In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking, and Religion

Our national motto debuted on United States coinage during the chaos and heartache of the American Civil War and has appeared on our money ever since. In In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking and Religion, numismatic researcher William Bierly digs deep into the origins and history of those powerful words “In God We Trust.”

Bierly shows how the upheaval of the Civil War changed not just the face of our coins and paper currency, but the very foundations of modern American ban...