“So, we simply walk in, extract the gold and nonchalantly make our way through the Vieux Carre and away?”
“No, I simply walk in, extract the gold and then we nonchalantly make our way through the Vieux Carre and away.”
“Where will I be in all of this?”
“You, my master of disguise, shall be in costume. You will wait in the wagon while I make the necessary trips in and out of the building to remove the gold. It is imperative that you stay in the wagon until the operation is fully completed.”
“How will I be dressed?”
“More about that later. Oh, and one other thing. You and I must be inseparable until the operation is complete.”
“I thought there might be some kind of catch.”
“No catch. As soon as we hear the first sign of attack, we will not have time to find each other, get you into costume and begin. No, at the first sign of attack, we move with lightning speed. We get you into costume at once. And I mean fast. Then, we board our wagon and make a dash to the mint. We have to make our move in the mint after our Confederate forces leave the premises and before the Yankees decide to camp out there themselves after they take the city.”
“Once retrieved from behind the false wall of the closet, to where are we transporting the contents?”
“To a place where only ghosts dare search for it.”
“Oh, so it’s going to be like that?”
“You will know of the new hiding spot on the night of the attack, and not a day sooner.”
“We are currently many blocks from the mint building. Might we find quarters closer to Esplanade Avenue?”
“Yes, my father owns an apartment near Royal and Toulouse, maybe eight blocks distant. We prepare our wagon at once, we attain the items necessary for your disguise if you do not already possess them, and we stay by each other’s side beginning now until at least the goal has been successfully achieved.”
“At least?”
“At least. And tomorrow we move into comfortable, and might I say lavish, quarters on Royal Street.”
“What about tonight?”
“Tonight, I stay here. With you.”
4
Robbing the Confederate Mint
Early the following day, Miss Velazquez and I began making important preparations for the business at hand. We secured all the items necessary for her disguise, we appropriated a wagon on which to transport the gold, and we moved more than enough items from her house on Prytania Street to Father’s apartment in the Vieux Carre to accommodate her for at least the next two months.
On that same day, we stopped at Father’s where I retrieved more clothing from my old rooms.
I wore the aforementioned cape. Underneath, I sported two Colt Model 1855 Sidehammers—single-action affairs, yes, but more than ample firepower at the time for most scrapes. In each of the deep outer pockets of the cape, I carried a razor-sharp blade, Bowies both.
We made our way to the apartment and there we remained for the next several weeks. Velazquez and I rarely left each other’s sight, night or day. We made good use of the closeness, oftentimes rehearsing for the important day ahead and going over likely scenarios that might unfold as we attempted the heist. One night we walked to the mint building, and she showed me the layout of the place, which door to enter and the direction to turn inside the building to find the closet.
Then, during the pre-dawn hours of late April 1862, a Saturday, if memory serves, after a long night of little sleep and more than one glass of Sazerac for each of us, the faint crack of cannon fire miles away on the Mississippi interrupted our bliss. Yankee warships full of troops now moved upriver in our direction. I peered outside to the streets of the Vieux Carre and beheld throngs of people in a scene of growing restlessness and chaos. The streets below us were usually quiet at such an hour, but now we had a full-fledged Yankee invasion underway.
At once, Velazquez began getting into character, applying costume, make-up and all the trimmings. I departed to the nearby holding spot for our wagon, harnessed the jack, and then drove the contraption to the alley behind the apartment where I retrieved my partner in crime, now in the full glory of her rather ghastly, but oh, so beautiful and well-applied, get-up.
As we slowly started along our way to Esplanade Avenue, a great thunderstorm blew in to accompany the invading Yankees. In a now wildly chaotic world of booming thunder mixed with the increasing fire of both Confederate and Yankee artillery, lightning flashed and cracked sharply while torrents of rain fell upon us. Instead of cursing the weather, I welcomed it. The more general confusion all around, the better. Luckily, Velazquez lay under a sheet of canvas in the back of the wagon – impervious to the falling rain, but more than aware of the growing turmoil descending upon the city.
Many times along the way we encountered our Confederate troops frantically running to spots along the river from which to fire upon the enemy boats and the Yankee soldiers soon to pour from them. I saw this as good news. The more of our boys making a stand in the city then the fewer of them holed up in the mint building to get in our way.
I pulled the wagon to the rear of the mint building nearest Decatur Street. I, Velazquez, and the jack remained quiet for a few moments as I tried to ascertain the number of men still in the vicinity and within the building. I saw no sign of humanity within from my perch on the wagon, but I wanted a better look. I decided to walk around to the front of the building and peer inside from there. Amidst all the pandemonium, I doubted anyone would notice or care. I reached the front and made my way to the center door underneath the columns. Looking in, I quickly fathomed nothing at all occurring inside and not a solitary soul in my range of vision or within earshot.
That is all I needed to know to confidently commence the job at hand. I returned to the rear of the building and pulled the wagon closer to the rear outer door. The less distance from the wagon to the closet the better, and I knew that many trips back and forth between the two points lay ahead of me, so I got to work.
At the top of a false wagon bottom lay Velazquez covered first with hay and then with the canvas tarp.
“Loreta, I’m going in. Be perfectly still and quiet.”
“Just hurry.”
I reached the outer door only to find it slightly ajar as if someone—probably a Confederate soldier—had quickly departed the premises and, in haste, failed to close it. Crossing the threshold of the doorway, I committed myself to the task at hand. I cut a quick left and found the closet just a short walk down a hallway.
Inside the closet, I found the typical contents of brooms and mops and assorted tools required for building maintenance. Quickly, I stepped to the back wall of the closet and knocked gingerly up one side of it and down the other. The wall consisted of thin wood strips covered with wallpaper. I kicked it through. Once on the back side of the wall, I saw hinges to one side allowing for an easier, swivel-like opening—a fact unknown to me beforehand. The ingots, bars and tied-off bags that lay all around me, once loaded, nearly filled the area under the wagon’s false bottom. The odds of a devastating interruption to the heist greatly increased with the passing minutes, so I made quick work of it, carrying as much as possible on each trip while pretending to casually ignore the increasing state of chaos and anarchy all around us in the Vieux Carre.
Having loaded the last of the contents under the false bottom, I raised the tailboard, hitched it, and climbed aboard. We proceeded along Decatur Street toward Canal Street, first past Ursulines, then St. Philip, then Dumaine, then Jackson Square.
By this time, in order to keep the Yankees from capturing valuable supplies and assets, our Confederates had started setting fire to warehouses, bales of cotton, ships, and docks throughout the city. Great fires went up all around, and smoke blocked what little sunlight that had previously emerged through the rain clouds.
Lines of our citizenry lined the river and shouted curses to the sailors aboard the ships. The Yankee sailors taunted back by simply patting their canno
ns and smiling. This infuriated the crowd even more, and it also enraged me, try as I might to conceal said fact. I had fought Yankees up in the Indian Nations for over a year, so the invaders in our midst this day were certainly no friends of mine.
Two blocks past Jackson Square, a group of blue-coats, fresh up from the wharves along the river, hailed our merry band to a halt. An officer sporting a sergeant’s chevron stood directly in our path and bellowed his rude introduction.
“Halt at once!”
I immediately pulled the wagon to a stop.
“Good morning, Sergeant.”
The sergeant began circling and closely inspecting the wagon while his handful of perhaps six men watched on.
“What’s your name, rebel?”
“The name is Broussard. Drouet Broussard.”
“You look sort of nervous, rebel. Why?”
“Well, my city is under attack by Yankees. I plead guilty to being just a little distraught.”
“I guess that makes sense. You would be distraught, wouldn’t you?”
“Look around. I’m not the only one.”
“Yes, but you look even different from all the rest.”
“I should say it has been a rough week for me and my family, to be sure, Sergeant.”
“Rough? How so?”
“Well, it’s something of a private family matter.”
The sergeant walked up to the wagon and placed his hand upon the wet canvas tarp.
“Let’s have a look at what you’re hauling.”
“Sergeant, that is not the best idea. Certainly not a safe idea for you and your men.”
“Alright, Broussard. Then you step down here and peel back this canvas and show me what you have under there.”
“Sergeant, sir…”
“Now, rebel!”
I stepped down from atop the wagon and pulled the canvas away to reveal the hay.
“What’s beneath that hay?”
“What’s beneath the hay is covered for good reason, but you are welcome to see.”
I began to slowly pull back the hay to reveal a yellow-skinned, blue-splotched version of Loreta Janeta Velazquez. I left a scattering of hay over her face to serve as camouflage.
“You and your men may want to cover your faces and hold your breath, Sergeant.”
“What in hell is that?”
“That is my sister, sir.”
“Why is she yellow and what are those blue spots?”
“The Fever. She is jaundiced, and those blue marks are internal bleeding.”
“The fever?”
“Yellow fever. My sister is dead, sir.”
“Is it catchy?”
“It is. But your Yankee guns are helping. So is all of the burning tar hereabouts.”
“How’s that?”
“The cannon fire and smoke from the tar disrupts the miasma in the air.”
“Cover her up at once and get the hell out of here!”
The sergeant and his men stepped aside and made way for our departure, and I wasted no time continuing the journey, exhaling with relief as our wagon lurched forward.
Once out of immediate earshot of anyone, I inquired as to Loreta’s condition underneath the tarp and hay, and she wasted no time responding.
“Do as the Yankee said and get us out of here. No talk!”
The jack pulled us along Decatur Street uninterrupted past Canal Street. We turned right on Poydras then eventually took a left on St. Charles. I felt considerably safer the further along we traveled, as our distance from the river and the Yankee boats spewing forth soldiers increased as we drew closer to the Prytania Street residence of my partner in crime.
We arrived at her residence and immediately pulled the wagon through the door of an enclosed wagon house adjacent the home. We pulled the door shut and locked it before making our way inside the Velazquez domicile.
Velazquez removed her makeup and garb in Teutonic time, and I mixed myself a Sazerac even faster.
“There is certainly more entertainment to be had watching you remove that appalling attire than there ever was viewing its application.”
“We just pulled off one of the greatest robberies in history, and you think of that? Incorrigible.”
“Well, I have to admit I thought of something else as we made our way across town with the booty.”
“Pray, enlighten me.”
“I’m a Confederate scout and spy who has worked to assist our fighting men in the Indian Territory. I’ve seen untold horrors fighting on behalf of a cause for which the men inhabiting the mint building fight this very minute. And I used all of this commotion with its fighting and screaming and gunfire as cover to steal treasure belonging to the Confederacy. I have turned against my own.”
“There are a few items we need to discuss, Drouet.”
“Like what?”
“First of all, the contents of the wagon do not technically belong to the Confederacy. The K.G.C. operative who hid away that loot inside the building did so when the mint belonged to the government of the United States before the war started.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that days ago?”
“Pike and his associates, most likely directed by George Bickley, wanted to test your allegiance to The Circle. You did well by their estimation; I’m sure.”
“What other secrets have you?”
“The only other information to impart is that you must hide the wagon’s contents immediately. You must hide the loot tonight, and you must not tell me where.”
“Why can I not tell you?”
“Those are the orders.”
“I’ve already considered the matter. The trickery of concealing the gold will be the final act of our ruse.”
“Good. If you do as well in the hiding of it as you did in stealing it, then no one will ever find it.”
“I will conceal it where only angels and demons dare tread. Hopefully, the angels will use their influence on my behalf.”
5
Hiding the Cache
Velazquez and I remained inside her residence until the sun went down and while the gloom of Yankee occupation enveloped New Orleans. Mobs comprised of the local citizenry roamed the streets in defiance, but Confederate General Mansfield Lovell surveyed his scant force and realized at once the futility of meaningful resistance. The General told Mayor John Monroe that the Yankees, if faced with spirited defense, would inflict severe damage and casualties upon the city.
The Yankees now controlled New Orleans, the gateway to the lower Mississippi, and the Confederacy now faced imminent doom. I chose to shove such facts from my mind and concentrate instead on matters more pressing to me personally.
I figured since we removed the cache from the mint building in broad daylight in front of seemingly the entire citizenry of New Orleans and an invading Yankee army that I’d get to work concealing it in the same fashion—that is, in plain sight of the entire world.
New Orleans seemed covered in a blanket of death and destruction. The gold from the mint building would take up residence in a place of similar energy.
When the sun dropped, and full darkness set in, I stepped out to the wagon house, checked the jack, the wagon, and contents, opened the wide door and drove the contraption to a spot located barely one city block distant—to the City of the Dead, also known as Lafayette Cemetery. There, Father owned one of the many above-ground vaults making up this village of ghosts. The family vault of which I mention, originally erected for an uncle who met his end in Europe, but whose body never made it back to New Orleans, had stood empty these many years with uncle’s name chiseled on the front. Few knew the crypt stood empty of the body for which it had been constructed to safe keep.
After a long day of thunder and lightning and rain, a thick mist covered the city. The fog slithered along every street and alleyway, as well as through the pathways of the necropolis before me. Along the way, I thought I saw shadow people from the corner of my eyes. I detected them through the darkness and fog.
They often showed themselves to me at night, and each time I saw one lurking it immediately transformed from a well-defined dark outline to something akin to a faint puff of dark smoke and then to nothing at all. Marie Laveau, a good friend of my late mother, taught me about these dark phantoms during my youth. She did not claim to know if they are ghosts of the departed or sinister forces from the dark realm. She believed they occasionally acted as omens or portents of something bad yet to happen and that they often reappeared to those in whom they are intensely interested. She never expressed fear when discussing them.
The jack pulled us through the gate and in a matter of about two minutes we arrived at the tomb. I had visited the vault many times as a child and knew that three square stones at the rear base were loose enough to remove, and this feat I accomplished in a short time. Stones now extracted, a crawl space, albeit tight, presented itself allowing me to place my cargo within. I went to work and arranged the bags and bricks inside the crypt as best I could in complete darkness of night and cover of fog, with the shadow people most certainly watching on in silence. Only a crescent sliver of waning moon appeared through the clouds and vapor, a fact making the night’s work difficult. I consoled myself with the knowledge that the same darkness and mist also concealed my journey to this city of crypts as well as my movements within.
After appropriating enough gold coins to fill my pockets, I slid out of the chamber and re-inserted the stones in place. From the nearby pathway, I gathered handfuls of dirt which I threw over the wet backside of the tomb to create an undisturbed appearance.
The time to leave lay upon me. The jack and I departed under the cloak of darkness and fog and the watch of the shadow people. Perhaps the gray night men showed themselves because of interest in my nefarious activities of late, maybe because of an upcoming evil.
Maybe both.
6
Ghost Knights Of New Orleans Page 3