I am going to start this new topic off by giving details about an excellent book I have read that deals with the huge influence the KGC had in the western expansion of the Confederacy. I hope other members will add your KGC book recommendations to this topic for the benefit of all KGC enthusiasts.
***
"Blood & Treasure - Confederate Empire in the Southwest" by Donald S. Frazier, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, 1995.
Thank you, Cavers5, for contributing your recommendation. This essential book was later published, in 2003, as "Rebel Gold" and is available at Hastings and other major booksellers. It was this excellent book that first stirred my interest in the Knights of the Golden Circle.
~Jay~
I usually don't give the names of books I am reading to others until after I have finished them and taken what notes I need from them but, in this case, this book is so important that I feel I must release it here now. This book is becoming increasingly rare and, since I know that traditionalist historians and publishers are out to get all of these books they can get their hands on in order to keep other Americans from learning the truth about the Knights of the Golden Circle, it is imperative that remaining copies be collected by those of us who will take care of them and do our best to release the important information contained in them to the American public.
"Jesse James and the Lost Cause"
by Jesse Lee James
First Edition
Published by Pageant Press, New York, 1961.
This website isn't a book but, if you know how to retrieve the reports here, there is more information about the Knights of the Golden Circle here than in any book I have read.
"Badge and Buckshot: Lawlessness in Old California" by John Boessenecker. Here is the link to the online version of the portion of this book that mentions the KGC. You may have to copy and paste this link in your address bar to get to it.
Thank you, gollum, for adding Roy Roush's books to our list. I have not yet read any of them but assure you they are high on my reading list for the near future.
Texas Jay
Here is another book that has some information about the KGC that you may or may not find helpful in learning more about this secretive Confederate organization. I have read this book but do not share the author's belief that Jesse James was a U.S. senator.
"Jesse James - U.S. Senator" by Ralph Epperson, publishing date unknown.
Mr. Epperson did state in his book that he would write a follow-up book on the topic, after getting experts' analysis of the photos of the two men, if they found them to be the same man. Since he did not write the latter book, that I can find anyway, apparently the experts did not agree with him either.
***
While doing research work on Bloody Bill Anderson, our moderator
Colin Eby located this book and referred it to me. I found it among
ebooks on google.com. I had heard of it before but have not had an
opportunity to read it until now. As you can see from the following
excerpt, the reasons traditionalists didn't want it to be recognized
include that it mentioned the KGC way back in 1984!
~Jay~
The first phase of the Civil War was fought west of the Mississippi
River at least six years before the attack on Fort Sumter. Starting
with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Jay Monaghan
traces the development of the conflict between the pro-slavery
elements from Missouri and the New England abolitionists who migrated
to Kansas. "Bleeding Kansas" provided a preview of the greater
national struggle to come.
The author allows a new look at Quantrill's sacking of Lawrence,
organized bushwhackery, and border battles that cost thousands of
lives. Not the least valuable are chapters on the American Indians'
part in the conflict. The record becomes devastatingly clear: the
fighting in the West was the cruelest and most useless of the whole
affair, and if men of vision had been in Washington in the 1850s it
might have been avoided.
More details
Civil War on the Western Border, 1854-1865: 1854-1865
By Jay Monaghan
Published by U of Nebraska Press, 1984
ISBN 0803281269, 9780803281264
454 pages
Page 322
"...Boonville differed from much of Missouri. Elsewhere the citizens
failed to greet the liberators as some Knights of the Golden Circle
had predicted. A majority of the people still favored the Union, and
Price could save himself only by moving. His chivalric standing
attracted romantic-minded youths, however, and when his roistering
horsemen left Boonville, many of the fifteen- to eighteen-year-old
boys in town left with them. A few mothers complained that their
sons had been 'pressed' into his service, but most admitted that they
went willingly, eyes aflame with enthusiasm. In a deserted street,
after the last raider had gone, a soiled notebook was picked up.
People turned the pages curiously and read: 'wee hav plenty of corn
bred and pore beefe to eat and sasafras tee to drink.'..."
Here is a thread of messages that were posted today on our Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery group regarding a rare book by ex-Guerrilla, Brown County Texas Ranger, Jesse W. James's first cousin Capt. Jason W. James.
***
Re: Captain Jason W. James C. S. A.
Great work, Lou! Thank you so much for locating this book written by
Brown County Texas Ranger Jason W. James. Brown County
historians/writers wrote that Jason W. James was Jesse W. James's
first cousin and that the two were nearly identical in appearance.
While saving the photo on this webpage to my private files, I
couldn't help but notice Jason's resemblance to Brownwood's Henry
Ford. I am going to post the contents of this webpage at the bottom
of this reply so we will have access to it as our research into
Bloody Bill Anderson and the KGC continues. I'm also going to add
the page's link to our group's Links section.
~Jay~
AUCTION 19
"A Confederate Rarity of the First Magnitude" (Parrish)
70. JAMES, Jason W. Two titles: (1) Memorable Events in the Life of
Captain Jason W. James. [Roswell, New Mexico?, 1911]. 150 pp., one
plate (photograph of author). 8vo, original gilt-lettered grey
cloth. Light soiling to cloth, otherwise very fine. Inscribed and
signed by James: "To Mr. R. B. Slight, With the compliments and best
wishes of the author. Jason W. James, Altura Ranch Tex., April 28th
1914." Exceedingly rare. (2) Memories and Viewpoints. Roswell:
Privately printed, 1928. 183 [1 blank] pp. 12mo, original gilt-
lettered grey cloth. Small snag on lower spine, otherwise fine.
Uncommon.
First edition of both vols. The 1911 work is exceedingly rare.
The only sales records we trace for the 1911 volume are the Norris
copy in 1948 and a copy sold privately by Jenkins for $1,750, the
latter described by Michael Parrish as "a Confederate rarity of the
first magnitude." Parrish describes James' work as "a
straightforward, literate reminiscence, filled with details about his
service in the Missouri militia in the Trans-Mississippi under
Sterling Price early in the war, and his subsequent experience as a
Confederate partisan cavalry officer operating along the western side
of the Mississippi, mainly in Louisiana under Captain J. C. Lea.
Fighting invading Yankee detachments as well as outlaw guerrillas,
James' men had a special taste for attacking units of Black Federal
troops stationed at various points along the river." The 1928 title
forms a companion volume to the preceding work. Some of the same
events are covered, but different points are brought out and some
experiences are new or greatly expanded. First titleornbusch
II:2863. Flake 4315a: "Hauled freight to Camp Floyd in 1858; recounts
the Mountain Meadows massacre." Howes J45: "Companion volume to item
below [Howes J46] covering boyhood, civil war and ranger activities,
ranching." Norris 3901. Second title: Adams, Herd 1148: "Scarce."
Graff 2190. Flake 4316. Howes J46: "Buffalo hunting; ranching on the
Rio Grande; with Johnston's Utah expedition in 1858; etc." Not in
Mattes (Platte River Road Narratives) or the Eberstadt modern
overlands list.
In 1858 at the age of fifteen the author (b. Missouri 1843-d.
Uvalde, Texas, 1933) travelled overland from Missouri to Salt Lake to
haul 6,000 pounds of freight to supply General Harney's troops
engaged in the "Mormon War." After reaching Provo and Salt Lake City,
James joined with Russell, Majors, and Waddell to Fort Leavenworth.
On this arduous trip James' feet were frozen when the party was
forced to lay up for three days between Fort Bridger and South Pass.
He recovered at Fort Laramie and describes trading with Sioux and
Cheyenne to obtain a pair of moccasins, the only type of footwear his
injured feet could tolerate. The following year he witnessed the
Pike's Peak Gold Rush when he travelled to Fort Bridger. In 1861
James enlisted with Kirtley's troops to drive the Kansas Jayhawkers
out of Missouri and rode with Quantrill, giving an officer's eye-
witness account of the Lawrence Massacre and Baxter Springs. During
the latter part of the War, James served in Mississippi and
Louisiana, and was one of the last officers to surrender (June 27,
1865).
During Reconstruction in Louisiana James helped organize the "Ku
Klux," White Camelias, and Bulldozers ("we had to work in such a way
that no evidence could be found against us"). He bluntly outlines the
intimidation and violence, including deadly shootouts he and his men
inflicted on white Republicans and their Black allies. He herded
sheep in Colorado Territory in 1874, and in 1883 drove a herd of
cattle from Delhi, Louisiana, to Orange, Texas. He joined Gillespie's
Texas Rangers the following year assisting in the apprehension of
murderers, horse and cattle thieves, and fence cutters. He later
worked on the railroad in East Texas and Louisiana. In 1892 he
relocated to Roswell, New Mexico, supervising the Roswell Land and
Water Company. In a chapter on "Ranching in Texas," James tells how
in 1904 he purchased from Ranger Capt. James. B. Gillett the Altura
Ranch in Brewster County (fourteen miles from Alpine, next to A. S.
Gage's ranch). He describes the transition from open-range to fenced
ranching and the attendant violence. His rousing and frequently
violent ventures conclude prosaically with chapters on his Masonic
activities and boating and hunting on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Among the expanded and new material in the 1928 volume are his
1858 buffalo hunt in Nebraska; apprehending counterfeiters in Paris,
Texas, around 1890; ranching on the Rio Grande in 1883-1884 at Myers
Canyon in the brush country thirty miles above the mouth of the Pecos
River; relocating to Murphyville (now Alpine) in 1894; diary of the
first boat trip to make the run from Galveston to Port Aransas and
return through the Intracoastal Canal (1913); involvement with the
New Mexico Military Institute; dispute of the Great American Desert
theory; "The Paramount Aim of the Klan"; "New Mexico's Future"; etc.
2 vols. ($1,500-3,000)
****
Hi Cavers5. Unlike most of the other books I have referred to in this thread, I have not been able to get copies of these two books by Jason James yet. They appear to be quite rare but I am currently scouring my sources in an attempt to either buy or copy them. If I can get my hands on one or both books, I will copy them and transcribe their contents online as time permits. First, I will have to verify that their copyrights have expired as one article said one of them had. I firmly believe that they contain some never-before-released information about the Knights of the Golden Circle and possibly about Bloody Bill Anderson of Brown County, Texas although both books were published before he made his admission in 1924 that he was the one and only Bloody Bill Anderson of Quantrill's Guerrillas. Members need to be aware that the traditionalist historians will try their best to prevent this information from being revealed so they, too, will be trying to locate all available copies of these important books.
Texas Jay
I have just finished reading and taking notes from another excellent book that relates a previously-untold connection of Jesse W. James, Frank James, and Cole Younger to the Knights of the Golden Circle. I encourage all members who are interested in learning about the KGC to read this book.
"Uncommen Men: A Secret Network of Jesse James Revealed" by Ralph P. Ganis, published by Southern Heritage Press, 2000.
A very good biographical sketch of the author is provided at:
I'm new to this Forum so this is a suggestion about an old (April) post of yours.
I would suggest you read Ramon F. Adams' comments about Jesse James and the Lost Cause (New York: 1961) in his Burs Under the Saddle. According to Six Guns... he spent 17 pages on this book.
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THANKS, T.J. ! 
8)
ornbusch
