Confederate Gold and Silver: A story of the lost Confederate treasury and its missing gold and silver

By Peter F. Warren

This historical mystery contains two stories which gradually merge into one. One occurs during 2011, while the other takes place in 1863 during the height
of the Civil War.


In 2011, after moving to South Carolina, Paul Waring, a retired Connecticut state trooper, and his wife start their new life. Soon after moving, Paul makes
a startling discovery.


He discovers the remains of a long-forgotten Confederate soldier, along with several Civil War artifacts. Those artifacts include two glass bottles
containing several clues he must decipher.


Paul determines that one clue concerns the whereabouts of the lost Confederate treasury; a treasury largely comprised of gold and silver coins. He later
discovers much of this gold was stolen from the United States government at the outbreak of the Civil War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449742775

Peter F. Warren

Peter Warren, a former resident of Connecticut, retired from the Connecticut State Police Department after serving for many years in several command assignments. He is a graduate of the University of New Haven and the FBI National Academy; he is an honor graduate of the Connecticut State Police Academy. Currently he resides in South Carolina with his wife, Debbie. A Civil War enthusiast and an avid golfer, he has combined those interests and his law enforcement experience into his first book, Confederate Gold and Silver.

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Copyright © 2012 Peter F. Warren.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the

written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

(http://www.readpete.com)

([e-mail])

See the author’s Facebook page for additional information.

Author’s photo – Peter Warren’s photo was taken at the Caledonia Golf and Fish

Club in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. In the photo is one of the many Southern

Live Oak trees which grace the property. (Photo by Marc Guertin)

This fictional story, while including some accurate historical facts, also includes conversations, writings (in the

form of letters), and dialogues which take place between characters in this book; they are not intended to be real

or historically accurate. They are a product of the author’s imagination and are intended solely to enhance the

story line. Some scenes, events, and locations within this book have also been created for the same reason.

WestBow Press

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since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and

do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4278-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4279-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4277-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012905738

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/14/2023

Contents

Acknowledgements

1     The Move

2     War Begins

3     Headed South

4     Gold On The Move

5     A New Friend

6     Captain Judiah Francis

7     Paul’s Boat

8     A Tree Reveals Her Secret

9     Instructions

10   Clues Uncovered

11   The Mission Begins

12   The Discoveries Continue

13   Troubles Continue

14   Filling In The Pieces

15   Tough Decisions

16   The Investigation Starts

17   The Race to Charleston

18   Whom To Tell

19   Ambushed

20   Looking For Gold

21   The Cemetery

22   One Down – Two To Go

23   Georgetown to Charleston

24   Gold in North Carolina

25   Charleston

26   A Cemetery’s Treasures

27   No Way Out

28   Strong Black Friends

29   The Yankees Are Coming

30   The Cannons Reveal Their Secrets

31   The Mission Dies

32   The Southern States Fight Again

33   A Final Tribute

To

My Father

Frank G. Warren

We Miss You.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Like all of you, the successes I have had in life, if any, are ones which have been influenced by the support I have received from family and friends. Fulfilling my dream of writing this book was one of those successes. It was accomplished, in part, by the generous support I have received from many people.

After developing the storyline for this book, I first proposed my thoughts to perhaps one of the least interested persons in American History that I know. From that first conversation, and through the many early mornings and late nights I have spent writing, typing, and editing this manuscript, the support I received from my wife, Debbie, has been amazing. ‘Debra Lynn, I could not have done this without your help, without your support, and without your understanding! Thank you so much!’

During the time it took to write this story I lost my father to Huntington’s disease; a terrible disease he fought and struggled with for several years. My mother, a hero in my eyes, gave up so much of her life to support and care for my father in his final years. A retired Irish Catholic nurse, my mother was unwavering in her dedication, determination and devotion. Despite the round-the-clock care she gave to my father, she always found time to call and support my efforts in completing this story. She, along with Debbie, served as my first two editors. ‘Mom, Thank you for the love you have shown to dad and me, and to all of your family. Thank you so much!’

Many of the characters in this book I have named after family and friends. I have done so out of respect and fondness. To my special group of friends and colleagues, I extend my sincere thanks for the friendship and support we have shared.

To my many other personal and professional friends, especially those from the CT State Police Department, I thank you for being part of this story.

And, finally, to the two people who mean the most in life to my wife and I, our sons, Brian and Sean. I thank you both for being such a big part of my life. You will always hold special places in our lives. I am so proud of both of you.

I hope all of you who read this story have children, parents, family, and friends in your lives who mean as much to you as mine mean to me.

Enjoy your read!

Peter Warren Books

www.readpete.com

Other books by Peter Warren include:

Forgotten Treasure

(a sequel to Confederate Gold and Silver)

One Brother’s REVENGE

MURDER in Murrells Inlet

The Horry County Murders

The Parliament Men

The Journey North

(A Civil War novel written with Roy

McKinney and Edward Odom)

The above books are available directly from the publisher, from Peter Warren Books, from your favorite online retailer, and from many fine bookstores. Each is also available in various eBook formats.

1

The Move

"I am a Connecticut State Trooper, a soldier of the law,

to me is entrusted the honor of the Department …"

Connecticut State Police Department’s Code of Honor

W hile many people spend a significant part of their adult life working in careers they have little interest in, thankfully for Paul Waring that was never the case. For those forced to accept such a boring and mundane existence, knowing you were going to be spending the next forty years taking care of your family while working in a dead-end job has to make your outlook on life not as rosy as it should be. Life is already tough enough, so being less than excited about your job as you climb out of bed and put your feet on the floor each morning makes life even more difficult than it should be. Fortunately, Paul absolutely loved his job. For most of his career as a Connecticut state trooper, he enjoyed the various challenges which confronted him each and every day. To him, it almost seemed as if the public, in their good moments, but especially in their bad ones, always made his job interesting. Like many others, he never could have survived a career behind a desk.

Performing well in every assignment he was given, Paul was promoted several times; the last being to the rank of Major. During the latter half of his career, those promotions gave him the opportunity of commanding several different investigative units. For someone who had already earned the reputation of being an excellent investigator, they were fitting assignments for him to command.

Paul’s reputation also included being a fair, but demanding boss. Among his peers, he was known as being someone who could be trusted to do the right thing. That was especially true for those subordinates who performed as he expected. For those who performed at a lower standard, Paul was known as someone who would quietly put a boot in someone’s rear end as a means of motivating them. While he was blessed by seldom having to do so, his staff knew when they walked away from such an occasion not only were they more motivated but were often far more respectful towards their boss. Paul had that way with people as he always left them feeling he was looking out for them. As cops held the public accountable when they broke the law, Paul held his detectives accountable when they performed at a level that was lower than the standards set by the state police department. On most occasions, he looked at it as something that just had to be done. While he was a person who had many favorite sayings, many of which were attributed to past presidents and retired military leaders, one of Paul’s favorite sayings described his feelings over having to address problems at work. It’s just business, it’s not personal. For those troopers and detectives who worked for him, they always knew he had their backs. While the motivational sessions they were sometimes forced to endure was one of his ways of looking out for them, they knew an occasional boot in the ass sometimes kept the rats from Internal Affairs off their backs.

Paul was also the type of boss who saw the potential in so many of his troopers. As two of his sergeants had looked out for him early in his career, he often did the same for those he supervised. As those sergeants had done, Paul often spent hours and hours of his own time helping his subordinates develop their skills so they could be just as successful as he had been. Whether it was working with his detectives or assisting members of another department or volunteering his time to support a good cause, Paul was always happy to help anyone in need.

While other commanders often liked to brag about disciplining one of their subordinates, Paul always kept those occasions private. While never reluctant about telling someone they had screwed up, he was often the first to extend a compliment when his detectives accomplished something significant. One of his best attributes was taking time to publicly praise his staff after they had solved a difficult case. In doing so, Paul often stepped to the rear when his detectives were being recognized for a job well-done. Knowing he was not the type of boss who liked to hog the attention caused those working for him to appreciate his thoughtful gestures.

While delivering a kick in the pants sometimes had to be done, on most occasions the desired result was achieved. But after Paul tried motivating you twice and you had not responded accordingly, he wrote you off and you soon found yourself back on the road; writing tickets and investigating accidents instead of working in an investigative assignment. As a lifelong New York Yankee fan, work was unlike baseball. When it came to work, you had two strikes and then you were out. Three strikes were never an option as Paul had neither the patience nor the inclination to give you that third strike. In his world, after the second strike it was over and you had struck out. With his rank came the authority to transfer his few problem children back to the road, and Paul occasionally did so with little regret.

While he sometimes needed to motivate certain members of his staff as a way of getting them refocused on what they should be doing, no one ever had to motivate Paul. Because of that, he was often handed some of the most complex cases that needed to be investigated. Among them was often a lingering murder investigation which needed looking into, an unsolved bank robbery, an underachieving command to straighten out, or even a complex narcotics wiretap that required someone with his experience. Those investigations and problems were the types of issues that were never a problem for Paul to take on as they were issues at which he excelled. While Paul always looked forward to issues and problems, never once shying away from any of them, the mundane side of police work bored him. While the assignments involving issues and problems were always resolved within a reasonable amount of time, those Paul found numbing and mindless sometimes lingered for longer than they should have. Like his work ethic, Paul’s ethics in dealing with others was beyond reproach. Well, at least most of the time they were.

While Paul sometimes stepped on people’s toes and ruffled a few egos, he always managed to make sure the job was done correctly. Get the job done! I don’t care how you do it, just as long as it’s legal, ethical, and moral. Just get it done. That had been the motto he always lived by. Whatever the assignments were, Paul and his troops always managed to complete them very well.

One of the last investigations Paul was assigned was a complex Internal Affairs investigation. Because of the sensitive nature of this particular investigation, it was one the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety personally directed him to handle. While repeatedly arguing with the commissioner over being handed this assignment, Paul eventually lost the fight. Forced to take on an assignment he wanted no part of, this investigation eventually ended up involving the Governor’s office, the media, and a member of the state police department. Like another state employee caught up in this investigation, Paul’s fellow command staff member was alleged to have participated in some minor criminal activity. To make matters worse, the principle focus of this investigation was someone who had advanced through the ranks with Paul. While never close friends, they had developed a mutual respect for each other.

The allegations made against this fellow command staff member were ones that had been suspect from the beginning, but by the time the investigation was handed to Paul they really began to stink. With little evidence supporting them, the unsubstantiated allegations continued to generate an unpleasant taste in Paul’s mouth the entire time it took him to conduct his investigation. As he diligently investigated the claims that had been made, several Connecticut media outlets whipped the sensational allegations onto the front pages of their newspapers for nearly two weeks. Finally, when his lengthy investigation was completed, Paul justified enough facts to help clear his colleague of the false allegations. Weeks earlier, others had accepted them as being totally accurate.

But as he had done so many times before, Paul had not been content enough to just clear his friend; he kept investigating when others would have gladly stopped. His persistent efforts at examining the ancillary facts his investigation had raised led to new evidence being discovered. This evidence resulted in another senior command staff member, along with two other state employees, being charged with several criminal violations. A week after his investigation had concluded, the three were also charged with committing a variety of administrative violations. While the investigation had been an unpleasant one to conduct as no cop likes having to investigate another cop, for Paul it had been just business as usual. But, in the end, unlike other investigations he had worked, Paul’s thorough investigation brought him some personal satisfaction.

During the criminal trial that followed, Paul was present as often as his schedule allowed. Later, during the trial’s closing arguments and sentencing phase, he listened intently as both the Senior Assistant State’s Attorney prosecuting the case and the presiding judge made strong comments in open court. Both were extremely critical of the state police commander who Paul’s investigation had identified as being complicit in a variety of criminal activity.

During the time the trial took place, Paul’s report was made public under a Freedom of Information request filed by three media outlets. When released, the report only made matters worse for those caught up in the investigation as it identified Major Thomas Barlow as being directly responsible for conducting a variety of unauthorized investigations on several state employees. In the days following the report’s release, several media outlets continued to fan the flames generated by this investigation. They did so, in part, by repeatedly referring to the unauthorized investigations Barlow had conducted; describing in great detail how he had illegally accessed state police computer files for personal use. Follow up articles painfully detailed how Barlow had also falsely obtained copies of financial records for over twenty state employees. In similar detail, these newspaper articles also described how Barlow had participated in a variety of questionable off-duty activities during the time these unauthorized investigations were being conducted. Somewhat to Paul’s dismay, the articles detailed each of these transgressions in excruciating detail. Each article detailed how Barlow’s criminal conduct, like the administrative violations he committed, were clear violations of the State Police Administrative and Operations Manual regarding personal conduct.

To compound his problems, prior to the trial’s conclusion and much to the regret of his legal representatives, Barlow made the additional mistake of commenting publicly on the results of the investigation. In doing so, he lied to the media; blaming others for the crimes and violations he was accused of committing. As the subject of this investigation tried his best at performing damage control, Paul knew there would be hell to pay over the investigation’s findings due to Barlow’s close relationship with Governor Richard Marks. The two had been close friends since their teenage years.

Sitting in Hartford’s Superior Court, Paul had a thought about Barlow just before he was sentenced. Payback can be a bitch! For close to twenty minutes, Paul listened as an obviously upset Judge James Washington berated Barlow in open court for his criminal conduct, falsehoods, and for the pain he created. While Paul had never cared for Barlow, someone he believed to be nothing more than a two-faced publicity hound, there was little time for gloating when his colleague was found guilty. A few days after the trial concluded, Paul allowed himself to take pride in his work when Barlow was finally dismissed from the state police. While he experienced more personal satisfaction than anything else, whatever it was Paul was pleased when he learned Barlow had finally been dismissed.

In the days following the trial, Paul’s efforts in investigating this matter received many favorable comments from within the state police, and from several Connecticut newspapers, as his investigation had again reaffirmed that cops can police themselves. While Barlow’s conviction brought the criminal and administrative matters to a close, the fallout from Paul’s hard work was still not over. Due to the political embarrassment he sustained from having his friendship with Barlow mentioned in police reports and newspaper articles, Marks soon ordered the state police commissioner to transfer Paul to an administrative assignment. Not only was it an assignment Paul was totally unprepared for, it was one he never saw coming.

While forced to tolerate many issues during his career, including ill-advised decisions made by those higher in rank, the one thing Paul could never cope with was administrative bullshit. His new assignment, which required him to attend the same boring and repetitive meetings each and every month while listening to the ass-kissers who agreed with every decision, along with every worthless program the commissioner and his civilian staff dreamed up, gave him heaping doses of administrative bullshit. During these meetings, with his thoughts elsewhere, Paul often found himself wondering about the types of cases his detectives were working. When he did pay attention, it was not for long.

No wonder nothing ever gets done at headquarters. All of these morons I’m working with are in meetings all day instead of being in touch with the troopers in the field. They’re the ones who are doing the real work. Bored as he wasted another afternoon sitting in a pointless meeting, Paul tried his best to avoid invoking the mentality of others when they referred to headquarters types as being incompetent jerks. But despite his best efforts, he now found himself unjustly mixed in with those who had demonstrated their incompetence while working in the field. Frustrated as he left his most recent meeting, Paul thought about being labelled like the others he was now working with. Guilty . . . but through association only, and not for much longer.

For months, Paul tried every way possible to cope with his headquarters assignment. He even went as far as giving it a new chance every few weeks or so, but after several months of frustration from trying to convince the commissioner to reassign him back to the field Paul realized the head of the state police was nothing more than a political hack. It was a term many of Paul’s peers had little disagreement with. Even though he had recently completed a long and sensitive investigation, one the commissioner had personally selected him for due to his acquired investigative skills; it seemed as if Paul’s hard work no longer mattered. Despite his requests to be reassigned back to his previous assignment, one the state police had spent thirty-years training him for, Paul’s requests fell on deaf ears. Rebuffed in his attempts to return to the world he thrived in, Paul finally realized the commissioner would only do what he thought was best for his own career; doing only those tasks which kept him out of the governor’s dog house. The commissioner, who Paul had openly defended in the past from previous criticism, was someone who now proved to be a figurehead who failed to possess the ability of doing the right thing; not only for Paul, but for the department as well. By failing to act on Paul’s requests, the commissioner lost the confidence of many senior command staff members who knew the reason behind their friend’s transfer. On the day he left his second meeting with the commissioner, Paul knew the end of his run had come. Talking to his wife as he drove home that evening, he told her he was done. Donna, they’re trying to fit a square peg into the proverbial round hole, and it’s not working. I’ve tried talking to Commissioner Cagney and I’ve tried reasoning with him, but it’s no use talking about something he won’t do anything about. Men with principle and conviction stand up for what they know is right, but as long as he’s controlled by those sitting inside Hartford’s gold dome he won’t ever stand up for me or anyone else. I’m getting out. It’s time for me to do something else in life.

During the last week of Paul’s thirty-plus years in law enforcement, few people learned of his decision to retire. Wanting to keep his decision as quiet as possible, many never knew he had left until after he was gone. Even the day before he retired, when he treated one of his former secretaries to lunch as a way of helping to celebrate her sixtieth birthday, Paul kept news of his pending retirement quiet. He wanted it that way and he jokingly threatened those he had told his retirement plans to with bodily harm if they told anyone else. Joining the state police department with little fanfare, Paul now wanted to leave the same way. Pomp and circumstance had its place, but he always detested it being directed his way. As a few of his colleagues expected, Paul quickly nixed any thought of a retirement party.

As he wound down his last days at work, Paul finished up the few loose ends which remained. This included turning in most of his gear and his assigned undercover car. I guess I’ll have to go and buy a car now. I haven’t owned one in over thirty years, he told Michael Smarz, a civilian friend whose responsibilities with the state police included managing Fleet Operations. Later, after emptying his last few possessions from his vehicle, a sense of regret ran through Paul’s body as he turned in his Chevy Impala. Later that same afternoon, as he surrendered the rest of his assigned gear Paul kept two souvenirs from his career; his state police badge and the Connecticut State Police ID card he had been assigned. I might need these someday, he thought while signing off on paperwork inside the Quartermaster’s Office. Without anyone noticing, he slipped both items inside his jacket pocket.

While one of his detectives drove him home after his last day of work, it was a difficult ride for Paul to experience. As he stood in the driveway watching his ride drive away, tears washed down Paul’s face. As someone who had loved every minute of his career, it was difficult to realize his dream was finally over.

2

War Begins

"I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but

friends. We must not be enemies …"

President Abraham Lincoln in his first Inaugural Address

C ompared to the system we all had been living under, the original thirteen of us started out so well together. Despite the usual differences, ones often caused by the actual geographic distance between us or because of clashes arising from our different ways of life, we still managed to rally together to fight a common enemy. Overcoming our many differences, we fought together and we fought well, and despite fighting a giant who many others thought we could never beat, we did. We won because we were united in our cause and, because we were, we became the United States of Ame rica.

In the decades following our resounding victory, several new members were added to our growing list of States. As this occurred, some States, both old and new, increasingly grew at odds with each other. This friction began shortly after the original States had developed a new and unique constitution. It was one the rest of the world had never witnessed. It was also one that provided for many of the individual freedoms we had sought and fought for over the course of many years. Our newly adopted constitution provided for many of the rights and freedoms we had long sought. Those rights and freedoms were made possible by the sacrifices of our ancestors who had fought and dreamed of them for many years. Now, a few decades after the Revolutionary War had ended, we not only threatened to go to war against each other and against our very own constitution, but we also began to question those very same beliefs that defined who we were. While ours was not a constitution our forefathers thought was perfect, it was far better than any other document we had lived under. Most importantly, it was ours. The arguments that arose after the constitution’s ratification would last for years. Among them were ones involving slavery, States’ rights, taxation, and a variety of other matters related to fair and equal representation when enacting policy involving regional and national issues. Those same arguments also involved heated discussions regarding the wording of our constitution, and how those historic words could be interpreted.

Looking back, it seems as if we began arguing over many different issues and collectively agreeing on very few. In the years leading up to the Civil War, one of the issues the various States argued over was what our constitution did and did not allow regarding the rights of each individual; specifically those whose skin color often dictated whether they were slaves or Free Men. We also argued over what rights and powers each of the individual States possessed, and what authority, if any, the federal government possessed. Then, we began arguing over whether States could secede or simply resign from the Union. As the rift between the North and South grew wider, many Southern states interpreted the constitution as merely being a compact and not an actual binding document which allowed for the creation of a centralized federal government. If that was not enough, then we began to argue even more vehemently over the slavery issue and whether the Southern states had the right to maintain that institution. Then, to complicate matters even more, we argued over whether any new States admitted to the Union could or could not be considered a slave state. While the various arguments concerning the slavery issue had existed for some time, in the months and years leading up to the war those heated arguments were often disguised in the rhetoric related to States’ rights. These same arguments also caused the two sides to grow further apart over the issue of whether the federal government had any say in deciding which, if any, of the western territories should be admitted as free or slave States. Those heated and passionate issues soon become ones many men would die over. We argued, it seemed, about everything.

With all of those issues being argued over, as well as the States threatening each other with force as a way of defending their individual rights and beliefs, it was easy for many people, then and now, to question how we had ever gotten together to fight for our own independence.

In the months leading up to the Civil War, when the arguing no longer could be settled by negotiations and compromises, several States, most notably in the South, regionally began the process of banding together. As this occurred, the Northern states, determined to keep the Union intact, threaten those in the South with sanctions. The Southern states, most decidedly, at first, those in the Deep South, retaliated with threats of secession. While some historians, educators, politicians, and passionate Civil War buffs disagree that talk of secession occurred solely due to the slavery issue, the fact was slavery dominated, or was part of, every issue related to the growing animosity. Most others, including those historians and history buffs whose interest in the Civil War has remained neutral regarding the causes leading up to the start of the hostilities, acknowledge that while other ancillary issues played a role in the country going to war, slavery served as the root cause. An ill-fated position the South took after the war, often referred to as the Lost Cause, was a stance many Southern politicians and Confederate generals assumed for a variety of different reasons. In promoting this theory, many of those who could not accept the fact that the Confederacy had been defeated spun a new twist on the reasons they war had ended like it had. For years, demographics and other issues, unlike slavery itself, were promoted as being the cause of the hostilities, and the reason why the South had been forced to surrender. To a large extent, these excuses were nothing more than an attempt at defending the South’s antebellum way of life. As these arguments continued to take place in the early 1800s, the two sides moved closer to war. As they did, each side made a series of veiled threats involving a number of topics. When this occurred, talk intensified about a war taking place between the States. But early on it was just that, simply talk. While each side had their share of hawks, they also had those who tried averting war by attempting to negotiate a peaceful settlement. As the two sides worked to avoid war, people from all walks of life urged for cooler heads to prevail. Early on, if war was to occur, it also appeared that each side wanted the other to fire the first shot. While neither adversary was reluctant to provoke their foe whenever possible, they both knew public opinion would be impacted by who was responsible for firing the first shot. While maybe not as mean-spirited or as vicious as it is today, a significant degree of political posturing was employed by politicians in the late 1850s and early 1860s.

But the arguing continued for far too long and like a family reunion gone bad, it soon led to a series of violent threats being issued. Then the threats led to acts of violence and then, as it often happens, the violence led to war between the various factions of our family. While we were once content to be a family of individual and separate States who had valiantly fought alongside each other to achieve a common goal, the States now lost the vision they once had for our great nation. In fighting against each other, we seemed to have forgotten about the freedom we had won from an overseas monarchy.

Now it was up to the individual States to either fight against or to defend our own monarchy; the federal government. While most of the arguing had started well before President Abraham Lincoln was elected to office in November 1860, his election accelerated the talks of secession and war. What had started as talk; now became a reality in February 1861 when several Southern states passed secession ordinances. Among those leading the way was South Carolina. Soon others followed her lead. The States that had not seceded soon did after South Carolina and the Confederacy clashed with the federal government over a small island where an even smaller Union fort was located. When Major Robert Anderson, the commanding officer of Fort Sumter, finally surrendered his post to the Confederacy after far too many hours of angry cannon fire being exchanged between his troops and those of the fledgling Confederate army, war had begun. Turning back was no longer an option.

As was the case before the war, Fort Sumter, a military project started in 1829 as a way of protecting the South Carolina coastline from foreign enemies, was still a work in progress in 1861. Grand, historic, and located close to where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet along the banks of the city, the fort still guards the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Initially created as a colony in 1670, Charles Towne in 1783, as a city no longer tied to England due to our victory in the Revolutionary War, changed its name to Charleston. Despite its rich history and busy harbor, as well as its success as a thriving colonial city, Charleston, like the rest of the South, was active in the slave trade. In 1822, close to four decades before the first angry shot of the Civil War was fired, the robust young city had faced down a slave uprising. History recalls that uprising as the Denmark Vesey rebellion. As was the case prior to the war, but certainly in the years after the rebellion was quelled, the issue of slavery continued to be a very hotly contested issue.

Despite the slavery issue, Charleston was a bustling Southern city with a deep port. It was host to a variety of successful businesses, and the site of many nearby and prosperous plantations. Several of her earliest sons had strong roles in how the United States had been formed; both as Revolutionary War soldiers and signers of the Declaration of Independence. Many of those same sons also made significant contributions in drafting the nation’s Constitution. One of the state’s most well-known sons, Francis Marion, the ‘Swamp Fox,’ was legendary for his feats while fighting the British; often tormenting them with daring raids as the nation fought for independence. The fact that war had come amongst us in 1861 was difficult to comprehend; for it to start in a city with such a strong and proud role in establishing the nation as a free and independent country was even more difficult to understand.

Both sides, at least in principle, and depending on your interpretation of their efforts, tried to avert war. But their actions often seemed to push the other side closer to it. At times, it almost seemed as if the two sides dared each other to initiate the hostilities.

To their credit, the South, in February, 1861, tried averting war by sending delegates to a Peace Convention in Washington. But the convention did not accomplish much as only a handful of Southern states sent delegates to represent their interests; nor had several Northern states. When further efforts by the South to meet with President Lincoln were ignored, with the president sending Secretary of State William Seward to meet with representatives of the rebellious States instead of doing so himself, it was viewed as an official snub. While the two sides continued in their efforts to avert war, the first unofficial act of the rapidly approaching conflict had already taken place. This occurred in January 1861 when cadets from the Citadel fired upon the Star of the West, an unarmed merchant ship hired by the federal government to resupply Fort Sumter.

To some degree, the North had also tried averting war by promising South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens their efforts at resupplying Fort Sumter would not include any additional troops, ammunition, or weapons. However, when the South later learned the North planned on sending a total of eight ships to Fort Sumter, ships laden with additional cannons and soldiers, the rebels viewed the act as a direct threat to their way of life. Soon the Confederacy began preparing themselves for war. The fact that a federal fort sat in Charleston’s harbor had long been a source of irritation for the South, especially to South Carolina. That irritation helped make Fort Sumter the logical place for war to start.

As the South viewed the Union’s attempt at resupplying Fort Sumter as a direct threat, correspondence between Washington and the fort’s commander, Major Anderson, seemed to indicate the federal government was also expecting war to occur. A Union loyalist, Anderson, a Kentuckian by birth, also knew war was soon to come. A line in a letter to Anderson seemed to reveal Washington’s position on the expected conflict. Whenever, if at all, in your judgment, to save yourself and command, a capitulation becomes a necessity, you are authorized to make it. While it is quite unlikely the federal government wanted the fort to fall into the hands of the newly formed Confederacy, history will always question whether Washington wanted the various issues surrounding the fort to aid their position in declaring war against the South.

To his credit, Governor Pickens, along with others in the South who sought to avoid war, allowed visits to the fort to occur so officials from Washington could meet with Major Anderson. However, after learning the federal government had plans for one of their warships to enter Charleston Harbor as a way of evacuating personnel assigned to the fort, Pickens denied permission for the ship to enter.

Even with the efforts of both sides trying their best to avoid war, as they worked to prevent the on-going hostilities from escalating it was easy to see the approaching conflict was looming on several different fronts. As the South learned of federal warships drawing closer to Fort Sumter, they made one last attempt at negotiating the fort’s peaceful surrender through Major Anderson. Remaining loyal to the North despite his strong Southern ties, Anderson refused to surrender. His reply to the South’s final offer of a peaceful surrender was simple. In summary, it simply said, I will await the first shot. As Anderson knew war was imminent, he also knew the South would have to be punished for the aggressive act they would soon undertake.

Despite the strained relations between the two sides, negotiations at avoiding war were often polite and cordial, and often done face to face. When the final attempt failed to avert war from occurring, during the negotiations between the South and Major Anderson, the fort’s commander was advised by the Southern negotiators when the first shot would be fired. It was likely due to Anderson’s friendship with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and with Brigadier General Pierre G.T. Beauregard, which caused the fort’s commander to walk the Southern negotiators to their boat as they prepared to leave Fort Sumter for the final time. Before his new adversaries departed, Anderson spoke these words. If we never meet in this world again, God grant that we may meet in the next.

It’s still hard to imagine such civility could not have prevented war from occurring, especially when it was demonstrated on several occasions by intelligent men. It was a war which should have been avoided by men who should have worked harder. It would soon prove to be a war that lasted far longer than anyone could have predicted. In the years that followed, the war would have terrible consequences for both sides. While it would soon devastate both sections of the country in many different ways, its impact would dramatically change how people in the South would live their lives.

Charleston’s motto ‘She guards her buildings, her customs, and her laws’ would soon prove true in the hours after the Southern negotiators left Fort Sumter. These sons of the Confederacy who fired on a tiny United States military fort would soon be among the first to join the Confederate Army. On April 12, 1861, at roughly 4:30 a.m., those same soldiers fired the first shots of the Civil War at the garrison of Union soldiers stationed inside Fort Sumter. Over the next many hours, approximately five thousand rounds of cannon fire would be exchanged between the two sides. When the firing slowed down, many of citizens remained standing on the roofs of homes close to Charleston Harbor. As they watched the exchange of cannon fire between the fort and a small number of Confederate artillery batteries, the flagpole at Fort Sumter saw its national flag replaced by a newly created one. The flag of the Confederacy would fly there for four years before the flag of the United States was again raised.

On April 13th, with supplies running low, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter to the Confederacy. Nearby, two smaller Union pieces of property, Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney, sat quiet. Like the harbor’s largest fort, they had already been seized. Having lost Fort Sumter to the Confederacy, the Union would soon lose another important asset as well. Seven days later, Colonel Robert E. Lee would resign his commission in the United States army. That resignation would cause him to be remembered by the ages.

Almost five weeks prior to the first hostile shot being fired, the Confederacy had called for one-hundred-thousand volunteers to help wage war against the North. Now Lincoln would do the same. The day following the fort’s surrender, the president called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to help put down the rebellion. Neither of those first two calls for volunteers would be the last each side would make.

After Brigadier General Beauregard’s troops fired on the fort, the Confederacy, comprised initially by the States of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, would soon be joined by several others. In short order, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia would swell her ranks. As each of these States swore allegiance to a new nation, the Confederacy would continue to seize federal property located across the South. Among that property was the United States Mint in New Orleans. As expected, within the walls of the mint was a large amount of Union gold and silver. That gold and silver would soon be seized by the Confederacy as a way of helping the rebellious States finance their war efforts.

In short order, the gold and silver formerly owned by the federal government would be moved from New Orleans across the Confederate States of America. It would take another one hundred and fifty years for most of it to be found.

3

Headed South

"War is very uncertain in its results, and often

when affairs look most desperate

they suddenly assume a more hopeful state."

General George Meade, U.S. Army

W hile the ride home on his last day of work had been difficult to experience, another part of Paul’s life was just beginning. In the months leading up to his retirement, Paul and Donna had wrestled with the question of whether she should join him in retirement when he finally decided to call it quits. While it took a few additional weeks for her to make that decision, somewhat reluctantly Donna retired as well. Now, from years of laying the seeds about wanting to retire to the Pawleys Island area of South Carolina, it was time to make the move. After living in Connecticut their entire lives, the two high school sweethearts were ready to start the next chapter of their l ives.

For the past twenty-two years, Paul and his family had vacationed in the greater Myrtle Beach area with their wide circle of friends. It was during those trips that Paul’s idea of retiring to a warmer winter climate had grown. The beautiful Grand Strand, with its clean white beaches, warm weather, and an abundance of great restaurants and well-groomed golf courses, helped to convince Donna this was the time to make the move they had talked about. As they finally started planning their move, Paul and Donna looked forward to moving to a warmer climate and to visits from their two sons. Being able to do so when they were still relatively young and healthy was a blessing the Waring’s knew many others would never be fortunate to experience.

Initially, Donna Waring had been a somewhat reluctant supporter of the move to South Carolina as she was still in the midst of a career she thoroughly enjoyed. Because of that, she had looked forward to spending many more years at work developing her financial skills even further. It was because of those skills that she had been able to work her way up from a part-time teller’s position with the Newtown Bank and Trust to one better suited for her diverse skills. Noticed early on as being a hard-working employee who possessed a variety of interpersonal skills which complimented her financial skills, Donna, in very short order, was selected to assume the manager’s position at one of the bank’s busiest branches. As much as she loved her position with the bank, the bank’s administrators appreciated their hard-working employee even more. In her they had finally found someone they could not only trust to train the bank’s new managers, but someone who could be counted on to resolve their customers’ most complex financial problems. Over the past several years, Donna’s skills had not only benefitted her employer, but many of her customers during periods when the stock market was not as stable as it normally was. When her employer learned she would soon be retiring, her bosses knew she was going to be an employee that would be difficult to replace.

Some of the reluctance Donna experienced about moving south also was due, in part, to the fact that she enjoyed the stability of her life in Connecticut. With a beautiful home she had meticulously decorated and with a career that was flourishing, Donna loved the fact that her wide variety of friends lived close by. More importantly, so did her two children, Brian and Sean. While her two boys were now doing well on their own, they were still her babies. From his years of working for Costco, Brian had recently purchased a nearby home in Southbury, Connecticut. When not working at one of his two jobs, Donna’s oldest son served his community as chief of the local volunteer fire department. Her youngest son, Sean, was also living nearby and enjoying his career as a physical education teacher at a local elementary school. Recently surprising Donna with news of his engagement to his longtime girlfriend, that news only served to make her decision about moving even more difficult. While she knew her boys no longer needed her to manage their daily lives, deep down Donna always wanted to have an active role in each of their lives. Like most women, Donna loved being a mother to her two boys.

A few days after she retired, Paul and Donna made the decision to put their colonial style home up for sale, believing it would take several months to sell in a depressed housing market. Mistakenly, they thought they would have plenty of time to find a new home in South Carolina. However, soon after putting their house up for sale, they found a buyer and within two days of receiving the initial offer a deal was finalized. It all happened far too fast for Donna’s liking. Already experiencing the pressure of having to move out of their home and away from their boys, Donna and Paul now had to cope with the added pressure of trying to find a new place to live some eight hundred miles away.

In the weeks after reaching a deal to sell their home, Paul and Donna made three trips to South Carolina to look for a new place to live. After conducting several hours of online research, Paul had found a real estate agent to work with and between emails, phone calls, real estate books, virtual tours of far too many homes, and visits south, he and Donna looked at a wide variety of different style homes. After looking at over one hundred homes in one manner or another and not finding anything of interest, they resigned themselves to the possibility of having to delay their move. Then, as luck would have it, on the last day of their last visit, they found the home they had been looking for. After finding the home they had dreamed of for years, Paul and Donna soon signed off on a home they looked forward to calling their own.

Located on a large tract of land that was also home to the Blue Dunes Country Club, Paul and Donna’s new home sat on a quiet cul-de-sac inside the private community. Among the home’s many amenities, the one Donna liked the most was the scenic view from their back patio. From just outside their back door, she knew she was going to enjoy many afternoons looking at the variety of different flowers and palm trees bordering the edge of their property. For Paul, a similar view, but one that also included watching golfers as they played a nearby hole was all he needed. One of the other amenities they looked forward to was being able to visit several nearby beaches that were located only a short distance from their home. Another perk they both planned on taking advantage of was lounging at the expansive community pool. As an added benefit, during the process of buying their new home Paul and Donna were pleased to learn several families living nearby were retirees who had once called Connecticut their home. Life was going to be good.

As someone who always enjoyed playing golf, Paul had not played much over the past three years because of work and family commitments. With his retirement came plans to play more often and far better. When he finally began telling friends back home where he was moving to, they kidded him about moving to a golfing community frequented by fat old men who played golf while wearing black socks and faded shirts. As Paul expected, the fact that he and Donna would soon be surrounded by a community of people older than they were was of little concern to his friends when they asked about his new home having enough bedrooms to accommodate all of their visits. But, for Paul, the real reason he and Donna were moving had little to do with golf; it was all about the weather. Having spent most of his career working and driving in all types of inclement weather, he had long ago grown tired of the cold New England winters. While living in the South would soon prove to be less expensive and far more enjoyable, the weather was the real reason Paul looked forward to moving. He simply hated the cold.

Besides the warm weather and retuning his golf game, Paul looked forward to fishing after walking away from the sport several years earlier. In addition to those two hobbies, he planned on learning how to hunt for crabs in the salt marshes in and around Murrells Inlet. As a seafood lover, he had every intention of putting a huge dent in the crab population after settling into their new home.

From reading a variety of books and several trips he had made to a handful of national military parks, over the past fifteen years Paul had rekindled his interest in the Civil War. As a young boy that interest had first been sparked by one of his favorite teachers while attending school in Danbury, Connecticut. Since developing a passion for learning as much as he could about the war, Paul had read a countless number of books, attended a variety of lectures and presentations on the various combatants involved on both sides of the conflict, and had visited several Civil War battlefields. With his move south, he planned on visiting a host of historical sites in and around North and South Carolina. Having accumulated several new books on the war, and with more free time on his hands than he ever had, Paul looked forward to expanding his knowledge about the Civil War as he sat at the beach enjoying his new life. As he looked forward to doing so, it was impossible to realize how this interest would soon cause him to become involved in a remarkable adventure.

After finding what they had been looking for, Paul and Donna started the process of buying their home. Over the course of several days, ones filled with phone calls, text messages, emails, and research on which bank they should be doing business with, Donna’s banking connections led them to start working with the Murrells Inlet National Savings and Loan on securing a mortgage. After finally signing all of the necessary paperwork, they spent the remaining part of the day at the beach sampling what life was going to be like. During a late afternoon walk, and later over dinner at one of their favorite restaurants on the Grand Strand, they talked about their upcoming move to South Carolina and the dreams they had for their new life.

While Paul had been the driving force behind the move to South Carolina, Donna had been a somewhat reluctant partner. She became even harder to convince this was the right move for them to make after receiving a phone call as she and Paul drove home from Bradley International Airport later that week. The call had come from one of her brothers. Sadly, he broke the news of their father’s sudden passing. Stricken with cancer two years earlier, Donna’s father had endured months and months of exhaustive treatment as he valiantly fought to prolong his life.

Over the next five weeks, as a distraught Donna coped with the loss of her father, she busied herself by helping to plan his funeral, dealt with the closing of his estate, and retiring from her job. While doing so, she also prepared herself for having to deal with one other unpleasant task. While all of the issues involving her father had been difficult to address, the really hard part was mentally preparing herself for the move away from her two boys. While selling a home she dearly loved and planning a move away from her tight circle of friends had been hard on her, knowing she would soon be moving away from her children was difficult to accept. All of what she was facing was almost too much for her to bear. In the weeks before their move, Donna was often in tears, and often questioning whether she should have agreed to help Paul fulfill his dream.

But, by late June, just after her fifty-fifth birthday, Paul and Donna, accompanied by Sean and his fiancée, Lauren Nester, and by a large moving truck which held the sum of their thirty-five years together, slowly moved south on Interstate 95 to begin the dream they had imagined for themselves.

While they had no way of knowing what it was that was about to confront them in South Carolina, the discovery Paul would soon make would change their lives in several ways.

4

Gold On The Move

The war is commenced, and we will triumph or perish.

South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens

after the Confederacy had captured Fort Sumter.

T he war started with the two combatants’ cannons being fired in anger; those of a newly formed government firing defiantly at those manned by Union soldiers inside a tiny fort. As expected, those manned by the Union fired back with equal fury as they attempted to prevent South Carolina and her rebellious confederates from leaving the Union. Behind the loud roar, it was now countrymen fighting against each other and, in some cases, brothers fighting against brothers. While the two sides were almost exclusively comprised of soldiers from many different states and militias, the ranks of the opposing armies did include soldiers whose backgrounds were from several different countries. Included were scores of Irish immigrants. Others were men who had previously served in several European armies; most notably in England, France, and Germany. In the South, the Confederacy’s newly formed armies prepared to fight against a trained and better-equipped Union army. In many cases, primarily in the Confederate army, soldiers who had served in the Union army prior to the war now fought against those family and friends who remained loyal to the Union. While not as prevalent, some Union soldiers occasionally found themselves fighting against family members and friends who pledged their allegiance to the Confederacy. A war between the States was something no one ever expected, but now it had. It would rage for four long years. In the end, this highly divisive war would cause over 620,000 de aths.

The anger behind the cannon fire was fueled by both sides being committed to their respective causes. The anger and determination would cause the war to last far longer than anyone could have imagined. After it started, many people on both sides predicted the war would be over by the end of the first summer. The Confederacy, deeply committed to defending the rights of each of their States, as well as protecting their way of life and the institution of slavery their economy depended on, was determined to wage war against the Union army for as long as needed. Their foes, primarily President Abraham Lincoln and the federal government, through force applied by the Union army, were committed to keeping the country intact. While intent on punishing the South for attempting to secede, the North soon focused on another issue; one aimed at crippling the Southern economy. Along with a host of Northern abolitionists, Lincoln sought to end the practice of slavery across the South; thus denying the rebellious States access to a large pool of free labor. As expected, each side was convinced their cause would prevail. As the war reached the end of its first summer, no one could predict when the killing would end.

It was here the legend began. Two years after the war had started, the nation’s turmoil visited places besides the bloody battlefields of Virginia, Mississippi, and other states. These visits took place in towns and cities where peace, family, farming, religion, and even local politics should have been the issues people worried over. Instead, they soon worried over unwelcomed visits made by soldiers fighting a war. As those visits often led to innocent civilians being killed, they also disrupted a peaceful way of life that many people had enjoyed for years. The war between the two large armies stopped in places called Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Court House, Vicksburg, and in many other locations. They were places where the tragedy of war robbed families of their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. In places where battles were being fought, the war robbed everyone of their right to the pursuit of happiness.

In many of the war’s early battles, the Confederate army, seemingly more organized and more determined than the larger and better-equipped Union army, won more often than they lost. Then, both sides came to Gettysburg. Here