... Back to the original question "what do you believe"?
My opinion is that James Beverly Ward (Morriss's nephew by marriage) wrote the bulk of the Beale Papers, with Sherman, Hutter, and possibly Guggenheimer contributing to the pamphlet.
Ward's daughter,Adeline Ward McVeigh, in a 1934 article in THE LYNCHBURG NEWS by Martha Rivers Adams, stated that her father was the author of the Beale Papers.
Ward and Hutter(who was familiar with CSA codes) were both part of the extended Risqué family bloodline, and their grandfather James Beverly Risqué was wounded in a duel over niece Julia Hancock by Thomas Beale, causing Beale to leave Bedford county.
Many of the events and locations mentioned in the Beale adventure story parallel actual events in the lives of those of the extended Risqué family bloodline.
Sherman who printed and advertised the job pamphlet was Ward's cousin.
Guggenheimer, who served with Hutter in the CSA, was a well known Lynchburg businessman, and was friends with the three, and besides being mentioned in the Beale Papers, may have sold copies in his store.
The Beale Papers were written,printed, and sold only in Lynchburg as an adventure/treasure novel with ciphers included as a parlor entertainment, either for profit, or as a fundraiser for the victims of the Lynchburg fire.
Without even a scintilla of outside collaborating evidence that the events in the Beale Papers ever occurred, this is the most logical conclusion.
"Eliminate all other factors, and the one that remains must be the truth".-Sherlock Holmes/Sir Arthur Conan Doyle