There was a panic following the breakdown of the war and infrastructure debts in the early 1870s, but the early 1880s are claimed to have a depression that was only declared in hindsight. There was a smaller credit contraction during this period but it’s mostly equated as a depression only because of *price* deflation and not because living standards went down. Quite the opposite happened. In fact the 70s and 80s are semi decent examples of the difference between a debt crisis caused by federal govt spending, and deflation that occurs naturally making things more affordable. But economists today simply look at “deflation” and label as bad.