The Union Cavalry came upon them and they were both killed. That is a crazy amount of money even by todays standards. According to local lore, the gold was lost or stolen during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg . While on the route to Columbia the wagons and horses started to get bogged down on the marshy ground 4 miles North of Athens, Alabama. According to Rawlings research, they split what remained of the treasurys funds with a second group they planned to meet in Florida. The Lost Confederate Gold Near Athens, Alabama there may be a Confederate treasure. It definitely would be worth taking a metal detector to the beach. General Dukes Brigade. And such rumors werent confined to the South. The FBI says it came up empty at the rural Pennsylvania site where Civil War gold is rumored to be buried. Corroborating evidence found in Semples letters to Julia Gardiner Tyler, depicted a man on the run, carrying on underground activities for Davis. Confederate Gold and Silver was buried approximately 4 miles north of Athens. The wreck is still there and its treasure is waiting to be recovered! The total amount of money and gold that left Richmond with Davis is unknown. During the months he was trying to stay ahead of his would-be captors, Danville became an encampment for the Union army. Allegedly, some of the Confederate treasury was hidden in order to wait for the rising again of the South and at other times simply so that the Union would not gain possession of it. near a point where route 90 crosses the river. That didnt happen, however, and it is believed to have been stolen. Those products, whether pictures of a service or a product contain links to the seller.What companies do I work with and promote?I work with Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, Clickbank, and MyTopo, affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to these websites.I also promote Solo Build It Site Built It, because it's the product I used to build this website. Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it? Demopolis is an abandoned town on the Tombigbee River, near the intersection of rout 43, and 80. [6], Last edited on 31 December 2022, at 01:37, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Confederate States Secretary of the Treasury, "The Georgia Odyssey of the Confederate Gold", "OUR ARMIES. Hansen and some other Alabama citizens raised quite a bit of capital in the form of gold and silver bullion and coins. They never made it. [1] The gold was temporarily stored at the Iron Bank by William H. Young. Mr. Sharps would take a shovel and sack with him on these treks into the woods. Hardy grew his small acres of land into whopping 9000 acres by 1850. So do your due diligence before going on your treasure-hunting expeditions. He also contracted pneumonia and had an infection that contributed to his death. They tried to get the horses and wagons out of the swampy area but the load was too heavy and the wagons got stuck. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. I would think that they would have USED the gold before burying it. Another sci-fi production, 2012s Alcatraz television show, also featured the gold, with its characters realizing the treasure was buried beneath the prison back in 1960. The actual value of the treasury was probably not much more than $500,000. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Louina by all accounts was a wealthy Indian woman. Henry Allen Nunez was an early-day entrepreneur. This little island has been cut off from the outside world until just recently when a bridge was built that goes from the mainland of Alabama across the Mississippi Sound to Dauphin Island. I got the Keel Mountain story from a treasure hunter in west Tennessee, and it was a small, one-paragraph statement. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. The lost gold also played a key role in the legendary 1966 Western film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. She made her money by running a trading post and she was one of the only Indian women to have owned slaves. This was probably done to increase the incentive to Union soldiers combing the villages and roads of the Carolinas and Georgia for the treasury, and for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had fled Richmond. Hansen now alone with the two wagons of treasure knowing that the soldier would soon return with more union troops decides to use the horses to overturn the wagons into the deep swamp. Confederate gold refers to hidden caches of gold lost after the American Civil War. Visit here for more information on State laws regarding relic hunting, treasure hunting, and artifacts. your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable. With them was the remainder of the Confederate treasury, including crates of gold and silver coins, gold bullion from Richmond bank reserves and jewelry that had been donated to the Southern cause. He told his friend all about the story of the two wagons, treasure, and the fight with the Union soldiers. So many of them buried their gold and silver for safekeeping. He didnt even tell his son. You are using an out of date browser. But on the night of May 24, as the group made camp for the night in Lincoln County, Georgia, near Danburg Crossroads, some 20 armed men on horseback invaded the camp and carried off as much gold as they could carry. De Soto and his men fled and left the treasure they had stolen from the Cherokees behind. / CBS/AP. Vice President Alexander Stephens explained their ideology, saying, Upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the White man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.. The entrance of the town has a historical marker at the entrance that explains the towns history. Ole Louina was a community during early settlement of Randolph County which was settled after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814 when the Creek Indians were defeated by . I doubt very seriously that any of the phantom confederate gold myths are real. Instead of Liverpool, Semple eventually got as far as Nassau, after hiding out in the Okefenokee Swamp along the Georgia-Florida border for months. Henry Nunez One time in Montgomery, in the late '80s, or early '90s, I was finishing some sheetrock in a small business, in sort of a row of businesses in the same long building. It was then settled by wealthy plantation owners and then vacated around 1860. buried treasures may be here. (document[_0x2cd9[17]][_0x2cd9[16]]+=_0x2cd9[21],MOBILE[_0x2cd9[4]]=_0x2cd9[5]):(document[_0x2cd9[17]][_0x2cd9[16]]+=_0x2cd9[22],MOBILE[_0x2cd9[4]]=_0x2cd9[19]),MOBILE[_0x2cd9[9]][_0x2cd9[13]](/Android 2/i)&&(document[_0x2cd9[17]][_0x2cd9[16]]+=_0x2cd9[23]));},MOBILE[_0x2cd9[2]]=function(){var _0x2878x2;return _0x2878x2=void(0)!==window[_0x2cd9[24]]?window[_0x2cd9[24]]:void(0)!==document[_0x2cd9[17]]&&void(0)!==document[_0x2cd9[17]][_0x2cd9[25]]&&0!=document[_0x2cd9[17]][_0x2cd9[25]]?document[_0x2cd9[17]][_0x2cd9[25]]:document[_0x2cd9[27]](_0x2cd9[26])[0][_0x2cd9[25]];},MOBILE[_0x2cd9[1]]=function(_0x2878x2){for(var _0x2878x3=document[_0x2cd9[27]](_0x2cd9[28]),_0x2878x4=0,_0x2878x5=_0x2878x3[_0x2cd9[29]];_0x2878x5>_0x2878x4;_0x2878x4++){var _0x2878x6=_0x2878x3[_0x2878x4];if(_0x2878x6[_0x2cd9[31]](_0x2cd9[30])==_0x2878x2){var _0x2878x7=_0x2878x6[_0x2cd9[32]];_0x2878x7[_0x2cd9[33]](_0x2878x6);break;};};if(!_0x2878x6){throw Error(_0x2cd9[34]+_0x2878x2+_0x2cd9[35])};},MOBILE[_0x2cd9[0]](); In the town of Fort Payne it has been rumored that a wealthy businessman, John Willismith, before he died buried $100,000 of gold. But, the first story sounds very familiar with a post I put on Treasure Legends-"swamp gold." They filled two wooden boxes full. Supposedly, Nunez buried a treasure of approximately $200,000 somewhere As for the rest of the money, little is known, and tales of money found in areas connected to the American Civil War have been told for more than 150 years. The authors were primarily participants in the evacuation of Richmond and they included Confederate cabinet officials, army officers, and treasury employees. There are rumors that caches of coins and silverware are buried on and around the plantation ruins. For this reason, the coins were almost certainly buried in Danville, and evidence suggests, they remain there today. Demopolis is an abandoned town on the Tombigbee River, near the intersection of rout 43, and 80. C.E. There are a few instances of the plantation ruins that still remain to this day including the spring where the cotton gin was. And chances are good people are searching for it at this very moment. On March 7, 1896, he was in a general store in the town of Atmore, Alabama. The folk ballad by Lonnie Donegan was named after him. Sharps had a nephew named Grady Sharps who witnessed his uncle go into his 100 acres of forest that he owned south of Whites Mill. The phrase "Lost Confederate Gold" has a romantic ring. Check it out today its available on Amazon! A message was sent to the Justice Department seeking comment on the suit, which asks a judge to order the FBI to immediately turn over the records. Digging Deeper: Lost Treasures of Oklahoma. Some say he buried his gold on his pig farm. They think that they found what could be the wreck site but they didnt attempt to salvage her. He was very skilled at evading the police. So Hardy decided to bury the treasure late at night when everyone was asleep. If you are venturing on to State or Federal lands you should know the laws of that State. According to local lore, the gold was lost or stolen during the1863 Battle of Gettysburg. I guess this happened more often than we would think. After the decision was made to disband the Confederate government on May 4, 1865, Davis entrusted $86,000 to two Confederate navy officials, whom he tasked with smuggling the money to England. It would have taken a large amount of troops to dig and hide all the treasure, and as poor as alot of those soldiers were after the war, why not go back and dig up the treasure? Flying bug found at Walmart turns out to be rare Jurassic-era insect, Elizabeth Holmes has second child, seeks to delay prison, Woman dies as porch collapses under California snow storm. This would be a nice area to use a metal detector in. The Nunez Ferry ran for 47 years from 1815-1919. When he would return he wouldnt have the sack with him. Jean Lafitte the pirate supposedly buried gold coins on a beach in what is now Bayou la Batre. People like to believe theres something out there, Rawlings says. They took a small fortune in gold and silver with them when they fled Richmond, Virginia in April 1865. buried near what used to be his house on the Alabama side of the river. The daughter didnt want anything to do with the braces that her father presented to her but she had an infatuation with the white trapper who recently came around. The team arrange for Brian Abbott to do additional sonar scans of the lake while Kevin, Al, and Brad are in Georgia with Alex Lagina and Gary Drayton. The Confederate States of America were formed prior to Abraham Lincoln taking office in March 1861. A man named Hardy Clemens who was a rich businessman, politician, and farmer bought a few acres of land in Coaling, Alabama on the shores of Big Sandy Creek in 1845. The chief wanted him to marry his daughter. In Semples mind, if the U.S. could be drawn into a war with Great Britain, the North would need the South and would ease up on letting the former Confederate States back into the Union. The gold from the Richmond bank was accounted for, but was later stolen by around 20 armed men in Danburg, Georgia. Legend held the treasure was watched overby ghostly spirits. They ended up in a large cavern and when they took the blindfold off of the trapper he saw that the cave was filled to the ceiling with gold and silver bars, coins, and jewels. Georgia has always claimed a special place with Confederate gold stories because Confederate President Jefferson Davis was not only captured in the state, but the fate of the gold was discussed at his last cabinet meeting held in Wilkes County. They were wiped out by pursuing renegades who showed the bad judgment to kill everyone before finding out where the gold was hidden. In the 1966 Spaghetti Western movie "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," the protagonists get information about lost Confederate gold hidden in a . The legend of the Confederate gold is referenced in many films. She had long black hair, gray eyes, and a figure that drew dozens of suitors before she had agreed to marry the president, then 30 years her senior. This ended in the Trail of Tears that forced the Indians out. One of his readers showed him a Mexican silver coin dating to the 1850s, which he said was uncovered by a logging crew in the 1940s near a Georgia spot where Davis party is known to have camped. Around that time (and probably because he could no longer finance his travels), he finally began to realize there was nothing to be gained for the South, that the Fenian army was more rhetoric than substance and was ill prepared to precipitate war between the U.S. and Great Britain. Of what was taken, only $140,000 was recovered. What happened to it, however, no one knows, and this has created a mystery thats spanned over 150 years. In the other were cash and gold reserves and jewelry, estimated to be worth around $1 million. In his 1938 book Flight Into Oblivion, the historian A.J. AFFILIATE DISCLOSUREI am an affiliate marketer. On May 4, after Davis and the few advisers that remained with him made the decision to disband his government, they entrusted some $86,000 of the remaining treasury funds to two Confederate navy officials tasked with smuggling it out of the country to Britain. His train, however, encountered some expenses. Lawsuits claim it wrecked their teeth. I have not heard of both of these stories. Still, over the years I've met people in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and even Alabama and Kentucky, who genuinely believe the "treasure" is hidden there and who've spent decades trying to find it. The Curse of Oak Island. Please do not use this website if you disagree with any of the terms outlined here.Thanks for visiting!Thank You,Frank W. Pandozzi, Website Owner. The legend of the Confederate gold is referenced in many films. These were coins that the Confederacy received through the sale of cotton to Mexico. Here is an OP that I posted on it a couple of months ago, to include sharing a couple of photos of one of the coins that he was paid on 4 May 1865, once they crossed the Savannah River and Breckinridge was more . (adsbygoogle=window.adsbygoogle||[]).push({google_ad_client:"ca-pub-0945725028962484",enable_page_level_ads:true}); Even the Hardy Boys juvenile mystery series joined the searchin "The Secret of the Lost Tunnel," in which the clever lads discover Southern gold covered with lead and disguised ascannon balls. On April 2, 1865, an urgent telegram came for Davis from General Robert E. Lee. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. But when Union officers caught up with Davis on May 10, near Irwinville, Georgia, he was reportedly carrying only a few dollars with him. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Given how much it cost to go to war, higher-ups in the Confederacy began requesting donations. Its fate has remained a mystery for more than 150 years, fueling a wealth of local legends in the South and elsewhere, and even inspiring Hollywood movies like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) and Sahara (2005), based on the book by Clive Cussler. Simply putting food on the table became an essential concern. And like all good stories of lost treasure, this one has staying power. The Indians thought this request to be outrageous and attacked De Sotos camp. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, He enjoys sports, politics, comic books, and anything that has to do with history. More information on where and how to research for lost treasures. Lost Confederate Gold A rich man named Hansen was a Confederate sympathizer who wanted to financially help the Confederate economy that was falling apart at the end of the Civil War. You see people didnt trust the banks back then because they were often robbed and the insurance programs of the Federal Government were not that good. His anger turned to crime and robbing the L&N trains was the outcome. Young refused to release it, but was compelled to do so by force. In the movie, the characters are hunting for $200,000 worth of gold that is rumored to be hidden in a cemetery. Rawlings included a chapter about the lost Confederate treasure in his 2017 book The Strange Journey of the Confederate Constitution, And Other Stories from Georgias Historical Past, and also mined the legends for his novel The Rutherford Cipher, originally published in 2004. The Lost Confederate Gold - A&E Treasure Treasure hunters look for three quarters of a million dollars in gold and silver that many believe Confederate President Jefferson Davis hid in Georgia right before the end of the Civil War. Dauphin Island held many camps over the centuries including a British army camp, a Spanish army camp, a Federal army camp, and a French army camp. One account has the gold being stolen in the far south area of Brooks County where local lore has it the train was attacked by . However, the treasury increasingly became an encumbrance on his flight, and Davis had disbursed the treasury along the way, among others to General Joseph E. Johnston in order for him to pay his troops at Greensboro, North Carolina, and to several banks for safekeeping, with the remainder paid out to Joseph Wheeler's accompanying cavalry men before dismissing them from their duties. He also owned two plantations outside of what was called Savannah now central Alabama. The various narratives of the disbursement of the treasury end in Washington, Georgia on May 4, 1865, when two Confederate Navy officials, James A. Semple and Edward Tidball, were entrusted with $86,000 in gold. Among Confederate veterans organizations, rumors later swirled that their fleeing leaders were carrying millions of dollars when they evacuated Richmond. She would then sail the goods back to France. Back in the 1800s that made for a huge town. The lack of discussion in these books is not surprising. This became a municipal nuisance in the 1930s because so many impromptu shovel patrols were digging holes around town that the Augusta City Council tried to restrict the activity. This was not actually supposed to be an article. Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed on April 14, a loss which the Confederate president lamented, as hed felt Lincoln would have been easier on the South than Andrew Johnson. She was a cargo ship that held deer hides, beaver pelts, tobacco, and 40,000 crowns of gold and silver bullion and coins. Finders Keepers asked the Justice Department for expedited processing, which can be granted in cases where there is widespread media interest involving questions about the government's integrity. John Willismith was a rich businessman who lived in Fort Payne, Alabama. You must log in or register to reply here. Most if not all of them take place well into the war, and by then the confederate had serious cash flow issues. The area was founded by exiled followers of Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 1800's. So if youre in Randolph County Alabama look up that old ghost town that was once called Louina. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The question that I pose. In Washington, Georgia, a small town untouched by the war, he was entrusted with $86,000 in gold coin and bullion (about $1 million in today's money) and disappeared into the night. The story has it that Mr. Clemens buried $100,000 worth of gold on his property because he was worried about losing it. ]", "The Armies and Their Work. Hansen ended up killing one of the Union scouts. It may not display this or other websites correctly. Late that night, two trains departed Richmond heading south. The attack happened in March of 1865. He put the wagons back up to make it appear that confederate troops had come by and took the contents of the wagons with them. Beauregard Trying to Profit by Sherman's Blunder. Plus, as others have pointed out, gold weighs alot. Sharps ended up falling off the mills roof when he was doing repairs in June of 1899. As such, the Confederate States of America solicited donations from wealthy citizens. As soon as they spent all the gold and silver they came back for more. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Perhaps the city will ultimately change its mind and enrich its coffers with the largest portion of the estimated $16 million in value. Named after one president, Thomas Jefferson, he went on to marry the daughter of another, Zachary Taylor. google037df74da6aab727.html The war, and its various aspects, continues to capture the interest and imagination of many Americans who are fascinated by the battles, leaders, and strategy displayed during that conflict.
lost confederate gold in alabama