absorb, and the resulting inflation was already eroding public confidence faster than new notes could be issued. Keatinge & Ball, operating out of Columbia, South Carolina after relocating from Richmond, was one of the few remaining engraving and printing firms capable of producing Confederate currency in quantity — Northern blockades had cut off access to the superior facilities in New York and Philadelphia that Southern printers had relied on before the war.

The watermark was a modest security gesture at a moment when counterfeiting pressure from the North was real and documented — the Union authorized production of bogus Confederate notes as a deliberate destabilization measure. Whether it deterred much is doubtful. Columbia itself was burned by Sherman's forces in February 1865, destroying Keatinge & Ball's operation along with it.