Wednesday, December 05, 2007

On The Hunt for Civil War Gold

Tom Ewart / For The Times
CODE: Bob Brewer points out arcane symbols on a tree in western Arkansas that he believes are clues to a treasure stashed away by the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secretive Confederate group.

Fascinating story in the LATimes today about a guy who's been looking for the gold supposedly squirreled away by Confederates during the Civil War. Bob Brewer has been compiling clues and tracking the missing gold since 1977, and one of the clues he found was this:

[] Brewer soon was trading stories and information with others who shared his esoteric interest.

In 1993, one of them showed Brewer a book about Jesse James, with passages about the Knights of the Golden Circle, buried Confederate treasure and cryptic symbols.

Founded in the 1850s by George Bickley, a former Virginian living in Cincinnati, the group was reputed to include prominent political figures and Confederate leaders, among them Gen. Albert Pike, a high-ranking member of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

I visited Meramec Caverns in Missouri a few years back and they have a (really horrible) diorama showing how Jesse James used that cave to hide out and escape after a bank robbery. (Don't get me wrong, the caverns themselves are spectacular and well worth the visit, but the dusty dummies on the cave floor next to the fake bank bags -- pathetic.)

Maybe there really is something to this hidden Confederate gold legend. Let's hope Mr. Brewer finds it.

LATimes: Shadowy path may lead to treasure

Meramec Caverns: wikipedia

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