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| 1880 $20 Legal Tender depicting Alexander Hamilton |
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| $20 Legal Tender Note, Series of 1880 |
1880 Twenty Dollar Legal Tender Note, Alexander Hamilton
Obverse: Bust of Alexander Hamilton. At right, Victory advancing holding shield and sword.
Reverse: Floral design.
Signatures: (as depicted)
William Starke Rosecrans, Register of the Treasury and James William Hyatt, Treasurer of the United States.Inscriptions: Act of March 3rd 1863 - Engraved & Printed at the Bureau, Engraving & Printing - Register Of The Treasury - Treasurer Of The United States - Legal Tender For Twenty Dollars - Series of 1880 - The United States Will Pay To Bearer Twenty Dollars Washington D.C. - United States Note - Amer Septent Sigil Thesaur - Printed at the Bureau, Engraving & Printing Treasury, Dep! - United States of America - This Note is a Legal Tender at its face value for all debts public and private, except duties on imports and interest on the public debt. Counterfeiting or altering this note or passing any counterfeit or alteration of it, or having in possession any false or counterfeit plate or impression of it, or any paper made in imitation of the paper on which it is printed is felony, and is punishable by $5,000 fine, or fifteen (15) years imprisonment at hard labor or both.
United States 20 Dollar Bills
United States 20 Dollar Bill, Legal Tender Note, Alexander Hamilton, Series 1880
20 Dollars : United States Military Payment Certificates US MPC
James William Hyatt (September 19, 1837 – March 12, 1893) was Treasurer of the United States from 1887 to 1889. He had previously served as Bank Commissioner for the State of Connecticut, and United States Bank Examiner for Connecticut and Rhode Island. He served as a Democratic member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1875 and 1876, a member of the Connecticut Senate in 1884, and he was Warden of the Borough of Norwalk from 1877 to 1878, from 1880 to 1882, and from 1885 to 1887.
Biography
James W. Hyatt was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, the son of James W. Hyatt, and Laura Gray on September 19, 1837. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Hyatt joined the 5th Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. After the war, he moved to New York City to join Lockwood & Co., a leading banking house that was founded by LeGrand Lockwood of Norwalk.
In 1873, Hyatt attained control of the majority of stock of the Norwalk Horse Railway Company and returned to Norwalk to work as its Secretary and General Manager. He was president of the company at the time of his death. He also worked as Vice President of the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad, and, in 1881, became its president. He represented Norwalk in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1875 and 1876 as a Democrat (Hyatt had earlier supported the Republican Party, but became a Democrat in 1872). In 1876, Governor of Connecticut Charles Roberts Ingersoll appointed Hyatt Bank Commissioner. He was later reappointed by Govs. Richard D. Hubbard, Charles B. Andrews, Hobart B. Bigelow, and Thomas M. Waller. In 1884, he was elected to the Connecticut Senate, but resigned so he could remain Bank Commissioner.
In 1886, President of the United States Grover Cleveland appointed Hyatt United States Bank Examiner for Connecticut and Rhode Island. In spring 1887, President Cleveland appointed Hyatt Treasurer of the United States, with Hyatt subsequently holding that office from May 24, 1887 to May 10, 1889.
After suffering for several weeks from gout and Bright's disease, Hyatt died at Norwalk on March 12, 1893. Surprising observers, who assumed that Hyatt was rich, Hyatt died a poor man and left virtually no estate for his widow.
William Starke Rosecrans, Register of the Treasury
William Starke Rosecrans (September 6, 1819 – March 11, 1898) was an American inventor, coal-oil company executive, diplomat, politician, and U.S. Army officer. He gained fame for his role as a Union general during the American Civil War. He was the victor at prominent Western Theater battles, but his military career was effectively ended following his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.
Rosecrans graduated in 1842 from the West Point Military Academy where he served in engineering assignments as well as a professor before leaving the Army to pursue a career in civil engineering. At the start of the Civil War, leading troops from Ohio, he achieved early combat success in western Virginia. In 1862 in the Western Theater, he won the battles of Iuka and Corinth while under the command of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. His brusque, outspoken manner and willingness to quarrel openly with superiors caused a professional rivalry with Grant (as well as with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton) that would adversely affect Rosecrans' career.
Given command of the Army of the Cumberland, he fought against Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg at Stones River, and later outmaneuvered him in the brilliant Tullahoma Campaign, driving the Confederates from Middle Tennessee. His strategic movements then caused Bragg to abandon the critical city of Chattanooga, but Rosecrans' pursuit of Bragg ended during the bloody Battle of Chickamauga, where his unfortunately worded order mistakenly opened a gap in the Union line and Rosecrans and a third of his army were swept from the field. Besieged in Chattanooga, Rosecrans was relieved of command by Grant.
Following his humiliating defeat, Rosecrans was reassigned to command the Department of Missouri, where he opposed Price's Raid. He was briefly considered as a vice presidential running mate for Abraham Lincoln in 1864. After the war, he served in diplomatic and appointed political positions and in 1880 was elected to Congress, representing California.
Rosecrans then became interested in civil administration and wrote a book, Popular Government, with a former newspaperman, Josiah Riley, which advocated registration and voting reforms. He was approached by various political parties to run for high office: Governor of Ohio (Union party, 1866); governor of California (Democratic Party, 1868); governor of Ohio (Democratic Party, 1869); U.S Representative from Nevada (Democratic Party, 1876). He refused all of these offers because they conflicted with potentially promising business ventures, leading him to be referred to by the nickname "The Great Decliner."
In 1869, Rosecrans bought 16,000 acres (65 km2) of Rancho San Pedro in the Los Angeles basin for $2.50 per acre ($620/km²), a low price possibly because the land was deemed worthless for lack of a spring for water. The ranch, dubbed "Rosecrans Rancho", was bordered by what later was Florence Avenue on the north, Redondo Beach Boulevard on the south, Central Avenue on the east, and Arlington Avenue on the west. By the time of Rosecrans's death, his son Carl was living on the estate, but most of the land had been sold parcel by parcel to support the financial needs of mining ventures in which Rosecrans invested.
In 1880, Rosecrans was elected U.S. Representative as a Democrat from California's 1st congressional district. That same year, James Garfield was elected President as a Republican. Rosecrans was distressed to see that Garfield's campaign literature played up his role in the war at Rosecrans's expense. Their former friendship was irretrievably broken. After Garfield's assassination, Charles A. Dana capitalized on the tragedy by publishing the letters written by Garfield after Chickamauga to then-Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase; the letters may have been the major reason for Rosecrans's loss of political support at the time.
Rosecrans was reelected in 1882 and became the chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, a position in which he publicly opposed a bill that would provide a pension to former President Grant and his wife. Unaware of the serious financial condition of Grant's family, Rosecrans objected that some of Grant's official statements "were false, and which he knew to be false at the time he made them, and which I have shown in my official reports to be false. I cannot say to the people of this country that a business which has been conducted as to rob poor people of millions, and which, if done on a smaller scale would have sent its managers to prison, shall be considered as important when the principal manager has allowed a great name to be used as the instrument of the robbery." The bill was passed over his objections. When a bill was introduced in 1889 to restore Rosecrans's rank and place him on the retired list, some Representatives objected, based on Rosecrans's actions against Grant in 1885, but the bill was passed.
Rosecrans did not seek re-election in 1884. He served as a Regent of the University of California in 1884 and 1885.
Although Rosecrans was mentioned on a few occasions as a possible presidential candidate, the first Democratic president elected after the war was Grover Cleveland in 1884. Newspaper stories circulated that Rosecrans was under serious consideration to be appointed his Secretary of War, but he was appointed instead as the Register of the Treasury, serving from 1885 to 1893.
Rosecrans spoke at the dedication of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park on September 19, 1889, during which he delivered an address that was considered the best in capturing the feelings of the veterans present from both sides.
Death
In February 1898, Rosecrans suffered from a cold that turned into pneumonia, but appeared to recover successfully. Then he learned that one of his favorite grandchildren (Rosecrans Toole, the son of Lily and Joseph Kemp Toole, the first Governor of Montana) had died of diphtheria. He was seized with grief and his health failed precipitously. He died on March 11, 1898 at Rancho Sausal Redondo, Redondo Beach, California. His casket lay in state in Los Angeles City Hall, covered by the headquarters flag that flew over Stones River and Chickamauga. In 1908 his remains were interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
Legacy
Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, in San Diego, California, is named in his honor. Major streets named after William Rosecrans include Rosecrans Avenue, a major east-west street that runs through the southern part of Los Angeles County, and Rosecrans Street in San Diego, which runs near the aforementioned cemetery. A school (General Rosecrans Elementary, on Rosecrans and Acacia Avenues) bears his name in the city of Compton, a Los Angeles suburb. A simple memorial was constructed on the site of his birthplace and childhood home. Just north of Sunbury, Ohio, a large boulder surrounded by a wrought iron fence holds a plaque in memoriam and rests beside a rural road that bears his name. A magnificent equestrian statue, resting on a 55,000 pound black granite boulder, now has a commanding place on the city of Sunbury square. Rosecrans' Headquarters in the buildup to the Chickamauga Campaign was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.