Confederate Gold and Silver (57 page)

As the others grabbed whatever they could find from within the warehouse to fill the four cannons Francis had selected, Odom and Stine started mixing the mortar with water in an old horse trough they had found behind the warehouse. With the mortar almost ready, Francis pried a large nail from one of the warehouse beams.

Francis first had Banks wet the inside of each cannon barrel with water so the mortar would properly adhere to the sides. Then they began to pack the mortar into the ends of the cannon barrels. They packed each of the twelve cannons with mortar twice. The second time was to fill up a few voids that had occurred when the mortar started to set up. Soon they were finished with the mortar. After the mortar had a few minutes to setup, Francis went to each cannon with the nail he had pulled from the warehouse beam. He carefully inscribed C.S.A. into the still drying mortar. Then he inscribed an even number under the C.S.A. inscription for each cannon packed with the gold and silver. He randomly chose the numbers 2, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 18 and 30. For the four cannons which had been sealed with mortar like the others, but had been packed with only the various items they found within the warehouse, Francis inscribed an odd number under his C.S.A. inscription. For those numbers he randomly chose 3, 7, 9 and 11.

“OK, men, let’s give the mortar time to dry. Then we will move the cannons back into place. You now know another part of the secret regarding a good part of our treasury. You knew where it was when we moved it out of Richmond, you knew where it was during our trip, and now you know where it is hidden. Not too many people can lay claim to knowing what y’all do. I want to personally thank each of you for your service to the Confederacy. I am proud of each of you. Let’s get cleaned up for dinner, later we will move the cannons back into place.”

Soon their dinner was delivered, as were the locks for the warehouse. As the men cleaned up at the water pump, it was Francis who took the time to lay out the meal for the men, just as they had done throughout the mission for him. It was an attempt on his part to show them the respect he had developed for them. It was a gesture his men would not overlook.

As they ate their meal, a meal of cold fried chicken, oysters, corn on the cob, fresh baked bread, and coffee, the men joked with each other about hiding the gold and silver in the cannon barrels. It was Odom who directed one comment to Francis. “Captain, I ain’t nearly as smart as y’all and it took me a spell to figure out what y’all done here with these cannons and all, meaning that writing you put into the end of them thar cannons, but tell me something. Them thar four cannons, y’all put odd numbers on them and the others y’all done put even numbers on them. Again, I ain’t the smartest man here, but them four cannons with them odd numbers, are them decoys or something?”

“Very perceptive of you, Sgt. Odom. Well done!”

After they finished their meal and had taken a few minutes to share one of the few remaining cigars they had, Francis had the men push the cannons into place against the far wall of the warehouse. He had the cannons inscribed with even numbers lined up against the wall and then had the four cannons with the odd numbers placed in front of them. When they were done it looked like the cannons had never been moved.

As his men spent the rest of the evening winding down from the day, Francis poured himself a cup of coffee and then climbed up on the wagon they would be taking with them the next day. He needed to be alone, away from his men, as he had one more task to complete before he could shut his eyes for the night.

With the loss of each of his men, Francis had realized his mission was becoming more difficult to complete. He had known when they left Richmond that they would face problems along the way, but the problems he had encountered and the number of his men who had died, was beyond what he or anyone else could have expected. Now he knew for many reasons, such as the problems he was encountering with both the blockade and the railroads, that the chances of his mission failing had become a strong possibility. The trips he planned to make back to North Carolina and to the Georgetown area only added to the likelihood of his mission failing. Sitting in the wagon thinking this all out, he knew he and his men would fight to the end to deliver the money, but now his confidence had started to fade. He had to prepare for the worst.

Working with the light a single small candle gave out, Francis wrote his first letter in many months. It started as
Dear
President
Davis
. Finishing the letter, he let the ink dry on the paper while he took a sip of his now tepid coffee. “I hope this letter will never have to be delivered to President Davis. If it is, it will mean I have failed him. Most likely, it will also mean that I am dead.” It was a somber thought he reflected on for several minutes.

As he sat in the wagon finishing his coffee, Francis spied two empty liquor bottles in the bed of the wagon. They had been full when he had been given them by James Wood. Seeing the empty bottles brought back sad memories of the terrible afternoon in Georgetown. Holding the two bottles up to the flame of the candle, he could see the insides of the bottles were now dry. After removing the small cork from the end of one of the bottles, he rolled up his letter to President Davis and the rough map he had made of the field in North Carolina where they had buried some of the gold and silver. Then he placed them inside the bottle. After placing the cork back in the bottle, he placed the bottle into one side of his saddlebags; saddlebags which sat next to him in the wagon. “At least I know the letter is protected from the weather for now.”

Sitting in the wagon as tears slowly rolled down his face, Francis knew the chances of seeing his mother and father, and his home in Virginia, were dwindling. He still held out hope he would see them again, but his heart was telling him otherwise. Reaching for the second empty liquor bottle, he now placed one of the letters from both President Davis and Secretary Memminger inside the bottle. After putting the cork back into the neck, he carefully placed the bottle inside the other section of his saddlebags so the two bottles would not break.

Blowing out the candle, Francis then laid down on a blanket in the bed of the wagon. Even though the warehouse was still warm that evening, he wrapped himself up in another blanket to fight off the chill he felt from the letter he had just written. Soon he fell asleep. While he could not possibly have known it, it would be one of his last comfortable nights sleep here on earth.

He was correct about the letter he had written to President Davis.

Fall,
2011

25
Strong
Black
Friends.
 

“Well,
I
wish
some
of
you
would
tell
me
the
brand
of
whiskey
that
Grant
drinks.
I
would
like
to
send
a
barrel
of
it
to
my
other
generals.”
President
Abraham
Lincoln

After Bobby Ray, Pete, and Jayne left to go home, Paul closed his overhead garage door, set the alarm to his house and went to bed instead of sleeping in the garage with the money they had found. Chick and he both needed a couple of hours of sleep before the others returned back to the house later in the morning to package up what they had found at the cemetery so it could be brought to the bank. Later in the morning as she prepared to leave for work, Donna assured her very tired husband that she would reset the alarm as she left the house.

Separated by only the thin sheetrock wall between Paul’s bedroom and the guest bedroom Chick had crashed in, they each spent a restless few hours trying to fall asleep. It proved to be a wasted effort for both of them as they were far too excited about what they had found at the cemetery. The fact they had finally gotten to bed when the sun was just starting to make its presence known through the bedroom windows did not help in their efforts to catch some much needed sleep.

Tired from their lack of sleep and tired of trying to fall asleep, Chick and Paul had just made their way back into Paul’s garage with their first cup of coffee when Jayne pulled into the driveway. The back seat of her Honda Accord was loaded with the Tupperware containers she had just purchased at Wal-Mart. As they were helping her unload her car, Pete also arrived. As Paul carried the last few containers, Chick helped Pete carry his camera gear into the garage. He surprised them by bringing a dozen assorted donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts with him. “I figured a little sugar would help our tired bodies get going this morning.”

After they had gotten everything into the garage, Paul closed the garage door from the prying eyes of any of his neighbors. “If any of them are on the ball they would have to think with all of the traffic that has been coming and going from here at all hours lately that we are selling drugs or something out of here. If only they knew.”

As they ate their donuts and drank the coffee Paul made for them, they started to talk about their successful trip to the cemetery. As they talked about what they had found, Paul remembered he owed Duke a phone call.

“Duke, good morning, it’s Paul.”

“Hey, partner, how did y’all make out last night? Any luck?”

“Listen, I don’t want to talk on the cell phone about this. You never know who might be listening, OK?”

“Oh, yeah, I understand. I’ll call you at your house tonight when I get back home. But y’all can’t leave me wondering all day about what happened. Just give me a hint.”

“Duke, more, much more than we got when we visited with you.”

“Seriously?”

“Extremely.”

“Whoa! I’m with you on the next one. Partner, please tell me there is gonna be one more!”

“Hope so, but we will talk about that tonight. Sound OK?”

“Sounds like a plan. I will call you around nine. Y’all have a good one!”

Sitting in the garage, they excitedly talked for several more minutes about what they had found at the cemetery, but soon the sugar from the donuts wore off and the fatigue of the previous day kicked in. Before being able to catch up on their sleep they still had to package up what they had found. After cleaning off more of the still accumulated sand and soil, they packed each of the containers Jayne had purchased with loose coins. After filling them, they placed the plastic containers inside several of Paul’s empty cardboard moving boxes. They also used another moving box to hide the container which held the gold and silver bars. Paul wanted to use the cardboard boxes so no one could see what the containers held when they wheeled them into the bank in a couple of hours.

As the others continued to pack the cardboard boxes, Paul called his bank and put a hold on the last ten large safety deposit boxes they had available. “If my neighbors think we are selling drugs out of the garage, then the bank has to think we are keeping our drug profits with them.” It brought a collective laugh from the tired group.

After they finished packing the coins into the containers, Chick took a moment to clean off the exterior of the wooden barrel the coins and bars had been found in. “Paul, look at this. It’s not much, but it tells us a little more about the barrel.”

Carefully cleaning away some of the accumulated grime with a soft brush, Paul and Chick were able to read some of the faint stenciling that still remained on one side of the barrel. “This word here clearly appears to be the word
flour
, but I cannot make out the words before and after it. Near the bottom I can read the words
Richmond,
Virginia
, but I cannot make out any of the other words stenciled on it, can you?”

Paul grabbed a magnifying glass off of his workbench, one he had used when he first read the letters he had found, but even with the help of the magnifying glass he could not make out any of the other words stenciled on the barrel many years ago. Time spent in the ground had faded the rest of the stenciling to the naked eye and to the magnifying glass.

While they had been examining the barrel, Pete had again documented their findings by videotaping what they had found. He then had Paul hold up each of the seven gold and silver bars so he could film them. At the same time, Chick held up a ruler alongside each of them to document their individual sizes. On average each bar was approximately ten inches in length, three inches in width and almost two inches in diameter. “That’s a lot of coins, jewelry, silver teacups, or whatever, to melt down to make those bars. I can only imagine what each of those bars is worth in today’s market.” Pete’s comment caused the others to think about what had been melted down to make up each of the bars they had found.

******

As Paul, Chick, and Jayne drove to the bank with the cardboard moving boxes, now full of coins and with the single container which held the gold and silver bars, Pete drove back to the cemetery to do a final walk around the perimeter just to make sure they had not left anything behind. The day’s rainstorm would make it an easy task to complete as no one would be visiting the old cemetery on a rainy day.

Arriving at the bank and using a hand truck borrowed from one of his neighbors, Paul and Jayne stacked several boxes of coins onto the hand truck while Chick guarded the rest of the coins still in his van.

“Back again, Paul? This is getting to be quite mysterious, seeing how many of these safety deposit boxes you are renting. The girls behind the teller line, especially Paula and Barbara, they have a bet going on regarding what you are putting in the safety deposit boxes. But I doubt you are going to tell them and you don’t have to, it’s none of their business anyhow. One thing though, please tell me it’s not drug money or anything else illegal, that’s all I want to make sure of. I hate it when the damn state auditors start asking questions of me.” Holly McNamara had been only half-kidding when she asked him the question.