The Golden Circle gains a huge population and so has . This would extend pro-slavery interests. Ollinger Crenshaw, The Knights of the Golden Circle: The Career of George Bickley, American Historical Review, 47 (October 1941). With the decision of Dred Scott in 1857 that extended abolitionism in the States, many white Southerners saw the writing on the wall for slavery. As early as the mid-1830s, Southern rights groups cropped up to promote slavery. But in the South, things were quite different. The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret military organization created in 1859 by George W. L. Bickley in Cincinnati, Ohio. Centering on Havana, this empire would be some 2,400 miles in diameterhence the name Golden Circle. Some of that money was set aside (buried) in anticipation of funding Latin American expeditions that never materialized. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. . James Armstrong had expanded his business in the 1840s by merging with the rival candle and soap firm known as Charles Webb and Sons. Both Baylor and Trevanion Teel, Sibley's captain of artillery, had been among the KGC members who rode with Ben McCulloch. https://www.tshaonline.org, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/knights-of-the-golden-circle. Templar Knights. Is the Knights of the Golden Circle real? In the end, young Henry Grob and Theodore Jones prevailed, with the coins being sold at auction and the proceeds (after expenses) being put into trust until the teens reached age 21. The latter was a leadership posting while the former were positions meant for the common member. Fifty states would be carved from Mexico, calling for 50 senators and 60 or more congressmen to represent their interests in the legislative branch of government and thereby ensure that the rights and desires of the South would be heard and acknowledged. Then they would occupy the District of Columbia, and install Breckinridge as president instead of Lincoln. Local chapters were known as castles and by the 1860s, Bickley claimed the group had over 100,000 members, but such numbers are almost certainly exaggerated. Elkanah Greer of Marshall, for example, served with distinction as colonel of the Third Texas Cavalry, a unit in the cavalry brigade commanded by future governor L. Sullivan Ross. The featurette offers a quick look at the history behind part of the film's story. Though there were rumors that the Knights were involved in the infamous Confederate incursion known as Morgans Raid, which garnered some 2,000 men to draw out Union troops in Ohio and Indiana, these are not substantiated. The Golden Circle is a concept that explains how a business might provide maximum value to consumers by changing the way it thinks. It became strongest among Copperheads, who were Democrats who wanted to end the Civil War via settlement with the South. Houston, however, regardless of his interest in annexing Mexico to the United States, could not accept the K.G.C.s anti-Union stance and refused to support its schemes. 7What companies use the Golden Circle? Of course, the true battleground for slavery was the American Civil War, which took place between 1861 and 1865. In 1991, he found a cache of 1800s coins totaling $400. knights of the golden circle still exist. Knights of the Golden Circle. U.S. Library of Congress/Getty ImagesRuins stand in front of the Confederate Capitol, circa 1865, in Richmond, Virginia. K.G.C., Records of the KGC Convention, 1860, Raleigh, N.C. (http://gunshowonthenet/AfterTheFact/KGC/KGC0571860.html), accessed August 27, 2010. The new charges, said Lincoln on receiving Hays report, were as puerile as the Knights of the Golden Circle. Treason trials against members of the Sons of Liberty in Indianapolis on the eve of the election of 1864 furnished campaign material for the Republicans. . Milligan, they were imprisoned for their activities. They decided to hire Allan Pinkerton and his Pinkerton Detective Agency to spy on the Baltimore conspirators. In the spring of 1860, a small group of K.G.C. accessed March 04, 2023, If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Floyd received instructions from the Order to "seize Navy-yards, Forts, etc. These Knights of the Golden Circle In late 1860, it shifted its focus to supporting the secession movement and intimidating Unionists in the South. Keehn, David (2013). Armstrong, Saulsbury, and the Webbs just werent fellow employees, they were blood brothers in unison for a cause, the Confederate States of America. Some argue that the Knights buried millions of dollars in stolen U.S. Army payrolls in locations across the Southwest, where the money (now worth billions) remained under guard into the mid-twentieth century and perhaps even now. According to the records of the K.G.C. Randolph W. Farmer, The Knights of the Golden Circle in Texas: How a Secret Society Shaped a State (Las Vegas, Nevada: Vita Histria, 2022). According to the book titled JESSE JAMES WAS ONE OF HIS NAMES by Jesse James III (the grandson) and Del Schroeder, Jesse James was indeed a prominent member of the KGC and hid large quantities of stolen riches in various locations on behalf of the secret society. A group of Knights in New Orleans then publicly attacked him as a liar, coward, and inept leader. is its contribution to creating the emotional excitement necessary to persuading southerners to rebel against the United States. Some examples of golden circle are Apple, the Wright brothers and Martin Luther King Jr. [1]:102104 The Secretary of War, John Floyd and of Treasury, Howell Cobb, were members of the circle, in addition to Vice President John Breckenridge. Bickley, who served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army before being arrested as a spy in Indiana in July 1863 and held until October 1865, died in August 1867. Records of the KGC convention held in 1860 state that the organization "originated at Lexington, Kentucky, on the fourth day of July 1854, by five gentlemen who came together on a call made by Gen. George Bickley". Perhaps the greatest historical significance that can be assigned to the K.G.C. Webb had always declined political office until the position of city collector was tendered him by Mayor Kane. Apparently, the bond between Webb and Kane was so tight that Kane was the one individual to whom Webb could not say no., But Kane died in office soon after. How did John Wilkes Booth use his status? For the past 80+ years it has been assumed that the golden fortune belonged to some unfortunate miser who had passed on without revealing to anyone where the treasure had been stashed. Did you know? The K.G.C. houses for rent in ellijay, ga. ann reinking autopsy results. Jesse James was now a wealthy man, with enough power and influence to fake his own death-and, with the law hot on his trail, this was undoubtedly a wise move. served in the Confederate Army not as members of the societys military division per se, but simply as soldiers in the southern cause. Donald S. Frazier, Blood & Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996). Legends, Ghosts, Myths and Mysteries Main Page, Byways & Historic Trails Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas Declaring Independence, Stanley, Ks Extinct but Still Here (LOK), Black Bob Reservation in Johnson County (LOK). About the Author: Jack Myers is the author of several books, including Row House Days, Row House Blues, and The Delco Files as well as his book Knights Gold. In 1864, it became the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with the Ohio politician Clement L. Vallandigham, most prominent of the Copperheads, as its supreme commander. Saulsbury was employed by the firm of James Armstrong & Associates, makers of fine soaps and candles. Donald S. Frazier, Blood & Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996). If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. They either did very little and were nothing more that a paper tiger or they still exist today hoarding vast amounts . Booth had performed for President Lincoln at Fords Theatre in November 1863. 65: 8086. The Knights of the Golden Circle really did exist. In the mid 19th century United States, a group of Southern men known as the Knights of the Golden Circle subscribed to a similar philosophy. Proclaiming that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils his plans for a New Deal to help the country out of its malaise. KGC members also figured prominently among those who, in 1861, joined Lt. Col. John Robert Baylor in his temporarily successful takeover of southern New Mexico Territory. A list of identification rules for the Knights of the Golden Circle. These conspiracy stories associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle are now part of the historical record associated with the organization, but none of them can be reliably documented. mastermind Albert Pike, had two employees and a fellow Armstrong board member all living with thousands of gold coins buried under their respective residences. The K.G.C. Ruins stand in front of the Confederate Capitol, circa 1865, in Richmond, Virginia. The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret society that was active in the United States during the mid-19th century. California Senator Milton Latham subsequently did so when he entered the entire PierceSeward correspondence into the Congressional Globe. Less than a week later, Confederate forces evacuated Richmond, and within two weeks, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops. As Washington exploded in celebration, Booth attended another Lincoln speech on April 11, reacting strongly to Lincolns suggestion that he would pursue voting rights for blacks. . Well-placed members of the Knights of the Golden Circle plotted to send Federal arms to the South. during a ceremony at a house in his neighborhood. Many top Baltimore officials are said to have attended Booths swearing-in, done in the houses parlor which was decorated with busts and paintings of Southern politicians and heroes. Library of Congress via Getty Images. If such a plot existed, nothing came of it, suggesting that the rumors were just that or that the K.G.C. Indeed, with that kind of representation, slave-holding states could stop any and all abolitionist policies organized by free Northern states. Wilmer McLean and his family sit on the porch of his house, where Confederate General Robert E. Lee signed the terms of surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. More importantly, the Northern states did gradually come to prohibit slavery. Known as something of a rebel hangout, the establishment had also been the haunt of the young John Wilkes Booth. According to one of the few mainstream histories of the organization, . Although nominally a secret society, the existence of the Knights of the Golden Circle was not, in fact, a secret. Booth took a solemn oath to protect the South and the new Confederacy at all costs. In the summer of 1859 an organization calling itself the Knights of the Golden Circle achieved national notoriety as an influential secret society formed to defend the rights southern slaveholders. The eventual goal of the plan was the annexation of all of Mexico to the United States. Appealing to the Confederacy's friends in both the North and the border states, the Order spread to Kentucky as well as the southern parts of such Union states as Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri. [6], Hounded by creditors, Bickley left Cincinnati in the late 1850s and traveled through the East and South, promoting an armed expedition to Mexico. [15] In May 1861, members of the KGC and the Confederate Rangers attacked a building which housed a pro-Union newspaper, the Alamo Express, owned by J. P. Newcomb, and burned it down. The Knights merged with the Order of the Lone Star with the expansionist goal of forming a slave-holding empire that operated like the East India Company by annexing Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, and Central America into the United States. It was the only time Lincoln would see Booth perform. Home; Dante Opera. This book explores this group in fine detail, in fact remarkable detail given it was a secret organization, yet provides an engaging read. Although . The History of Baltimore City and County, Maryland records that Mr. And if that drastic plan failed, the K.G.C. The slave population there had continued to grow due to natural increase even after the ban on international trade. The Knights of the Golden Circle (K.G.C. Warren Getler and Bob Brewer, Rebel Gold: One Mans Quest to Crack the Code Behind the Secret Treasure of the Confederacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 4:27 PM. They often paid with Confederate States dollars or with drafts on the Confederate government. sought to keep Lincoln from getting to the White House, even if it meant assassinating him on his ride to the inauguration in Washington, D.C. in 1861. They are armed with an axe and a corn knife, but it is sufficient to uncover one of the greatest found treasures in American history. Reports of K.G.C. Pinkertons report included the astonishing detail that Marshal Kane himself was likely involved with the plot or at least would offer Lincoln little or no protection because of hisloyalty to the rebel cause. Why did President Lincoln jail opponents of the war? On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. April 9, 1865 During this time, the pro-slavery South and the anti-slavery North wanted to expand their borders and create new states aligned with their respective causes. Linked to the Freemasons and the ceremonies of Freemasonr. This measure, which supported the goal of the KGC, failed to be adopted.
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