Rebel Gold

by Warren Getler

  15. Jonathan Blanchard, Scottish Rite Masonry Illustrated (Chicago: Ezra A. Cook, 1944, reprinted 1957), pp. 34–35.

  16. Leland, Continental Monthly, p. 573; Winslow, p. 5.

  17. Holt Report, p. 12.

  18. An Authentic Exposition of the K.G.C., Knights of the Golden Circle, or, A History of Secession from 1834 to 1861 (Indianapolis: Perrine, 1861). (Hereafter, Exposition.) The anonymously written exposition served as the basis for much of the official information passed on to President Lincoln and other Union officials in the early stages of the war. The authors of this book are convinced that its author is James M. Hiatt, author of The Voter’s Text Book (Indianapolis: Asher, Adams & Higgins, 1868). Both texts are published in Indianapolis and there is significant overlap in prose and subject matter. See, for instance, Exposition, p. 15, on the expulsion of 25,000 Germans from Texas by the KGC, and then p. 151 of Hiatt’s book on the same subject. Hiatt, the authors believe, was a former Southern-based KGC member who fled the organization and sought refuge in Indiana during the latter part of the war. There he became a journalist/historian. Moreover, the authors believe that Hiatt is the author behind the pseudonym “Edmund Wright” in the book cited in endnote 23 in this chapter. The reasoning is similar: subject matter, specific turns of phrase and in-depth knowledge and observations of the inner workings of the KGC.

  19. Ibid., p. 5.

  20. Ibid., p. 9. In addition, for early KGC pro–slave trade polemics see James B. D. De Bow’s Commercial Review of the South and West (De Bow’s Review) on “The African Slave-Trade,” July 1857, pp. 47–56; March 1855, pp. 297–305; and January 1855, pp. 16–20. Also, on slave trade, see McPherson, p. 103.

  21. For a thoroughly researched and footnoted analysis of Quitman’s role in overseas expansionism and possible Scottish Rite Masonic motivations, see Antonio de la Cova, “Filibusters and Freemasons: The Sworn Obligation,” Journal of the Early Republic 17, No. 1 (Spring 1997), pp. 95–120. De la Cova, a professor of Latin American studies, does not mention the KGC. For a solid biography on Quitman, see Robert E. May, John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985). May does not mention the KGC.

  22. The engraving, from a portrait, is on display in the Gratz Collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Case 4, Box 38.

  23. See Narrative of Edmund Wright: His Adventures with and Escape from the Knights of the Golden Circle (Edmund Wright—pseudonym; J.R. Hawley Publishers, 1864), on file at the Library of Congress. This book (hereafter, Edmund Wright) is valuable for any scholarly analysis of the KGC in that its insider-type account by an anonymous author goes into a great deal of credible, visual detail—corroborating other visual accounts of KGC symbolism and regalia. There is some probability—given similar turns of phrase and data provided—that the author is the same for the 1861 Exposition. The overall credibility of Edmund Wright is buttressed by several key historical observations in the narrative. For example, on page 137, the author describes being in New Orleans in early 1860 and hearing about a coup within the KGC ranks in which “Bickley was deposed, and an entirely new government inaugurated.” As Klement points out in Dark Lanterns, pp. 10–11, Bickley was all but tossed out by KGC operatives in New Orleans after his failed 1860 raids in Mexico and then, subsequently, managed to recover some of his status by calling for a KGC convention in Raleigh, N.C. in May of that year, which served to restore his proforma authority. At that May 7–11 convention in Raleigh, Bickley asserted that the KGC would, if well managed, “lead to the disenthrallment of the cotton States from the oppressive majority of the manufacturing and commercial interests of the North.” Such comments marked a clear departure from filibustering (vis-à-vis Mexico) and toward the bigger, more salient issue of secession at home. See also Crenshaw, p. 39.

  24. Quitman’s rise to Supreme Council (33rd-degree) status reported in Freemason’s Monthly Magazine, February 1, 1848, as cited in Ray Baker Harris, History of the Supreme Council, p. 236. Also see May, Old South Crusader, p. 373 endnotes on Quitman’s being Grand Master of the Mississippi Grand Lodge, 1826–36 and again in 1840 and 1845–46.

  25. Harris, ibid.

  26. May, Old South Crusader, pp. 60–63.

  27. McPherson, p. 4.

  28. De la Cova describes Order of the Lone Star intrigue in New Orleans. Also see Milton, p. 66.

  29. Exposition, pp. 6–12.

  30. See Exposition, p. 23, which states, as far as the armed KGC strength in the North was concerned: “At no time previous to the bombardment of Fort Sumter was it presumed that the number of men to be counted on from the North would fall below 100,000.”

  31. There is little reliable independent biography on Cushing. Voluminous primary source material is available through Caleb Cushing Papers at the Library of Congress.

  32. De la Cova, p. 98. Caleb Cushing Papers, Correspondence: George W. Sargent to Cushing.

  33. Franklin Repository and Transcript, December 5, 1860, p. 4.

  34. Exposition, p. 21.

  35. Milton, p. 33, notes: “In December 1861, the former president was charged with having had a hand in the organization of the Knights of the Golden Circle in New England. The undiplomatic (U.S. Secretary of State) Seward wrote him of these charges and asked him for an explanation.”

  36. Exposition, p. 36, provides detailed analysis of how Floyd, as U.S. Secretary of War under Buchanan, managed to order the shipment south of more than 100,000 weapons before the outbreak of war. These weapons, all stored at Southern-based U.S. armories, for the most part were absorbed or seized by Confederate forces when those armories were abandoned by U.S. troops.

  37. Cushing correspondence in Cushing Papers at the Library of Congress includes letters he exchanged with Jefferson Davis, Franklin Pierce, Albert Pike and others likely associated with the KGC. Cushing’s behavior is somewhat reminiscent of the much better known, earlier intriguer and conspirator, Aaron Burr, the former U.S. vice president under Jefferson. Burr played various sides of the political aisle against each other in an opaque strategy apparently aimed at dismemberment of the young Union. His machinations in the early 1800s involved various plots to seize territory in the trans-Mississippi West, the Ohio Valley/Old Northwest, the Deep South and Mexico—a possible forerunner scheme for the KGC, some might argue. Burr’s son-in-law, Joseph Alston, was a prominent plantation owner and defender of slavery in South Carolina, eventually becoming the state’s governor. Burr and Alston were known to be close. It might also be noted that Burr was given to encrypted correspondence. For a recently published, intriguing exploration of Burr’s treasonous plotting, see Buckner F. Melton’s Aaron Burr: Conspiracy to Treason (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002).

  38. Vanity Fair, March 30, 1861, New York. See column entitled “Philp, His Hand-Book.”

  39. See Cushing Papers, Library of Congress, Letters from Albert Pike, March 2, March 14, May 25, 1843, as pointed out by Chaitkin, p. 185.

  40. Continental Monthly, May 1862, p. 576.

  41. See Fox, who dedicates several chapters to Pike and his history with the Scottish Rite. Also, for a largely tongue-in-cheek overview of the Scottish Rite, see “Men in Hats: Secrets of Freemasonry Revealed. Fezzes, Sphinxes and Secret Handshakes,” in Peter Carlson’s cover-story, Washington Post Magazine, November 25, 2001. The article makes the point that the popularity of Freemasonry in America has fluctuated, and that it is now in a downswing: from a peak of more than 4 million members in 1960 to less than 2 million today. A lack of interest in ornate ritual among younger Americans is cited. The article does not mention the role of Pike in the Confederacy or in the KGC, nor does it mention the Scottish Rite’s mooted association with the original Ku Klux Klan.

  42. Fox, pp. 10–22.

  43. Ray Baker Harris, History of the Supreme Council 33rd Degree, Mother Council of the World, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, USA, 1801–1861, Washington, D.C., 1964, p. 277.

&
nbsp; 44. Fox, pp. 74–75.

  45. Ibid., p. 69.

  46. Harris, p. 271.

  47. Edmund Wright, pp. 54–55.

  48. Conkling, p. 8.

  49. Edmund Wright, p. 56.

  50. Harris, p. 271.

  51. See Exposition, p. 30; Kettell, p. 32; Conkling, p. 8.

  52. For Pike’s role in recruiting Indian Nations to the Confederate cause, see Walter Lee Brown, A Life of Albert Pike (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 1997), for detailed treatments. Also see Fox, as well as Frank Cunningham, General Stand Watie’s Confederate Indians (San Antonio: Naylor, 1959, Reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998).

  53. Brown, p. 318.

  54. Robert L. Duncan, Reluctant General: The Life and Times of Albert Pike (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1961), p. 159.

  55. Arkansas True Democrat, August 29, 1861, newspaper clipping.

  56. Holt Report, p. 2.

  57. The Cherokee connection might also explain the KGC’s apparent use of deformed oak trees as pointers along their treasure trails in Oklahoma and other states. See the self-published Cry of the Eagle: History and Legends of the Cherokee Indians and Their Buried Treasures by Forest C. Wade, 1969, Cummings, Ga. Wade includes several pictures of “bent-knee” trees. He does not mention the KGC.

  58. Brown, pp. 425–26.

  59. In addition to the Exposition, articles appeared in July 1861 in Louisville Daily Journal and Louisville Daily Courier, as cited in Klement, p. 13.

  60. Edmund Wright, p. 21.

  61. See photo and caption of Pike’s “jewel,” in Fox, in photo section following Chapter 4.

  62. Edmund Wright, p. 20.

  63. Ibid., pp. 43–53.

  64. See illustration of Scottish Rite symbolism chart in Fox (in photo section).

  65. Exposition, p. 12.

  66. Kettell, p. 31.

  67. Ayer, p. 16.

  68. Allen E. Roberts, House Undivided: The Story of Freemasonry and the Civil War, Fulton, Missouri Lodge of Research, pp. 10–20.

  69. Letter from Robert Bethell to Abraham Lincoln, April 18, 1861, The Abraham Lincoln Papers, Topic: The Knights of the Golden Circle, Library of Congress.

  70. Letter from Samuel T. Glover to Abraham Lincoln, Sept. 29, 1861, The Abraham Lincoln Papers, Topic: Relations with Mexico, Library of Congress.

  71. Letter from Thomas Ewing to Abraham Lincoln, April 9, 1862, The Abraham Lincoln Papers, Topic: Loyalty of General McClellan, Library of Congress.

  72. Exposition, p. 49.

  73. Ibid., p. 75.

  74. Francis Wilson, John Wilkes Booth, Fact and Fiction of Lincoln’s Assassination (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1929), p. 29.

  75. Exposition, p. 57.

  76. The Great Conspiracy (Philadelphia: Barclay & Co., 1866), p. 26. In Rare Book Collection, Library of Congress.

  77. Ibid.

  78. Ibid., p. 101.

  79. Izola Forrester, This One Mad Act (Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint, 1937), p. 118.

  80. Ibid., preface.

  81. See William A. Tidwell, James O. Hall, and David W. Gaddy, Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1989).

  82. Robert D. Meade, Judah P. Benjamin: Confederate Statesman (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 300. Another biography worth exploring is Eli N. Evans’s Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate (New York: The Free Press, 1988).

  83. Robert N. Rosen, The Jewish Confederates (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000), pp. 320–21. Rosen cites diary of former Lincoln confidant and U.S. senator, Orville H. Browning.

  84. Ibid., p. 315.

  85. Hines bore an uncanny resemblance to Booth and was mistaken for the actor while fleeing to Canada from Detroit in the days immediately following the assassination. Described by biographer Horan as “the most dangerous man in the Confederacy,” the stealthy Confederate secret agent operated in high circles of both the KGC and Scottish Rite Freemasonry. Significantly, Hines was a close friend of KGC member and Confederate Secret Service agent John Yates Beall, who had been hung—despite repeated appeals to Lincoln for clemency following his capture in New York—by Union forces on February 24, 1865. According to Horan, the proud Virginian Beall had demanded that his hanging “be speedily and terribly avenged.” U.S. Senator Orville H. Browning, a close friend and confidant of Lincoln’s, made an intriguing entry in his diary (on file at the Library of Congress) soon after the assassination. “I am at a loss as to the class of persons who instigated the crime—whether it was the rebel leaders; the Copperheads among ourselves, in conjunction with foreign emissaries; gold speculators; or the friends and accomplices of Beall, who was recently hung at New York,” he wrote, adding: “I am inclined to the latter opinion.” In the seconds after Booth shot Lincoln, the president’s assassin had shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!” The slogan, which translates to “Thus always to tyrants!” happens to be the motto of Virginia.

  86. James D. Horan, Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History (New York: Crown, 1954), p. 13.

  87. Edward Steers, Jr., Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), p. 7.

  88. Fox, pp. 77–79.

  89. John L. Robinson, Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry (New York: M. Evans & Co., 1989), p. 328.

  90. Walter Lee Brown, “Albert Pike, 1809–1891” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1955), p. 783, as cited in Fox, pp. 81, 435.

  91. Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (New York: Random House, 2002), p. ix.

  92. Fox, pp. 81–82.

  93. Ibid. Pike, indeed, is not made in the mold of the Southern fire-eater. He does fit the profile, however, of the calm, collected multifaceted powerbroker behind the hidden KGC.

  94. Brown, A Life of Albert Pike, pp. 439–40.

  95. See Mark M. Boatner III, The Civil War Dictionary (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), pp. 295–96.

  96. Fox, p. 81.

  97. Eric Foner, Who Owns History? (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002), p. 196.

  98. See William C. Davis, An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government (New York: Harcourt, 2001). Davis makes numerous mentions of “treasure train.”

  99. Rosen, p. 351.

  100. William C. Davis, Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State, 1974), pp. 559–63.

  101. McPherson, p. 763.

  102. Horan, p. 295.

  103. See Caleb Cushing Papers and Breckinridge Family Papers, Library of Congress, for mining claims.

  104. Exposition, p. 50.

  105. Brown, A Life of Albert Pike, pp. 464–65.

  106. Ibid.

  6. RETRACING HISTORY IN THE ARKANSAS WOODS

  1. Interview with Bob Tilley, August 2001, Hatfield.

  2. George A. Mitchell, “Twin Springs Spanish Gold,” Frontier Times, December 1969, pp. 32–33.

  3. Interview with Don Fretz, August 2001, Hatfield.

  4. Bob Brewer interview with Mitchell Cogburn, 1992, Hatfield. Also see article by Ida S. Cobb, “Mountain Legend of Albert Pike’s Two Years in the Ouachitas,” in Mena (Ark.) Evening Star, April 22, 1939. Most of the Cobb observations correspond to Cogburn’s recollections, but not all.

  5. J. Mark Bond, “One Black Pot with a Yellow Fortune,” Old West, Fall 1970, pp. 18–19, 54–55.

  6. Del Schrader (with Jesse James III), Jesse James Was One of His Names: The Greatest Cover Up in History by the Famous Outlaw Who Lived 73 Incredible Lives (Arcadia: Santa Anita Press, 1975).

  7. Ibid., p.187.

  8. Ibid., p. 250.

  9. Ibid., pp. 239–41.

  7. JESSE JAMES, KGC FIELD COMMANDER

  1. Biographies of Jesse James are too many to mention, but one of the best regarded is William A. Settle’s Jesse James Was His Name; Or, Fact and Fiction Concerning the Career of the Notor
ious James Brothers of Missouri (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1966). For a period piece along the same lines, see Frank Triplett’s original 1882 The Life, Times & Treacherous Death of Jesse James (with introduction in reprint edition by Joseph Snell), as reprinted by Konecky & Konecky/Swallow Press, New York, 1970.

  2. T. J. Stiles, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (New York: Knopf), pp. 6 and 99.

  3. “Lost and Found … and Found … and Found,” U.S. News & World Report: Mysteries of History, July 24–31, 2000, as shown on map, pp. 52–53, and as mentioned on p. 79.

  4. The debate has even led to the inconclusive exhumations of bodies long ago buried. In the first instance, the remains of the professed “real” Jesse Woodson James (the one most historians accept as having been shot and killed in 1882) were unearthed in 1995 from their resting place in Kearney, Missouri. In the forensic examination led by George Washington University law professor James E. Starrs, a DNA test supposedly proved that the remains were those of JWJ. Some observers claim that the source of the genetic material tested for DNA—a tooth—did not come from the grave site in question but rather from a Missouri museum. A second exhumation, this time of the long-lived, self-proclaimed Jesse Woodson James (a.k.a. Frank Dalton), occurred on May 30, 2000, in Granbury, Texas, some forty miles southwest of Fort Worth. Those sponsoring the exhumation, notably Bud Hardcastle of Purcell, Oklahoma, wound up uncovering the skeletal remains of someone else, a one-armed man by the name of Henry Holland. The mishap, according to Hardcastle (interviews May 2000, March–April 2002), was the result of the tombstone having been placed incorrectly. Also see numerous articles, including Penny Owen, “Outlaw Won’t Rest in Peace,” The Sunday Oklahoman, May 7, 2000, Oklahoma Now section, p. 1. Hardcastle is awaiting a court decision to attempt to reopen the correct grave of J. Frank Dalton in Granbury.

  5. John N. Edwards, Shelby and his men: or the war in the West (Cincinnati: Miami Printing and Publishing, 1867), p. 379.

  6. See John N. Edwards, Noted Guerillas or the Warfare of the Border (St. Louis: Bryan, Brand, 1877).

  7. Schrader and James (Howk), see pp. 97–132.