Paper money of the U.S. The term was invented by Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury.
1862. The greenbacks are popular; people have had a fresh taste of a paper currency.—N.Y. Tribune, June 14 (Bartlett).
1862. Paymaster Fillmore brought with him from Washington $350,000 in “greenbacks,” with which to pay off the Colorado boys.—Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Dec. 11.
1862. Bonds, greenbacks, and postage currency paper [are] to do all the duty of money.—The Times, Dec. 23, American Corr. (N.E.D.)
1863. Answers to that conundrum, why the greenbacks were like the children of Israel, have been rendered by several gents about town…. “Because they are the issue of Abraham, waiting their redemption.”—Rocky Mountain News, Jan. 29.
1870. He had a pill which would annihilate every known malady, and an oil which would assuage every pain. As an inducement to buy the pills and the oil he presented the purchasers of either with an infallible cure for corns and bunions. This seemed to give satisfaction to his audience, for numbers exchanged their greenbacks for his rubbish.—Rae, ‘Westward by Rail,’ p. 47 (Lond.).
[Paul Kruger is said to have left 14,000l. in sovereigns, and 48,000l. in blue-backs.—Notes and Queries, 10 S. ix. 326.]
