Confederate Gold and Silver (75 page)

Francis had held his saber between his knees as he tied off the rope. Now he placed the saber’s handle around a curled up section of dead splintered wood within the Live Oak. The tree’s interior looked far worse than the outside of the tree had. As he worked, he wondered if this Southern Live Oak had also been struck by lightning in the past. Reaching into his boot, he pulled his bayonet out and jammed it into the tree close to where he had hung his saber.

Now almost unconsciousness from the infection in his leg and from the fever that was again running high, Francis carefully pulled his gold watch from his pocket. He had one last task to complete. As he had done countless times before, he slowly ran his fingers over the outside of the watch for the last time, feeling for his initials engraved into the cover. Barely able to read the time because of the lack of light within the tree, he saw the watch read ten minutes to five, it was almost mealtime back home he thought. Ignoring his pain, he closed the face of the watch and fastened the gold chain around another small piece of splintered wood inside the tree. Wanting his final thought to be of home and wanting his watch to be the last thing he would see as he left this world, he purposely fastened it at the same height as his head. Grabbing the watch as it hung from the tree, he held it for the last time. As he did, he softly kissed the watch and then let it slowly slide out of his hand. It swayed from side to side within the small opening of the tree he now hid within. “Goodbye mother, goodbye father. I love you both!” Tears of sadness now streamed down both of his cheeks. Judiah knew the end was near.

His chores now completed, Francis leaned back against the tree’s interior. As he carefully stood on a deformity within the tree, his left hand held onto the rope to help him keep his balance. Now he intentionally wedged his right arm inside a splintered section of the tree. Doing so would take some of his weight off the ropes when he fell unconscious. Then he closed his eyes to rest.

In minutes, Francis lost consciousness for the last time. Falling forward, with his left arm and upper torso now suspended over one side of the rope, and with the rest of his body suspended on the other side, the rope did what he wanted it to do. With the rope supporting his weight and with his right arm still purposely wedged within the splintered interior of the tree, he accomplished what he had been determined to do. He had hid from the Yankees and he would die on his own terms. Soon he took his last breath. He would remain hidden until a transplanted Yankee found him many years later.

Inside the closed watch Francis had loved so dearly, the time read 6:23 pm. Its owner now dead, the watch soon would be also.

******

Over the many years following his death, the saber continued to hang within the tree where Francis had placed it. But time also causes death to parts of trees, just as it does to people. Years after it finally died, the tree’s splintered wood gave way and the saber fell. When it did it got caught in the uniform pants hanging next to it. The bayonet had fallen to the ground inside the tree years earlier. Over time the cloth blouse, as well as the pants Francis had worn, rotted somewhat and spilled the gold coins from the pockets where they had been placed. As the bayonet had, the coins also fell to the ground inside the tree. They would become buried under layers of leaves that fell over many years. But for some reason the rope Francis found in the small boat held him up for many years, suspended in place inside the Live Oak tree until it was time for him to be found.

He would have liked the person who finally found him. They would have made great friends.

******

The war would rage across different parts of the country until both sides finally met in early April, 1865. At Appomattox Court House in Virginia, on April 9
th
, General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant would meet to discuss the terms of the South’s surrender. Three days later, on April 12
th
, the same day the Confederacy had opened fire upon Fort Sumter four years earlier, the South formally surrendered.

On April 14
th
, exactly four years after he had surrendered Fort Sumter to the Confederacy, General Robert Anderson raised the American flag back to the top of the fort’s flagpole. That same evening President Lincoln would be shot at Ford’s Theatre. He would die the following morning.

As Francis had not seen the war end, Lincoln would not see the country heal itself.

Fall,
2011

29
The
Southern
States
Fight
Again.
 

‘I
wish
I
was
in
the
land
of
cotton,
Old
times
there
are
not
forgotten;
Look
away!
Look
away!
Look
away,
Dixie
Land!”
‘I
Wish
I
Was
In
Dixie’,
Confederate
Civil
War
song.

In the days and weeks following the announcements of the discovery of the long lost Confederate treasury, Paul and his friends became the focus of many national and local news stories. The country, once divided by a terrible war, now could not get enough of the story surrounding the discovery of the gold and silver.

Comparisons soon followed which likened Paul to those who had made previous startling discoveries of gold and silver, some while diving on shipwrecks in the nearby Atlantic Ocean. He detested the comparisons and he quickly let others know that he did. It was soon too much attention for all of them and after enduring it for almost ten days they did their best to deflect as much of the media attention away from them as possible. Paul had promised Greg Masterson, the writer who had threatened to expose him as a fraud if he did not come through with the promises he had made, an interview after they had talked at the end of the staged press conference in North Carolina. It was the only one-on-one interview he immediately consented to after the money had been found. It was done to fulfill a promise he had made. Their collective efforts at ignoring the media only intensified the public’s curiosity about them as Paul had made one early statement which soon made them all so attractive to the public.

The day after they had opened the cannons in Charleston, the first organized press conference was held there to tell the media about what they had found. Paul was asked a question by a
Fox
News
reporter about how the millions of dollars in gold and silver they had found would change their lives because of their new found wealth.

Paul shocked the world with his answer when he told the reporter the money was not theirs to keep. In his response to the question, he told everyone present they had always pursued the hunt for the money
“
. . .
just
for
the
thrill
of
finding
it.
In
our
opinion,
the
money
still
belongs
to
the
people
of
those
states
who
had
formed
the
Confederacy.
It
does
not
belong
to
us.”
That simple response immediately made them the darlings of the media. As the media now would not let go of the story, nor would the public. It seemed as if the entire country could not get enough information about what they had found. That single statement charmed everyone who saw or read the stories containing his comment. But the comment now also caused many civic and historical groups, as well as each of the states who had comprised the Confederacy, and the federal government, to soon lay claim to the found money. For many skewed reasons, several private citizens also filed claims as well.

Paul and his friends were further rewarded with the public’s affection when news of Duke Johnson’s family was told. When the story was told how Duke’s granddaddy had unknowingly cared for the grave site of three Confederate soldiers for so many years, the public’s appetite for more news on the story simply intensified. Their appetite was additionally fed when later news stories reported the Johnson family, as a tribute to the three soldiers who had been buried on their property for almost one hundred and fifty years, had donated the land where they had been buried to the state of North Carolina so it could be made into a state park. In the years which followed, even though the soldiers had been finally interred elsewhere, the park would remain a popular Civil War site for the public to visit.

By late October, the early unofficial estimates of what the value of the gold and silver were worth proved to be substantially higher than what Paul had first suggested they were to Mayor Davis. Judge Morgan, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, who had been present when some of the money had been found, recused himself from any further official proceedings due to ethical reasons. He had recommended the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina be assigned jurisdiction for the final distribution of the found Confederate gold and silver. Shortly after Judge Morgan made his recommendation, the Wilmington office of the Eastern District court was assigned jurisdiction of the case.

Initially the court ordered the United States Marshal’s Service to only take possession of what had been found in Charleston, but then Paul was ordered to surrender all of the gold and silver he had stored in the safety deposit boxes back in Murrells Inlet. At the same time, he also surrendered the saber, the bayonet, and the clothing he had found with the remains of Captain Francis.

The court further ordered that the collection of gold and silver, the jewelry, and the other surrendered items, were to be examined by a panel of three independent examiners whose backgrounds were in numismatics and Civil War artifacts. It took almost three months for the independent examination to run its course, but in late January the examiners announced to the court the estimated value of the discovery was thirty-two million dollars. When the news was made public it caused another round of media attention to be directed at Paul and his friends. They again did their best to avoid speaking to the media, but soon realized they had become unwanted celebrities for a period of time. Deep down they wished for their fifteen minutes of fame to finally be up.

The independent examiner’s estimate of what the gold and silver was worth caused one of Paul’s earlier predictions to unfortunately come true. When they had met with Mayor Davis the day they had opened the cannons, he had told all who were present that money makes people
“seem
to
do
crazy
things.”
Now he was being proven right.

Several Southern states, most notably those who had been part of the Confederacy from the very beginning, had already filed suit in court seeking a portion of the money. In one state’s skewed logic they sought all it. When word got out in follow-up stories as to what the final estimated value had come in at, all of the states who had been part of the Confederacy filed suits seeking immediate disbursement of the found money. The governors of most of those states, as well as several state Attorney Generals, amped up the pressure on the court through a flurry of letters and other political maneuvers to quickly decide what to do with the money. As the states had done, so now had the federal government. In addition to the several states who sought part of the found money, so did several agencies of the federal government. They all now did their best to justify to the court their reasons why they should receive a substantial portion of the proceeds. In doing so, they all now acted like Paul had told Mayor Davis they would. Paul’s previous career had taught him that greed often rears its head in many different ways.

In early February, the court sent letters to the governors of several former states of the Confederacy who had sought some or all of the money which had been found. The court chose not to send letters to any former Confederate states west of Louisiana and Arkansas or to the governors of any states who had been former United States territories at the time of the Civil War, specifically those territories who had supported the Confederacy. As each of the governors of the former Confederate states received a letter from the court, so did the National Park Service. They were all directed to attend a meeting at the United States District Courthouse in Charleston to discuss what should occur with the found money. The letter advised all of the parties involved that this meeting was the court’s single attempt to mediate a solution on how the money should be disbursed. The letter also strongly recommended to the states, and to the National Park Service, that they come up with a mutually agreed upon plan regarding the disbursement of the money prior to the meeting date. The letter warned them if they did not the case would likely languish on the court’s docket for several more months. Each of the plaintiffs was also directed by the court to provide a list of proposed projects they would fund if the court granted them any part of the found assets.

The letter further advised the parties that Judge Howard Nathan Morgan, despite his superficial involvement in the discovery of the gold and silver in Charleston, would be the initial mediator in this matter. This was based on an agreement reached by the United States District Courts in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. After attempting to mediate a fair and equitable disbursement of the found money, Judge Morgan would then make his recommendations to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina for their review. The letter also advised everyone that the court was not bound to follow any of the recommendations made by Judge Morgan. The letter concluded by stating the court hoped this meeting would prevent future prolonged and expensive legal hearings from occurring. The court’s letter expressed hope that this meeting would result in a disbursement of the funds to the satisfaction of everyone.