carnival

FLORAL DEPARTMENT OF THE GREAT FAIR.

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch April 16, 1864:

A picture of the condition of Yankeedom.

The New York Herald, of Monday last, in an editorial article, draws the following picture of the drunken war carnival in the United States:

What is the present condition of the country?–In the midst of a gigantic war, draining the loyal States of hundreds of thousands of their most vigorous men, and thousands of millions of money, we are enjoying a carnival of unbounded prosperity. On every hand extravagance, prodigality and speculation prevail. Delirium reigns in Wall street, and among the giddy throngs of Broadway, and amid the splendors and the surging multitudes at the great Fair, in a word, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the madness of unlimited treasures rules the hour. Glorious spectacle this, and yet a most fearful delusion. It is like the feast of Belshazzar, while the legions of our irresistible enemy are gathering under the city walls.

From the same issue:

The speculation in New York.

A letter dated New York, the 12th inst., says:

This has been one of the most exciting days in Wall street and business circles within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Gold, foreign exchange, breadstuffs, and nearly every other description of merchandise, indeed, have experienced an enormous advance, under the influence of which people seem to be growing absolutely wild. Almost every man you meet in the street or on the corner is a speculator — that is, an “operator for a rise”–for the time being; absolutely carried away with the one great idea, how to get rich all of a sudden, without reaching the grand result in the regular way, by the sweat of the face.

PICTURE-GALLERY OF THE FAIR, FOURTEENTH-STREET BUILDING

The above images are from the April 16, 1864 issue of Harper’s Weekly (at Son of the South) and depict New York’s Metropolitan Sanitary Fair.

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“Brandy Station, Va. Dinner party outside tent, Army of the Potomac headquarters” (April 1864)