I picked up a holiday gift catalog off of my stack delivered by the mailman yesterday. In it, there's a small sidebar (unrelated to anything else in the catalog), where it claims that
We Minted Our Own Coins. 1862: During the Civil War, we were allowed to mint our own coins due to a shortage of gold and silver. Our "Rebellion Tokens" were made from copper, the best material available.
I've never heard of this. Anybody know anything else about it?