I see Hines initially led "Buckner's Guides", which were attached to Albert Sidney Johnston's command. A.S. Johnson was also a major player who was involved with the K.G.C. long before the Civil War erupted. Two days after Lincoln's assassination, on April 16, 1865, Hines was in Detroit, Michigan, when he was mistaken for John Wilkes Booth. After finding himself in a fight, Hines jumped several fences and made his way to Detroit's wharf. He waited for a ferryboat to empty its passengers and then forced the captain at gunpoint to take him across the Detroit River to Canada. On arrival, Hines apologized to the captain and gave him five dollars. Hines' exploit led to the mistaken rumor that Booth had escaped into Canada. He was a damn interesting C.S.A. spy that is for sure. His involvement with the planned attempt to burn several cities including New York, and his involvement in and around Chicago and the Johnson's Island campaign to free P.O.W.s along with his travel to Richmond and contact with Thompson, Benjamin, and Davis is some good evidence that he was a key K.G.C. player ECS thanks for posting him. In 1886, Hines began writing a series of four articles discussing the Northwest Conspiracy for Basil W. Duke's Southern Bivouac magazine. The magazine was dedicated to the memory of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but was less adversarial than similar Southern magazines, gaining a larger Northern readership than similar journals. The first of the articles was printed in the December 1886 issue. However, after consulting with former Confederate president Jefferson Davis at Davis' home in Mississippi,
Hines did not name anybody on the Northern side who assisted in the conspiracy. This is a pretty good sign that those guilty parties were still active after the war. Hines was attacked for not being more forthcoming regarding all the participants from both newspapers' reviewers (particularly from the Louisville Times) and Southern readers, which discouraged Hines from publishing any more accounts of the Northwest Conspiracy. it wasn't like he could tell the general public why he was being vague about those involved either, that would have been a dead give away that they were still active. The fact that he also taught at the Masonic University in Kentucky is also a very good indicator that he was secret society material. The Grand Lodge of Kentucky took control of it in 1844, and renamed it the Masonic College. It was renamed Masonic University in 1852.
The Masonic University had its greatest era in the 1850s. However, the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 severely crippled it. This is best represented by the departure of the principal of its grammar school, Mr. Hines, who left to found the C.S.A. Buckner's Guides.
good link to read for information leading to J.Y. Beale
CSATX0
L.C.
