Mr. Munson B. Field, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Salmon P. Chase, had an examination made of the books at Washington, at my request, to see which individual firm of the Government agents sold the most United States 7-30s and 5-20s, and he reported that Livermore, Clews & Co. had the highest record. But I am willing that the credit should be shared equally by the four United States war loan banking firms, viz.: Jay Cooke & Co.; Livermore, Clews & Co.; Vermilye & Co., and Fisk & Hatch, as all did equally good and earnest work in financing the Government during the Civil War. Certainly the four firms are entitled to equal credit, and no one to a greater extent than the others. There was sufficient glory achieved by the magnificently patriotic work done by these four firms to admit of dividing the honors, so that I do not hesitate to say that they did immensely valuable service to the Nation, and made for themselves a proud National record, which should be always greatly appreciated by the American people, as it was at the time by the Government authorities in Washington. The Government was thus enabled to clothe and feed a million of soldiers in arms on the battlefield, fighting for the salvation of the Nation, and these finally brought the war to a victorious end, thus perpetuating the best form of government known to man. I may here mention that Secretary Chase said: “If it had not been for Jay Cooke and Henry Clews, I should never have been able to sell enough of the 7-30 notes and 5-20 bonds to carry on the war.” This remark of his was generally published at the time in the newspapers. The Government had sold through its agents $150,000,000 of the 7-30 notes before the suspension of specie payments, an event that was hastened by the Secretary’s withdrawal from the banks into the Sub-treasuries of most of the proceeds of the sales, his call for payment from the agents to the Treasury being in three installments: on August 19th, October 1st, and November 2d. Moreover, the hoarding and exportation of gold were largely stimulated by the anticipation of specie suspension, and, after it occurred, gold suddenly disappeared from circulation. This obviously involved a corresponding contraction of the circulating medium, and Mr. Chase, to neutralize it, and supply the place of the demonetized coin, issued the $50,000,000 of non-interest-bearing notes, which were called United States Demand Notes. He did this also to obviate the necessity of the State Banks issuing more of their own notes, as well as to raise money to meet the rapidly increasing demands of the Treasury.