Knights of the Golden Circle after the Civil War

[truckinbutch]

Tnwoods:

As I recently mentioned in another thread, Congress passed export laws that not only put a hell of a tax on cotton bound to overseas markets, the South was also required BY LAW to ship the cotton to northern ports via the inter-coastal waterways. The South could not, BY LAW ship cotton directly to overseas markets from their own ports, such as Charleston, New Orleans, Mobile, etc. Not even from Norfolk, Va. Cotton shipments to overseas markets could only be done from the northern ports of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, etc. We weren't told about that in school, even here in the South. I learned that info many, many years later while researching history as a hobby. Yep, the winner writes the history.

Now, someone reading this thread might ask "what the h--- this has to do with the title of the thread?" Well, the answer is because when the southern folks and northern sympathizers began planning the secession, then hard money and GOLD was gathered from many places and hidden away for future recovery. Those not recovered, for one reason or another, are the stuff our treasure caches are made of.

Good point

 

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[Tnwoods]

Tnwoods:

As I recently mentioned in another thread, Congress passed export laws that not only put a hell of a tax on cotton bound to overseas markets, the South was also required BY LAW to ship the cotton to northern ports via the inter-coastal waterways. The South could not, BY LAW ship cotton directly to overseas markets from their own ports, such as Charleston, New Orleans, Mobile, etc. Not even from Norfolk, Va. Cotton shipments to overseas markets could only be done from the northern ports of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, etc. We weren't told about that in school, even here in the South. I learned that info many, many years later while researching history as a hobby. Yep, the winner writes the history.

Now, someone reading this thread might ask "what the h--- this has to do with the title of the thread?" Well, the answer is because when the southern folks and northern sympathizers began planning the secession, then hard money and GOLD was gathered from many places and hidden away for future recovery. Those not recovered, for one reason or another, are the stuff our treasure caches are made of.

Good point

Yep - see, now we are getting somewhere. The real question is - did they use it all, or did they leave some behind for whatever reason. Like - oh - the Union took control before they could get to it.

Even then, i would think there would be a paper trail somewhere. When they got the 6 million out of the treasury - there was a record of it turning up missing.

I too didn't learn the real reasons for thr WNA until I started doing my own historical searches. Funny how the official reasons in school are so diluted and contorted.

But I think, in order to find anything, unless you are just plain lucky, you have to understand what was going on and who was doing what not just during the war, but leading up to it as well.

Lot of stuff got looted and buried by both sides during the war.

 

[Tnwoods]

One thing before I call it a day.

I have a friend, good ole Southern boy, who was a history teacher and specialized in the WNA. He told me that the day before the battle of Franklin, TN - General hood met up with the Union Generals at the Franklin Masonic lodge.

That night, Hood allowed the Union troops to march right past his camp, and told his men not to engage. Next day he marched his men straight into a slaughter house. He watched them get cut down while standing on a hill that looked over the battlefield.

So if you want to throw the Masons in the mix, there you go. Most of the West Point Generals were Mason's and friends before the war. Does that tie the KGC to the Mason's - no - but the Masonic brotherhood between the Generals would seem to have had a direct effect on the war.

Hood's army was done after that battle. And was a turning point for the North. Some sort of deal was made.

 

[Kentucky Kache]

No, but I haven't looked either...LOL They should be findable though. There are records of where they were when they buried some of it before looting the next town. And then they got captured, ten they escaped, and I think the ones that escaped high tailed it back to southern controlled states, if I remember correctly, Morgan went back to TN. I never found any evidence he or anyone else ever went back to dig any of it up. Nor have I seen anything that anyone else has dug any of it up either - so there is a decent chance there are a few caches of his still out there. I would think they would be worth a good amount.

Off hand I can't remember which states, but they were north of TN, which is mainly why I didn't go looking. Time and money, both always in short supply. But unless there is a Walmart sitting on it now, a good detective could probably find one or two.

Morgan came through my town. In fact, I'm on the trail of a cache that was buried by a local man because of Morgan and his men.

 

[Tnwoods]

No, but I haven't looked either...LOL They should be findable though. There are records of where they were when they buried some of it before looting the next town. And then they got captured, ten they escaped, and I think the ones that escaped high tailed it back to southern controlled states, if I remember correctly, Morgan went back to TN. I never found any evidence he or anyone else ever went back to dig any of it up. Nor have I seen anything that anyone else has dug any of it up either - so there is a decent chance there are a few caches of his still out there. I would think they would be worth a good amount.

Off hand I can't remember which states, but they were north of TN, which is mainly why I didn't go looking. Time and money, both always in short supply. But unless there is a Walmart sitting on it now, a good detective could probably find one or two.

Morgan came through my town. In fact, I'm on the trail of a cache that was buried by a local man because of Morgan and his men.

After you find that, I'd look for what Morgan hid. If I remember right, they would bury their spoils near their camp sites. Finding those shouldn't be hard.

 

[Texas Jay]

"...When I said I think 21 is young for a KGC big shot - that is my opinion..."

Who ever said that Brown County Deputy Charles Webb was 21 when he was killed in Comanche, Texas in 1874 by John Wesley Hardin? I sure didn't and I don't know anyone who did.
~Texas Jay
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloodybillandersonmystery

 

[Tnwoods]

Hi Texas Jay. My bad, he was 25 when he was shot. I know you didn't say that, that is what the Brownwood Texas Sheriff's say.

Click here to submit this officer's photograph

Patch image: Brown County Sheriff's Department, Texas

Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb
Brown County Sheriff's Department
Texas
End of Watch: Tuesday, May 26, 1874

Biographical Info
Age: 25
Tour of Duty: Not available
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Tuesday, May 26, 1874
Weapon Used: Handgun; .44 caliber
Suspect Info: Shot and killed

Deputy Charles Webb was shot and killed by a notorious outlaw wanted for murder, robbery, and cattle rustling. He had encountered the suspect outside of a local saloon and a gunfight ensued. Deputy Webb was able to shoot the man in the side before being shot in the head. As he fell two accomplices continued to shoot him.

The suspect was taken into custody, after being shot and wounded, by Texas Rangers outside of Pensacola, Florida. He was sentenced to 25 years but was pardoned by the Texas governor after serving only 16 years despite having murdered a reported 48 people. Following his release he became a lawyer, but was later shot and killed by a constable. The suspect's brother killed Kimble County Texas Deputy Sheriff John Turman in 1898.

Deputy Webb had previously served as a Texas Ranger and was a Mason. He was buried in Greenleaf Cemetery, in Brownwood, Texas.

http://www.odmp.org/officer/13915-deputy-sheriff-charles-webb

 

[Texas Jay]

1864 - KGC plot to weaken U.S. dollar

From:
"Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History" by James D. Horan, published by The
Fairfax Press, 1954, pages 88 & 89. I hope all members will read this quote
carefully as I believe it explains a tactic that explains how the KGC was able
to use a modified version of this gold strategy to accumulate much of the wealth
that the Knights of the Golden Circle deposited in "marker caches" and
depositories many years after the War's end.
~Texas Jay

***

"...While Hines rounded up the escaped prisoners of war to form his
tiny "squadron," as he would call it in later years, Thompson set out
for Niagara Falls to contact "potent men of the North" to learn how
they felt about peace. Leading Copperheads like Fernando Wood, ex-
mayor of New York City, and ex-governor Washington Hunt of New
York, met with him at the Clifton House. New York and the East were



THE FOX AND THE COPPERHEADS 89

not ready for peace or an uprising, they told Thompson. War manu-
facturers there were too powerful and were on the alert to "neutralize" any
peace efforts.

Thompson next turned to Secretary Benjamin's favorite project: try-
ing to create a financial panic in the North by buying up gold and
smuggling it out of the country in order to weaken the gold security
for the Union dollar. A Nashville banker named Porterfield, who was
living in exile in Montreal, was selected by Thompson as the proper
man to set this in motion.

Porterfield was furnished with fifty thousand dollars. He went to
New York, opened an office under a fictitious name and began to pur-
chase gold, which he exported to England and sold for sterling bills
of exchange. Then he converted the sterling bills into dollars which
he used to buy more gold. The transaction was a costly one, showing
a loss due to the cost of operations, trans-shipment, etc. Porterfield continued
until his losses were twenty thousand dollars. By this time he had exported five
million dollars in gold, "and had induced others to ship much more [gold]." His
buying up gold and sending it out of the country began "showing a marked
effect/' as Thompson said in his official report to Richmond, when the Federals
cracked down.

A former partner of Porterfield's was arrested by General Ben Butler
for exporting gold, and thrown in Lafayette Prison in New York Har-
bor. Porterfield fled back to Canada* However, he still retained the
twenty-five thousand dollars remaining to continue the exporting of
gold through "fronts" in New York.

By the first week in June, 1864, Hines was in touch with his Copper-
head friends in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and in communication with
Vallandigham, who was now living in Windsor. A meeting was set
for the 14th to plan the Copperhead uprising and the release of the
Rebel prisoners in Camps Douglas, Morton, Chase and Rock Island.

Hines and Thompson met with Vallandigham on the afternoon of
the 14th in a dim front parlor of a boarding-house in St. Catharine's, Canada.
Vallandigham, now a man without a country, detailed for Hines the strength of
the Copperheads. Membership totaled about 300,000. Illinois had furnished
80,000, Indiana, 50,000, Ohio, 40,000 and Kentucky and New York State, the rest
A "feeling of fatigue" was sweeping through the North, Vallandigham told them,
following Lincoln's draft call for 500,000 more men..."
***

 

[okietreasurehunter]

The KGC hoped to fund itself in a grand way by taking over Mexico and it's numerous gold and silver mines. With the failure of their not conquering Mexico, so went their big bucks. I have more than one source that shows that the guys running the KGC offices were being payed with the dues brought in. I think that had they taken Mexico then they would have been major players with billion dollar vaults, but other than Houk there's just not a verifiable source for the mega caches.

In my opinion you'd have more luck finding one of the Japanese or German caches from WWII.

 

[Kentucky Kache]

Knights of the Golden Circle being active after the Civil War is simply hogwash...at best.

What is that, some kind of shampoo for your pet pig?

 

[Hoss KGC]

Absolutely.

Knights of the Golden Circle being active after the Civil War is simply hogwash...at best.

SWR, Yammie, Jim,

The KGC operated into the 1900s (approximately 1916), continually putting caches in the ground until that time. They also came back and moved some caches to other spots within the originall areas the cahce was located in, changing the clues/carvings along the way.

I have this information from a very good source.

Good luck in your hunting!

 

[Rebel - KGC]

Post-Civil War KGC became OAK... Order of AMERICAN Knights; the "old guard" became the "new guard".

 

[alec]

I'm sure that there were people around in the early 1900's that had been members of the KGC but for them to have been moving caches and re-marking the locations with new carvings and markers there would have had to have been caches to move/re-mark.

There is no substantiated information anywhere that says the KGC had any money to put in the ground, and I'm talking about the "depositories", so there wouldn't be anything to move or re-mark. If you take Orvus Howk out of the equation then there is no information at all that would even indicate the depositories or any large caches exist at all.

I'm with Yammy on this one, are you saying the KGC morphed into some other group and it was actually that/those groups that put the mega bucks in the ground? It seems the stories keep changing just to stay ahead of what the facts really are.

 

[Texas Jay]

Bob Brewer's L.A. Times interview can be read on this SCV webpage:

http://www.scvcamp260.org/newsletter/2008/2008-Vol1No4-Feb-NL.pdf

~Texas Jay

 

[Texas Jay]

Actually, I chuckle at fools who pretend that $200,000 worth of recovered KGC treasure is a fallacy.
~Texas Jay

 

[Texas Jay]

No, that should be and is exactly what it was - recovered KGC treasure. If you doubt it, you should whine to the L.A. Times writer who conducted the interview with Bob Brewer. I'm sure she could set you straight.
~Texas Jay

 

[okietreasurehunter]

If Bob's theory on how to decode the copper "wolf" map is any indication of his $200,000 KGC recovery then good luck validating that one! I can show you a number of things wrong with his decoding the copper map. For one there isn't a hand drawn on the map like he shows. There isn't an IC for indian camp, etc., etc. The L.A. Times is now a source of proof for a KGC cache recovery. LOL

 

[Hoss KGC]

I'm sure that there were people around in the early 1900's that had been members of the KGC but for them to have been moving caches and re-marking the locations with new carvings and markers there would have had to have been caches to move/re-mark.

That's interesting...these are your words, not mine... I actually don't believe they moved caches or changed the carvings but you do. Yammie only knows what he reads on the internet from "trustworthy" sources.

Alec wrote:
They also came back and moved some caches to other spots within the originall areas the cahce was located in, changing the clues/carvings along the way. When this was done they also changed the type of code at the site so that someone following the original clues would not/could not read the second code, therefore making it extremely difficult to locate the cache.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forum/treasurehunting/messages/1014830.shtml

 

[alec]

You got me there boattow, I don't remember writing that but at one time I did beleive that. Too bad you didn't post the date that I wrote that and it would be obvious that was back when I did believe the myths and before I did any of my own research. I have said repeatedly since then that I have come to my senses.



So you're quoting a newspaper that quotes Bob Brewer who quotes Orvus Howk? There is no independant information that says the KGC put down any treasures like what is bandied about.

 

[Kentucky Kache]

Yammie only knows what he reads on the internet from "trustworthy" sources.

Yammy knows the difference between fringe theories based on fiction and real recorded history

Quite an accomplishment for a 12 year old.