Confederate Gold and Silver

by Peter F. Warren

  Inspecting the boat further, Paul noticed the captain’s seat had a small tear in the upholstery, a tear which had been poorly repaired with grey duct tape. After inspecting most of the boat, he asked Chubby about the condition of the black sixty horsepower Mercury engine. “We just serviced it about two weeks ago. It’s only two years old and I think it’s still under warranty for another six months or so. We’ve never had a problem with it. The engine runs fine.”

  Paul knew he was being shown the boat on orders from Steve and he knew it was likely being offered to him to buy, but he played along by looking at it some more until Chubby broached the topic about buying it. “Why do y’all want a pontoon boat anyhow? Don’t y’all want something better than this old slow tub? It’s already ten years old.”

  “Well, I guess it’s because I have always wanted a pontoon boat or a party boat or whatever they are called. I don’t have a need for a fast boat as I’m not in a hurry anymore in life. I just want something to fish off, to set a grill up on, and to enjoy some good times on with my wife and friends. I told Steve I have always wanted a pontoon boat, so I guess if you are taking the time to show it to me, I guess it’s up for sale. This boat does have some repairs which need making, so it all depends on the price he is asking.”

  “Sounds like you been thinking on this for some time now. Listen here, Steve wants me to do two things and he always wants me to do them his way. At least that’s what he done told me on the phone last night. He wants me to get moving on buying a new pontoon boat for the marina and he wants me to sell this old tub to you. That’s if you’re interested and all in it.”

  Chubby explained that Steve’s style was to always treat his marina customers the right way. He further explained that Steve had recently begun to feel the aging pontoon boat was a poor reflection upon the marina, so he had instructed him to start looking for a newer one.

  “So this here boat is yours if ya want it. Well, not exactly like that, free and all I mean. Steve told me you can have the boat and the trailer for one thousand dollars. The trailer is over yonder there in the parking lot. That’s not too bad a deal, I guess. He also told me to tell ya everything works on the boat, including the navigational lights. The deal also includes a small anchor and that large Igloo ice chest sitting right there. Part of the deal he is giving ya includes mooring it here for the rest of the summer if ya want. He ain’t gonna charge ya for that.”

  Paul bent over and opened the large white colored Igloo ice chest to see what kind of shape it was in. “A cooler this size could come in handy for storing cold beer and sandwiches in on future river trips,” he thought to himself. As he opened the lid, besides noticing the cooler’s white interior was no longer remotely close to being white, a strong foul smelling fishy odor emanated from the inside. The cooler was partially full of warm rancid water. The odor, coupled with the heat of the day, was strong enough that it made Paul gag. It almost caused him to lose the lunch he had eaten about two hours earlier.

  “Guess it needs cleaning, huh?”

  “Chubby, that’s a slight understatement as it needs more than a cleaning. Burning it would be a good idea. You’re not getting the smell out of that thing.”

  Inspecting the boat a little bit more, Paul saw it had been properly registered in South Carolina and had also been inspected earlier in the year by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. A DNR 2011 sticker was properly displayed near the bow section of the boat.

  Paul then walked over to where the boat trailer sat in the marina’s parking lot. As he inspected the Load Rite trailer, which was painted a deep red, he noticed Chubby had climbed onto the boat and had unfurled the boat’s blue canvass top. He was not sure if Chubby had done so to stay out of the afternoon sun or if he had done that so the canvass top could be inspected while he was there looking at the boat. Either way, he took his time giving the trailer a once over to make sure it was in decent shape. Inspecting the trailer, he noticed one of the rear tandem tires on the right side had gone flat, likely from the trailer having sat unused in the parking lot for so long. Overall, the trailer proved to be in good condition. Paul was pleased it had been included in the offer with the boat.

  After taking the time to inspect the boat’s canvass top, Chubby motioned for them to walk over to the steps outside the side door of the marina’s office. The steps also led to the marina’s showroom area. The steps were out of the sun and by now Paul welcomed the opportunity to sit in the shade. Sitting there, they talked about the condition of both the boat and the trailer. While they talked, Paul outlined the repairs he would have to make if he purchased the boat. Besides the torn seat, the non-functioning engine tachometer, the one thing they found that did not work, would also need repairing. Using the list of repairs he had mentioned, he made a counter offer on the boat. “Chubby, it’s got a few dents and so on, but it’s worth buying and fixing up. Tell Steve I’m grateful for the offer. I think his price is a fair one, but tell him if he comes down to eight hundred and fifty dollars he’s got a deal.”

  “Sounds like a fair price. That cooler was in nasty shape, wasn’t it? I’ll call him and see what he says. I’ll be right back.”

  Having left his cell phone in the office, Chubby got up and walked up the steps to call Steve. In a few minutes he was back, telling Paul that Steve was good with his offer. “He even agreed to throw in a new cooler as part of the deal. I’ve got to go to Costco this afternoon so I’ll fetch one of those big Igloo coolers they got there. It will be here for you in the morning if you want to come fetch it. If not, it will be here when you come to get the boat. I’ll have the flat tire looked at as well. It won’t be a problem to get it fixed right.”

  Paul thanked him for his efforts and told him he would be back in two days with the cash to pay for the boat and trailer. Chubby promised he would have the boat cleaned up some by the time it was ready to be picked up. “Please tell Steve I appreciate his generosity. I am fortunate to have met such a nice guy. I’m looking forward to having some good times on the boat.” Chubby assured him he would get the message to him later in the day. Then they exchanged the necessary information needed to complete a Bill of Sale for the boat. “Before I head out, I’m just going to look at the boat again for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”

  “Be my guest. I’ll see y’all on Thursday morning.”

  After briefly inspecting the boat again, Paul drove home to tell Donna about his purchase. As he did, he could not help but to again think of what a generous person Steve was. “I wonder what he has done for other people he has met? I hope I can somehow repay him for his generosity.”

  What Paul would soon realize was by buying the boat he would soon help someone else. Someone who had not seen home in almost one hundred and fifty years.

  Summer, 1863

  4

  Gold On The Move.

  “The war is commenced, and we will triumph or perish.”

  Governor Francis Pickens—South Carolina—

  After the Confederacy had captured Fort Sumter.

  The war had started with cannons being fired in anger at each other; the South’s cannons firing defiantly at the North and the North’s cannons angrily responding back at the South’s attempt to leave the Union. Behind the loud roar of the cannons it was now countrymen fighting against each other and, in some cases, brothers fighting against brothers. The two sides were made up of their many different states, their militias and armies, and for the South, their ragtag armies that were preparing to fight against a seemingly far better trained and equipped Union army. In many cases, especially in the Confederate army, soldiers who had served in the Union army prior to the war now fought against their family and friends who had remained loyal to the Union. Many Union soldiers now found themselves fighting against family members and friends who pledged their allegiance to the newly formed Confederacy. A war between our country’s own individual states was so
mething no one ever expected to occur, but now it had. It would rage for several years. The war would cost the nation over 600,000 of our countrymen before it was over.

  The anger behind the cannon fire, anger fueled by both sides being committed to their respective causes, caused the war to last far longer than anyone could have imagined. After the war had started, many people on both sides predicted it would be over by the end of the first summer. The Confederacy, committed to defending the rights of each state, and their institution of slavery; and the Union, committed to keeping the country intact as it had been prior to the start of the war, and to ending the practice of slavery, as well as being committed to punishing the South for trying to leave the Union, kept the war raging. Each side was convinced their beliefs were the right ones. As the war reached the end of its first summer, no one could predict when the war and the killing of our nation’s young men would end.

  Here the legend began. Two years after the war had started at Fort Sumter; the war had visited many other places, places where peace, family, farming, religion, and even local politics should have been the issues, not visits by soldiers fighting a war killing each other. The war between the two large armies stopped in places called Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Court House, Vicksburg, and in many other places, places where the tragedy of war robbed families of their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. The war also robbed many others, in places where the battles were being fought, of their right to the pursuit of happiness.

  In many of the war’s early battles the Confederate army, seemingly more organized and more determined than the larger and better equipped Union army, won more of the battles than they lost. Then both sides came to Gettysburg. Here the two sides fought a three day battle which many people soon believed caused a turn in the South’s fortunes to occur. It was a turn which saw the Union army finally start to fight with much more conviction. That conviction finally came to the Union army, in part, because Lincoln and his generals finally realized in order to win the war they had to defeat the Confederate army itself; trying to conquer their land, like some of the early Union generals had tried to do, would not lead to the end of the war. Devastating the Confederate armies with huge losses of men and interrupting their supply and communication lines were among the keys to securing a victory. Soon President Lincoln and his new commanding general, General Ulysses S. Grant, along with some of Grant’s most trusted generals, would employ that tactic in their future campaigns against the Confederacy.

  The Confederate army had fought well at Gettysburg, but decisions which had been made to attack the Union army at times during this battle, especially when the Union army held the high ground, proved to be poor ones. Attacking an army who was continually being resupplied with more men and with more equipment as the battle went on was also among the poor decisions which were made. Those decisions, influenced in part by other factors, such as poor communication at times between General Lee and his generals, as well as the South’s cavalry unit being elsewhere during a significant part of the three day battle, doomed the Confederate army at Gettysburg. These failures would rob them of one of their most precious resources, one they could never replenish as easily as the Union army could. That resource was their men. Unlike the South, the North had a much larger portion of the nation’s population to draw from and finding replacement troops was far easier for the North during the war. The poor tactical decisions which were made, coupled with the sheer strength and size of the Union army, as well as the terrain which the Confederate army had to fight on, all proved too much for the Confederacy to overcome at Gettysburg.

  The Confederate army lost far too many men during this battle as over twenty-three thousand soldiers were either killed, wounded, captured, or missing by the time it was over. While the Union army lost a similar number of men, just like the other needs of war, such as food, weapons, and horses, the Union absorbed those losses far better than the Confederate army could. Perhaps those losses might have been less, and perhaps the poor decisions might have not been made if General Robert E. Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate army, had not lost his ‘right arm’. General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson had been killed earlier in the year, having been accidentally mortally wounded by his own men. But many factors turned the tide in this significant battle and Jackson could not have controlled all of those factors which in the end worked against the Confederacy at Gettysburg during that hot July in 1863. While Lee would accept the responsibility for all that went wrong, it was not the fault of one man they had been turned back. It was far more than that.

  Despite their courage, and despite their desire to stay and fight another day, the decision was made to begin an orderly withdrawal south, back across the Potomac River, and back into the relative safety of the Shenandoah Valley. As the Confederate army withdrawal took place, the long gray line of the Confederacy stretched for miles and took weeks to complete before they reached safety. As they withdrew, and despite their best efforts to protect their rear guard, both armies clashed in several small skirmishes and battles as the Confederate army moved back south.

  As the Confederate army moved south through Maryland after crossing over the Potomac River, the Union army continued to inflict losses on the Confederacy. Among those losses was the death of Brigadier General J. Johnson Pettigrew. Despite surviving Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, Pettigrew was killed during the Battle of Falling Waters. His death was another the Confederate army could not afford.

  At the Battle of Manassas Gap, at Fairfield, at Boonsboro, and in other places, the Confederate army would lose another five thousand soldiers. Their losses at Gettysburg, of both the battle and of men, and their additional losses of men during their withdrawal, did not directly lose the war for the rebel army. Their losses also did not cause them to lose their will to fight, but those continuing losses did have a significant adverse effect on their ability to sustain an army large enough to fight in many future battles.

  After their withdrawal from Gettysburg, the Confederate army would again fight bravely despite being ill equipped in many battles. They would fight at the Second Battle of Fort Sumter, at the Battle of Chickamauga, at the Battle of Five Forks, at the Battle of Atlanta, and at over one hundred and fifty other locations before they agreed to surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865.

  ******

  As Lee’s army moved south, the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, soon learned of the defeat of his army at Gettysburg. Davis would then learn of another devastating loss to the Confederacy when news of General John Pemberton surrendering his troops in Vicksburg to General Ulysses S. Grant reached him. The additional news of Port Hudson, on the Mississippi River, also falling to the Union army contributed to the bad news that would reach Davis. The news of those losses was crippling to both the South and to President Davis. He, like others, soon began to fear Richmond, the Confederate capitol, would be next to fall to the advancing Union army. The pressure placed on him to protect Richmond, and to protect the assets of the Confederacy, was enormous. Among the principle assets he had to take steps to protect was the treasury of the Confederacy. Money needed to continue their fight against the Union.

  In the early days of the war, the Confederacy had seized the United States mint in New Orleans and had taken possession of a large amount of gold and silver coins. Those coins were estimated to be worth in excess of six million dollars at the time they were stolen. Additionally, the Confederacy also seized bonds and bank notes which led to approximately twenty million dollars in total assets being seized from the mint and from a nearby state bank depository. That money, first taken to Columbus, Georgia after being seized, was later shipped to Richmond to help the South finance their war efforts. President Davis now had to take drastic steps to protect that money and the rest of the Confederate treasury.

  After meeting with Confederate Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger, a Charleston, South C
arolina native, and explaining his concerns to him, President Davis drafted a letter to General Lee. After several more conversations with Memminger, Davis sent two army captains assigned to his staff to deliver his letter to Lee. The captains were also directed to discuss with him the concerns Davis had regarding the safety of the Confederate treasury. “Tell General Lee he must act fast. We cannot afford undue delays in starting this mission as I fear the Union army will soon be on the outskirts of Richmond.”

  It took the better part of eight days for Captains John McAulay and Steven White, both native Mississippians, to finally locate Lee as he moved south through the lower part of the Shenandoah Valley.

  The difficult withdrawal, during the hot humid days of July, coupled with the additional burdens of responsibility Lee faced as his injured army moved south after their defeat at Gettysburg, had begun to take their toll on him. He had eaten little, and slept even less, despite the protests of his aide, Major Walter Taylor, and others. Finally, as they moved into the southern part of the Shenandoah Valley, Lee relented and agreed early one afternoon to halt the army so they could rest. As his men began to make camp, Lee finally had an opportunity to relax and to eat his first good meal in several days. Before he did so he made sure kitchens had been set up to feed his men their first real meal in days. Once he had been assured steps were being taken to feed the men, Lee finally sat down to eat. It had only been out of sheer exhaustion, both mental and physical, that Lee had consented to stop and rest. Now knowing his men were being taken care of, he sat and enjoyed his meal.