For those who love history, dream of adventure, riches, and fame; for those really believe they'll hit the jackpot on the lottery scratch-off, for those still look up at night to see the stars and passing clouds. and for those who love to touch the past, here's a challenge to give meaning to your visions and put money in your pocket.: Whatever happened to the Confederate gold?

If you worry about the fiscal state of the country or the money in your own pocket, the gold spoils of the civil war offer hundreds of chances to expand your net worth.

Thought the Confederacy was poor and in a state of penury by the war's end? The central government still had great wealth even as the war put the administration on the run. The last Confederate Cabinet meeting presided over by Jefferson Davis was held on May 2, 1865, in Abbeville, SC, at the Burt-Stark House.

By the time Lee surrendered, five wagons of gold and silver—coins, bricks, and bars, the remains of the Confederate treasury's reserve--were loaded May 24, 1865 in Richmond, at the train depot. Captain Parker of the Navy and an escort of armed troops, guarded the gold on the ride from Richmond, Virginia, to Anderson, South Carolina. There the gold was reloaded to wagons for shipment to Savannah or Charleston.

Confederate president Jefferson Davis met the caravan at Washington, GA. Later, scouts observed Union troops near Augusta, and the caravan returned to Washington (which is now in Lincoln County).

Unknown raiders attacked the wagon train near the Dionysius Chennault Plantation (the home of an elderly Methodist minister)--only a 100 yards from the house. During the attack, the gold disappeared. Most researchers and contemporary observers believe it was hidden, but the location of this cache of riches remains a mystery.

The financial agent for the Confederacy was the English financial firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Company in Liverpool. One account has Jefferson Davis, at the meeting before the attack, authorizing two Confederate Navy officials, James A. Semple and Edward Tidball, to deliver $86,000 in gold to the firm in England.

After taking possession of the gold, the two immediately split up. Tidball headed north, returned to Virginia, and his subsequent activities offer compelling evidence that kept his share of the gold.

Semple's record is less clear. He managed to reach Nassau, returned to the States, struck a relationship with the Julia Gardiner Tyler, the widow of President James Tyler, but seemed to deplete his share after two years on the run.

Other scenarios for stash sites include wrecked ships—the gold was to be shipped out of either Savannah or Charleston--family farms, tombs and grave sites, and submerged islands, and river beds.

The most reliable account of any of the Confederate fortunate involves 39 kegs of silver coins (Mexican silver dollars, receipts for cotton sales) buried in a Danville, VA cemetery. Even with strong evidence of its presence, the city, which owns the cemetery land, steadfastly refuses to permit any survey, digging, or test drilling. The estimated current value for the silver is a million dollars.

Many gold stories settle on Georgia.

In the autumn of 1862, the mint shipped $40,000 worth of gold and silver bars bars from New Orleans to Augusta. Around the same time, after the New Orleans fell to the Union, Confederate officials seized $2.3 million in gold and $216,000 in silver specie from a New Orleans bank that stored the gold and silver in Columbus, GA

By the war's end, Union general E. L. Molineux had gained possession of $275,000 in gold and silver in Macon alone. Molineux had seized $188,000 in gold assets from a single Savannah Bank.

Yet an another $200,000 in gold coins hidden in Macon were never found.

Towns in GA, SC, and NC are frequently mentioned in folklore and first person accounts, by researchers and treasure hunters as hiding place for gold and silver caches from local banks. Much of this gold has not been found.

Walter Rhett writes Southern Perlo from Kudu Coffee, in Charleston, SC. Stir the perlo; leave a comment.

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