The Civil War Gold Hoax was an 1864 hoax perpetrated by two American journalists to exploit the financial situation during the American Civil War. On May 18, 1864, two New York City newspapers, the New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce, published a story that President Abraham Lincoln had issued a proclamation of conscription of 400,000 more men into the Union army. At the time, there were fierce battles taking place between Union and Confederate troops in Virginia and the public took it to mean that the war was not going well for the Union. Share prices fell on the New York Stock Exchange when investors began to buy gold, and its value increased 10%.