morbiusandneo
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KGC in Illinois - Where are the leads?
- Thread starter morbiusandneo
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Texas Jay
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- Detector(s) used
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- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Here are a couple of sources that have a lot of reliable information about the KGC in Illinois.
War of the Rebellion Records:
http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/browse.monographs/waro.html (Run a simple search for keywords: "Knights of the Golden Circle")
"Confederate Agent" by Horan
Here is the online version of this excellent book which was written by James D. Horan after he was the first to examine important documents about the KGC in the 1950s after they had been sealed from the public since the end of the Civil War.
http://www.archive.org/details/confederateagent011673mbp
~Texas Jay
War of the Rebellion Records:
http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/browse.monographs/waro.html (Run a simple search for keywords: "Knights of the Golden Circle")
"Confederate Agent" by Horan
Here is the online version of this excellent book which was written by James D. Horan after he was the first to examine important documents about the KGC in the 1950s after they had been sealed from the public since the end of the Civil War.
http://www.archive.org/details/confederateagent011673mbp
~Texas Jay
Texas Jay
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2006
- Messages
- 1,152
- Reaction score
- 1,363
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Brownwood, Texas
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Pro, Garrett Scorpion Gold Stinger, Garrett Ace 350, Garrett Ace 250, vintage D-Tex SK 70, Tesoro Mojave, Dowsing Rods
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
From:
"Confederate Agent" by James D. Horan, 1954, pages 16 & 18. Please note the
reference to Quantrill and the strength of the KGC in the North.
~Texas Jay
***
"16 CONFEDERATE AGENT
During 1863-64, their followers destroyed government warehouses
and military installations, cut communications, acted as arsonists, mur-
derers, spies and couriers for Confederate leaders, and, in short, at-
tempted to create a Trojan horse within the loyal northern states.
The story of the Copperheads, gaudy with secret symbols, pass-
words and other conspiratorial paraphernalia, is bloody and full of
nightly terror. Beneath the theatrical props were real violence and
fanaticism. The true scope of the Copperheads will probably never be
known. When Richmond was burning, Secretary of State Judah Ben-
jamin burned the records of his and of Hines' secret dealings with the
Copperhead leaders. However, Hines kept copies of many of his re-
ports and letters, which he sent to his wife with instructions to hide
them.
The Knights of the Golden Circle may or may not have been the
outgrowth of the Southern Rights clubs of the 1830s, Six ships, all
equipped for piracy, were sent out on the high seas by the clubs, but
they were captured and burned by the British.
In 1854 a wonderful old humbug, George W. L. Bickley, took over
the clubs and organized the Knights of the Golden Circle, with head-
quarters in Cincinnati. Bickley had an impressive list of medical de-
greesall forged, of course and a suitcase of secret signs, symbols and
a "book of rites." Under his management the Knights spread like wild-
fire through the cotton South. From hocus-pocus rituals they turned
to violence and conquest when they tried to promote the extension of
slavery by the conquest of Mexico.
Secession was their goal in 1860. "Castles," as the Knights called
their lodges, sprang up in non-seceding states. Bickley, active in this
work in Kentucky, was threatened with arrest and lied to Virginia.
But the movement flourished in Kentucky, and became a real danger
to the Union Army after war broke out.
Not all the Knights knew the secret aims of their leaders. Many
solemnly went through the fantastic rituals, swore their oaths, believ-
ing themselves to be only Democrats preserving the freedom of the
ballot against tyrannical Republicans. Only those who took the last
two advanced degrees of the ritual were told then only orally of the
violent goals their leaders had set. Armed sentries, sometimes the
strength of a full company, guarded the meeting places.
In Illinois the Knights were openly gathering recruits for the Con-
federate Army in 1861. In Iowa they burned the homes of men who
joined the Federals. In Des Moines the U. S. marshal found evidence
that the Knights were gun-running into Missouri for Quantrill's guerrillas In
August, 1862, the Chicago Tribune declared the movement
had 20,000 members. Missouri membership was reported as from 10,-
000 to 60,000, with Castles springing up in every section of the state.
There is no way of knowing exactly how many members the Knights
really had. With death by torture the penalty for any Knight who re-
vealed the secrets of his society, it is surprising that a few did find the
courage to make public some details. But in May, 1862, a Federal
grand jury in Indiana handed down a report on the activities of the
Knights, in which they estimated their strength in the state at 15,000,
all of whom were plotting to resist paying taxes and to prevent en-
listments in the Union Army, The report pointed out that recruiting
was almost at a standstill in the areas where they were strongest. The
jurors also reported that delegates at the Indiana State Democratic
Convention "openly exchanged the signs and symbols of the Knights
of the Golden Circle."
In June and August, 1862, mobs spurred on by the Knights rode
through towns of southern Illinois, cheering Jefferson Davis and John
Hunt Morgan.
The Chicago Tribune, a bitter foe of the Knights, reported that
Grant had had to disband the 109th Illinois Volunteers because it was
virtually a branch of the Knights, In Indiana, Governor Oliver Morton
began to govern his state like a dictator after the legislature had re-
fused to grant him war appropriations and had begun to hamstring his
war powers*
Undoubtedly the most prominent Copperhead of all was Clement
Vallandigham, with whom Hines tried to carry out what he called w a
revolution in the northern part of the United States/*
Vallandigham is one of the strangest and most tragic figures of the
Civil War. There is little known about him except the few facts in a
"memorial" published by his brother almost seventy-five years ago.
He was born in Lisbon, Ohio, in 1820, the son of a Huguenot min-
ister who liked to boast that his family's traits were always "decision,
moral courage and religious convictions. At two he knew the alphabet
and at twelve spoke Greek and Latin fluently and was ready to enter
college, but college authorities refused to accept him.
At seventeen he entered Jefferson College in Philadelphia, At nine-
teen he was principal of Union Academy in Maryland. A year later he
was editor of the Western Empire, a powerful Democratic newspaper.
He became interested in politics and at twenty was making major
speeches for the Democratic Party. He resigned from Ills post as col-
lege principal to practice law in his home town of Lisbon. Ambition
FIRES OF THE COPPERHEADS 19
and love of power burned in Vallandigham's breast. He desperately
wanted to be a leader of men, a champion of lost causes. In Lisbon
he specialized in criminal cases which other lawyers refused because
of the obvious weight of state's evidence against them. Vallandigham
delighted in defeating the state's attorney. He seldom lost; juries were
hypnotized by his clear, ringing voice and dark gray eyes, cold and
flat as slate, under jutting brows. But politics continued to be his first
love and from a Common Pleas judgeship he advanced to the office
of Lieutenant Governor and finally Congressman.
The tall, hawk-nosed, moody man was soon a familiar sight in the
halls of Congress. He had few warm friends. As one man recalled years
later, "Tie was not what you would call a mixer." Hines found him a
fanatical dreamer "who believed all that was told to him/'
One hour of every day of his life was set aside for reading the Bible.
Nearly all of his major speeches are sprinkled with Biblical quotations.
As a youth Vallandigham had lived a monastic life, shunning liquor,
women and dancing. The oil lamp in his room burned late as he de-
voured books on law, religion and philosophy. His favorite was a dog-
eared collection of Calhoun's speeches. Like Calhoun, Vallandigham
supported a political philosophy of states' rights. In Congress he was
the leader of the radical, or anti-abolitionist, movement of the Demo-
cratic Party. In the elections of 1862 he was defeateda stunning blow
to his pride. He was a bitter man when he returned to Washington to
deliver his last speech in the House, a ringing denunciation of Lincoln
and his war administration. The speech was frankly defeatist. The
North would never succeed in subduing the South, he cried. "Why
carry on this terrible war? It is folly."
His protest was a trumpet call to the Copperheads and to that sec-
tion of his party which advocated peace at any cost. Vallandigham's
rise as the spokesman for the Peace Democrats in the North had be-
gun. These were the crucial days of the middle period of the war.
Grant was besieging Vicksburg without success. Rosecrans was still
inactive and apparently helpless after the bloody battle of Stone's Hiver
against Bragg. Lee had invaded Maryland and there were rumors of
a second invasion of the North. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipa-
tion was being assailed on all sides. Draft riots flared up in New York
City, while the terrible casualty list from Fredericksburg mounted. In
the North ardor for the war was indeed lessening.
On February 20 S 1863, the Cincinnati Gazette predicted that, through
the "United States Grand Jury at Indianapolis, important revelations
are being made upon the persistent denials of rebel sympathizers of
20 CONFEDERATE AGENT
the existence of a treasonable society known as the Knights of the
Golden Circle."
***
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloodybillandersonmystery
"Confederate Agent" by James D. Horan, 1954, pages 16 & 18. Please note the
reference to Quantrill and the strength of the KGC in the North.
~Texas Jay
***
"16 CONFEDERATE AGENT
During 1863-64, their followers destroyed government warehouses
and military installations, cut communications, acted as arsonists, mur-
derers, spies and couriers for Confederate leaders, and, in short, at-
tempted to create a Trojan horse within the loyal northern states.
The story of the Copperheads, gaudy with secret symbols, pass-
words and other conspiratorial paraphernalia, is bloody and full of
nightly terror. Beneath the theatrical props were real violence and
fanaticism. The true scope of the Copperheads will probably never be
known. When Richmond was burning, Secretary of State Judah Ben-
jamin burned the records of his and of Hines' secret dealings with the
Copperhead leaders. However, Hines kept copies of many of his re-
ports and letters, which he sent to his wife with instructions to hide
them.
The Knights of the Golden Circle may or may not have been the
outgrowth of the Southern Rights clubs of the 1830s, Six ships, all
equipped for piracy, were sent out on the high seas by the clubs, but
they were captured and burned by the British.
In 1854 a wonderful old humbug, George W. L. Bickley, took over
the clubs and organized the Knights of the Golden Circle, with head-
quarters in Cincinnati. Bickley had an impressive list of medical de-
greesall forged, of course and a suitcase of secret signs, symbols and
a "book of rites." Under his management the Knights spread like wild-
fire through the cotton South. From hocus-pocus rituals they turned
to violence and conquest when they tried to promote the extension of
slavery by the conquest of Mexico.
Secession was their goal in 1860. "Castles," as the Knights called
their lodges, sprang up in non-seceding states. Bickley, active in this
work in Kentucky, was threatened with arrest and lied to Virginia.
But the movement flourished in Kentucky, and became a real danger
to the Union Army after war broke out.
Not all the Knights knew the secret aims of their leaders. Many
solemnly went through the fantastic rituals, swore their oaths, believ-
ing themselves to be only Democrats preserving the freedom of the
ballot against tyrannical Republicans. Only those who took the last
two advanced degrees of the ritual were told then only orally of the
violent goals their leaders had set. Armed sentries, sometimes the
strength of a full company, guarded the meeting places.
In Illinois the Knights were openly gathering recruits for the Con-
federate Army in 1861. In Iowa they burned the homes of men who
joined the Federals. In Des Moines the U. S. marshal found evidence
that the Knights were gun-running into Missouri for Quantrill's guerrillas In
August, 1862, the Chicago Tribune declared the movement
had 20,000 members. Missouri membership was reported as from 10,-
000 to 60,000, with Castles springing up in every section of the state.
There is no way of knowing exactly how many members the Knights
really had. With death by torture the penalty for any Knight who re-
vealed the secrets of his society, it is surprising that a few did find the
courage to make public some details. But in May, 1862, a Federal
grand jury in Indiana handed down a report on the activities of the
Knights, in which they estimated their strength in the state at 15,000,
all of whom were plotting to resist paying taxes and to prevent en-
listments in the Union Army, The report pointed out that recruiting
was almost at a standstill in the areas where they were strongest. The
jurors also reported that delegates at the Indiana State Democratic
Convention "openly exchanged the signs and symbols of the Knights
of the Golden Circle."
In June and August, 1862, mobs spurred on by the Knights rode
through towns of southern Illinois, cheering Jefferson Davis and John
Hunt Morgan.
The Chicago Tribune, a bitter foe of the Knights, reported that
Grant had had to disband the 109th Illinois Volunteers because it was
virtually a branch of the Knights, In Indiana, Governor Oliver Morton
began to govern his state like a dictator after the legislature had re-
fused to grant him war appropriations and had begun to hamstring his
war powers*
Undoubtedly the most prominent Copperhead of all was Clement
Vallandigham, with whom Hines tried to carry out what he called w a
revolution in the northern part of the United States/*
Vallandigham is one of the strangest and most tragic figures of the
Civil War. There is little known about him except the few facts in a
"memorial" published by his brother almost seventy-five years ago.
He was born in Lisbon, Ohio, in 1820, the son of a Huguenot min-
ister who liked to boast that his family's traits were always "decision,
moral courage and religious convictions. At two he knew the alphabet
and at twelve spoke Greek and Latin fluently and was ready to enter
college, but college authorities refused to accept him.
At seventeen he entered Jefferson College in Philadelphia, At nine-
teen he was principal of Union Academy in Maryland. A year later he
was editor of the Western Empire, a powerful Democratic newspaper.
He became interested in politics and at twenty was making major
speeches for the Democratic Party. He resigned from Ills post as col-
lege principal to practice law in his home town of Lisbon. Ambition
FIRES OF THE COPPERHEADS 19
and love of power burned in Vallandigham's breast. He desperately
wanted to be a leader of men, a champion of lost causes. In Lisbon
he specialized in criminal cases which other lawyers refused because
of the obvious weight of state's evidence against them. Vallandigham
delighted in defeating the state's attorney. He seldom lost; juries were
hypnotized by his clear, ringing voice and dark gray eyes, cold and
flat as slate, under jutting brows. But politics continued to be his first
love and from a Common Pleas judgeship he advanced to the office
of Lieutenant Governor and finally Congressman.
The tall, hawk-nosed, moody man was soon a familiar sight in the
halls of Congress. He had few warm friends. As one man recalled years
later, "Tie was not what you would call a mixer." Hines found him a
fanatical dreamer "who believed all that was told to him/'
One hour of every day of his life was set aside for reading the Bible.
Nearly all of his major speeches are sprinkled with Biblical quotations.
As a youth Vallandigham had lived a monastic life, shunning liquor,
women and dancing. The oil lamp in his room burned late as he de-
voured books on law, religion and philosophy. His favorite was a dog-
eared collection of Calhoun's speeches. Like Calhoun, Vallandigham
supported a political philosophy of states' rights. In Congress he was
the leader of the radical, or anti-abolitionist, movement of the Demo-
cratic Party. In the elections of 1862 he was defeateda stunning blow
to his pride. He was a bitter man when he returned to Washington to
deliver his last speech in the House, a ringing denunciation of Lincoln
and his war administration. The speech was frankly defeatist. The
North would never succeed in subduing the South, he cried. "Why
carry on this terrible war? It is folly."
His protest was a trumpet call to the Copperheads and to that sec-
tion of his party which advocated peace at any cost. Vallandigham's
rise as the spokesman for the Peace Democrats in the North had be-
gun. These were the crucial days of the middle period of the war.
Grant was besieging Vicksburg without success. Rosecrans was still
inactive and apparently helpless after the bloody battle of Stone's Hiver
against Bragg. Lee had invaded Maryland and there were rumors of
a second invasion of the North. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipa-
tion was being assailed on all sides. Draft riots flared up in New York
City, while the terrible casualty list from Fredericksburg mounted. In
the North ardor for the war was indeed lessening.
On February 20 S 1863, the Cincinnati Gazette predicted that, through
the "United States Grand Jury at Indianapolis, important revelations
are being made upon the persistent denials of rebel sympathizers of
20 CONFEDERATE AGENT
the existence of a treasonable society known as the Knights of the
Golden Circle."
***
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloodybillandersonmystery
Texas Jay
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2006
- Messages
- 1,152
- Reaction score
- 1,363
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Brownwood, Texas
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Pro, Garrett Scorpion Gold Stinger, Garrett Ace 350, Garrett Ace 250, vintage D-Tex SK 70, Tesoro Mojave, Dowsing Rods
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
http://history.montgomeryco.com/History/tabid/604/ID/154/History-of-Litchfield-I\
llinois.aspx
***
History of Litchfield Illinois
1860-1865: A WAR—A SCHOOL—A CITY HALL
This period in the history of Litchfield is marked by the Civil War; it was a
period of bitterness as the community was settled by families whose views
differed according to their background and origin. There were slaves in the
county; there were free Negroes in the county. The Knights of the Golden Circle,
an anti-war group, was strong in this area, yet they were opposed through the
newspapers by the Union League Council Number 60, the patriotic home guard
during these difficult days.
***
~Texas Jay
llinois.aspx
***
History of Litchfield Illinois
1860-1865: A WAR—A SCHOOL—A CITY HALL
This period in the history of Litchfield is marked by the Civil War; it was a
period of bitterness as the community was settled by families whose views
differed according to their background and origin. There were slaves in the
county; there were free Negroes in the county. The Knights of the Golden Circle,
an anti-war group, was strong in this area, yet they were opposed through the
newspapers by the Union League Council Number 60, the patriotic home guard
during these difficult days.
***
~Texas Jay
Les, wasn't that "spanish helmet" later correctly identified as a 1948 Chicago
Bears football helmet? The "ringing rock" is clearly not KGC related as those
kinds of rocks were rounded up by "sentinels" and placed in the "Master Crypt"
along with the Crown Jewels of Europe, Scandanavia and the lesser Antilles.
The "Master Crypt" is of course located on the Kentucky/Virginia border and is
closely monitered by Homey Security, CIAA, FBII, UPS and Log Cabin Repub-
licans by fixed wing aircraft, loose winged choppers and mounted patrols.
In Texas the Lone Star Masons are assigned to follow KGC seekers and report
their findings to the International and Global New World Order headquarters
in Bejing, China.
My suggestions for your state are to look underwater in say the Big Muddy for
caverns leading to subterranian cities of solid gold.
Bears football helmet? The "ringing rock" is clearly not KGC related as those
kinds of rocks were rounded up by "sentinels" and placed in the "Master Crypt"
along with the Crown Jewels of Europe, Scandanavia and the lesser Antilles.
The "Master Crypt" is of course located on the Kentucky/Virginia border and is
closely monitered by Homey Security, CIAA, FBII, UPS and Log Cabin Repub-
licans by fixed wing aircraft, loose winged choppers and mounted patrols.
In Texas the Lone Star Masons are assigned to follow KGC seekers and report
their findings to the International and Global New World Order headquarters
in Bejing, China.
My suggestions for your state are to look underwater in say the Big Muddy for
caverns leading to subterranian cities of solid gold.
Texas Jay
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2006
- Messages
- 1,152
- Reaction score
- 1,363
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Brownwood, Texas
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Pro, Garrett Scorpion Gold Stinger, Garrett Ace 350, Garrett Ace 250, vintage D-Tex SK 70, Tesoro Mojave, Dowsing Rods
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Scroll down on this page until you reach the part entitled "Knights of the
Golden Circle for stories about the KGC in Illinois.
http://www.memoriallibrary.com/IL/South/History/twenty-six/index.htm
~Jay~
http://bloodybillanderson.webs.com
Golden Circle for stories about the KGC in Illinois.
http://www.memoriallibrary.com/IL/South/History/twenty-six/index.htm
~Jay~
http://bloodybillanderson.webs.com
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