It varied a great deal. Every time the Northern armies suffered a major setback, stocks and bonds declined and there was a consequent rise in the price of gold. With each Confederate defeat or setback, stocks and bonds rose and gold fell.

The number of persons “invested” on the stock market did not resemble that of our world today. There were, perhaps, fewer than ten thousand investors of all kinds and only about one-tenth of that number were truly large-scale investors. But the fortunes that could be made or lost were only growing in number.