During the American Civil War, the Confederacy experienced such catastrophic inflation that their paper money, the greyback, became entirely useless, forcing citizens to barter with physical blocks of salt to survive.

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During the American Civil War, the Confederacy experienced such catastrophic inflation that their paper money, the greyback, became entirely useless, forcing citizens to barter with physical blocks of salt to survive. By 1864, inflation in the South had officially reached an astonishing nine thousand percent, driven by the fact that the Confederate government just endlessly printed unbacked currency to fund a spectacularly failing war effort. By the end of the conflict, southern citizens were actively using Confederate banknotes as kindling to start fires because wood was harder to acquire than stacks of their own national currency. It turns out that committing treason to uphold the horrific institution of human slavery is not just a profound moral failing, but also a remarkably fast way to thoroughly obliterate your entire regional macroeconomy and completely destroy your credit score on the global market!