Diary of Orrin Brown, Savannah, Georgia
Tuesday–Jan 3rd
We had a very pleasant night and it is clear and warm. Four of us got a pass to go to the City today, there was any amount of provisions selling at the market house. I will here state some of the prices. Potatoes were selling at $8 per bush or $24 per barrel. Apples were $1 per doz. Cheese was 1.25 a 2.00 per lb Butter 1.50 Apple Butter per qt. cans 2.50 Sugar 50 @ 1.00 per lb. Rice .15 @ 25 cts per quart letter paper from 50 @ 1.00 per quire envelops 80 @ 1.00 per package etc. etc. etc. The City covers over a large space of ground but the buildings are not very close together. The Savannah river is a muddy nasty stream. I went down to the dock and saw them selling Oysters in the shell at $3 per bush I also saw a steamer going down the river loaded with discharged soldiers just starting for home, there was a nice brass band aboard playing and it came very near making me homesick but I got over it again. I bought $4 worth of Rice and $3 worth of Sugar and 75 cts. worth of Potatoes went back to camp and we had a feast you had better believe. The day has been very warm and pleasant but it is cloudy this evening and a sprinkling a little. Read 4 Chapt. in the Testament today.
Inflation can be a difficult concept. Prices in the past seem absurdly high, but more often absurdly low. During war everything changes, of course, especially as cash money becomes scarce. With some help from a friendly on-line inflation calculator, these prices in current (2015) funds would amount to about:
- $8 bushel (50 lbs) of potatoes = $120 ($2.40/lb) / $24 barrel = $360
- $1 doz apples = $15
- $1.25 cheese = $18.76
- $1.50 apple butter = $22.51
- $3 bushel of oysters on the shell = $45
- $4 worth of rice = $60
- $0.75 worth of potatoes = $11.26
In a couple days from now, Orrin relates he’s earning $16/month from the Army, about $240 in 2015. A skilled blacksmith might earn $1.64 a day in 1860, about $42 today. That doesn’t buy many potatoes today, but even fewer then.
Read More:
- Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman by Robert L. O’Connell (Random House, 2014)
- The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns by Joseph T. Glatthaar (New York University Press, 1985)
- The Memoirs Of General William T. Sherman by W.T. Sherman (Library of America, 1990)
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