Author: Knights of the Golden CirclePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
Rules, Regulations and Principles of the K.G.C.
Author: Knights of the Golden CirclePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
Rules, Regulations and Principles of the K. G. C.
Author: Knights of the Golden CirclePublisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781535176392
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 102
Book Description
The Knights of the Golden Circle (K. G. C.) was a secret society founded by George W. L. Bickley on July 4, 1854 with the expansionist goal of forming a slave-holding empire that operated like the East India Company by annexing Mexico, the Caribbean Islands, and Central America into the United States. They called this region the Golden Circle. This pamphlet was written in 1859 by the highest level of the K. G. C. known as the Knights of the Columbian Star (K. C. S.) and includes sections: - Proclamation - Laws of the American Legion, K. G. C. - Federal Constitution - Articles of War - Organizing and Working Castles - The American Colonization and Steamship Company of "1" - Armament of the K. G. C. - Military Maxims - Social, Moral, and Civil Maxims - Political Maxims 18 illustrations have been added, such as the K. G. C.'s legion and brigade flag designs, a K. G. C. commission, and items carried by George Bickley when he was arrested on July 17, 1863. Also included in the appendices are the K. G. C.'s ritual obligations, secret signs (hand gestures), grips (handshakes), tokens (emblems) and passwords of the three degrees: Knights of the Iron Hand, Knights of the True Faith, and the Knights of the Columbian Star.
Knights of the Golden Circle
Author: David C. KeehnPublisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807150045
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
Based on years of exhaustive and meticulous research, David C. Keehn's study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret southern society that initially sought to establish a slave-holding empire in the "Golden Circle" region of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Keehn reveals the origins, rituals, structure, and complex history of this mysterious group, including its later involvement in the secession movement. Members supported southern governors in precipitating disunion, filled the ranks of the nascent Confederate Army, and organized rearguard actions during the Civil War. The Knights of the Golden Circle emerged around 1858 when a secret society formed by a Cincinnati businessman merged with the pro-expansionist Order of the Lone Star, which already had 15,000 members. The following year, the Knights began publishing their own newspaper and established their headquarters in Washington, D. C. In 1860, during their first attempt to create the Golden Circle, several thousand Knights assembled in southern Texas to "colonize" northern Mexico. Due to insufficient resources and organizational shortfalls, however, that filibuster failed. Later, the Knights shifted their focus and began pushing for disunion, spearheading pro-secession rallies, and intimidating Unionists in the South. They appointed regional military commanders from the ranks of the South's major political and military figures, including men such as Elkanah Greer of Texas, Paul J. Semmes of Georgia, Robert C. Tyler of Maryland, and Virginius D. Groner of Virginia. Followers also established allies with the South's rabidly pro-secession "fire-eaters," which included individuals such as Barnwell Rhett, Louis Wigfall, Henry Wise, and William Yancey. According to Keehn, the Knights likely carried out a variety of other clandestine actions before the Civil War, including attempts by insurgents to take over federal forts in Virginia and North Carolina, the activation of pro-southern militia around Washington, D. C. and a planned assassination of Abraham Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore in early 1861 on the way to his inauguration. Once the fighting began, the Knights helped build the emerging Confederate Army and assisted with the pro-Confederate Copperhead movement in northern states. With the war all but lost, various Knights supported one of their members, John Wilkes Booth, in his plot to abduct and assassinate President Lincoln. Keehn's fast-paced, engaging narrative demonstrates that the Knights proved more substantial than historians have traditionally assumed and provides a new perspective on southern secession and the outbreak of the Civil War.
The Knights of the Golden Circle in Texas
Author: Randolph W FarmerPublisher: Histria Books
ISBN: 1592112293
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409
Book Description
The United States today is a divided nation and some say the country may be heading toward breakup, or possibly civil war. That has happened before and the result was disastrous. As many as 750,000 Americans perished during the Civil War. A study of the causes of our last Civil War may help to prevent another.The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) played a major role in starting the Civil War in the United States. Although intended to remain a secret organization of conspirators, it is perhaps the most well-documented conspiracy in United States history. The goal of the KGC was the creation of a new society separate from the United States dedicated to the preservation and expansion of slavery into Latin America.The KGC existed in almost every state in the Union, but nowhere was it as powerful and successful as it was in Texas. Several governors, many senators and military leaders were members, having taken an oath to support the organization and their fellow members. Most of the documents generated by the KGC were destroyed after the war ended as its members feared execution for treason. Not everything was destroyed, though. This book relies on documents created by the organization and its members that have not previously been used by researchers. Many members of this organization remained in positions of authority in state affairs after the abolition of slavery. This book goes far beyond previous published work in establishing the identities of the members of this organization who promoted and encouraged the most disastrous war in American history.Randolph W. Farmer is a native Texan from a family whose ancestors first came to Texas as early as 1817 when it was still a Spanish possession. He is the author of two previously published books on Texas history.
Rebel Gold
Author: Warren GetlerPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439108943
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
As a boy growing up in rural Arkansas, Bob Brewer often heard from his uncle and his great-uncle about a particular tree in the woods, the "Bible Tree," filled with strange carvings. Years later he would learn that this tree was carved with symbols associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Civil Warera secret society that had buried gold coins and other treasure in various remote locations across the South and Southwest in hopes of someday funding a second War Between the States. These secret caches were guarded by sentinels, men whose responsibility it was to watch and protect these sites. To his astonishment, Bob discovered that both his uncle and his great-uncle had been twentieth-century sentinels, and that he had grown up near an important KGC treasure site. In Shadow of the Sentinel, Bob Brewer and investigative journalist Warren Getler tell the fascinating story of the Knights of the Golden Circle and the hidden caches the KGC established across the country. Brewer reveals how, with agonizing effort, he eventually deciphered the fiendishly complicated KGC codes and ciphers, which drew heavily on images associated with Freemasonry. (Many of the key KGC postCivil War leaders were Scottish Rite Masons, who used the cover of that secret fraternity to conduct their activities.) Using his knowledge of KGC symbolism to crack coded maps, Brewer has located several KGC caches and has recovered gold coins, guns, and other treasure from some of them. Shadow of the Sentinel is the most comprehensive account yet of the activities of the KGC after the Civil War and, indeed, into the 1900s. Getler and Brewer suggest that the clandestine network of KGC operatives was far wider than previously thought, and that it included Jesse James, the former Confederate guerrilla whose stage and bank robberies helped to fill KGC treasure chests. This is a rousing and provocative adventure that weaves together one man's personal quest with an intriguing, little-known chapter in America's hidden history.
Shadow of the Sentinel
Author: Warren GetlerPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743219686
Category : Confederate States of America
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
Explores the legacy of a Civil War-era secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle, and describes efforts to crack the society's system of codes and symbols to identify hidden treasure sites across the American south and west.
Northern Duty, Southern Heart
Author: H. Leon GreenePublisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147664795X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Before the Civil War, George Proctor Kane had been a businessman, thespian, political appointee, philanthropist and militiaman. During the war, as Baltimore's chief of police, he harbored the divided loyalties familiar to the border states--Southern in his sentiments yet Northern in his allegiances. As the city's top lawman, he sought to reform Baltimore's "Mobtown" image. He ensured that President-elect Lincoln, passing through on the way to his inauguration, was not assassinated. He protected Union troops marching to defend Washington, D.C. He was eventually imprisoned as a Southern sympathizer, denied habeas corpus as his captors transferred him from prison to prison. This book recounts Kane's enigmatic public life before and during the Civil War, his Confederate activities after prison and his return to serve as mayor of Baltimore.
The Seventh Star of the Confederacy
Author: Kenneth Wayne HowellPublisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574412590
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
On February 1, 1861, delegates at the Texas Secession Convention elected to leave the Union. The people of Texas supported the actions of the convention in a statewide referendum, paving the way for the state to secede and to officially become the seventh state in the Confederacy. Soon the Texans found themselves engaged in a bloody and prolonged civil war against their northern brethren. During the curse of this war, the lives of thousands of Texans, both young and old, were changed forever. This new anthology, edited by Kenneth W. Howell, incorporates the latest scholarly research on how Texans experienced the war. Eighteen contributors take us from the battlefront to the home front, ranging from inside the walls of a Confederate prison to inside the homes of women and children left to fend for themselves while their husbands and fathers were away on distant battlefields, and from the halls of the governor’s mansion to the halls of the county commissioner’s court in Colorado County. Also explored are well-known battles that took place in or near Texas, such as the Battle of Galveston, the Battle of Nueces, the Battle of Sabine Pass, and the Red River Campaign. Finally, the social and cultural aspects of the war receive new analysis, including the experiences of women, African Americans, Union prisoners of war, and noncombatants.
Prologue
Author: A Secret Society History of the Civil War
Author: Mark A. LausePublisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252093593
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
This unique history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that laid the groundwork for Freemasonry in the United States, Mark A. Lause analyzes how the Old World's traditions influenced various underground groups and movements in America, particularly George Lippard's Brotherhood of the Union, an American attempt to replicate the political secret societies that influenced the European revolutions of 1848. Lause traces the Brotherhood's various manifestations, the most conspicuous being the Knights of the Golden Circle (out of which developed the Ku Klux Klan), and the Confederate secret groups through which John Wilkes Booth and others attempted to undermine the Union. Lause profiles the key leaders of these organizations, with special focus on George Lippard, Hugh Forbes, and George Washington Lafayette Bickley. Antebellum secret societies ranged politically from those with progressive or even revolutionary agendas to those that pursued conservative or oppressive goals. This book shows how, in the years leading up to the Civil War, these clandestine organizations exacerbated existing sectional tensions in the United States. Lause's research indicates that the pervasive influence of secret societies may have played a part in key events such as the Freesoil movement, the beginning of the Republican party, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Lincoln's election, and the Southern secession process of 1860-1861. This exceptional study encompasses both white and African American secret society involvement, revealing the black fraternal experience in antebellum America as well as the clandestine operations that provided assistance to escaped slaves via the Underground Railroad. Unraveling these pervasive and extensive networks of power and influence, A Secret Society History of the Civil War demonstrates that antebellum secret societies played a greater role in affecting Civil War-era politics than has been previously acknowledged.