The aftermath of WWI eventually led to WWII, and this led to the Cold War, which makes the Black Hand one of the most strangely influential forces of the twentieth century. Newspaper editors across the lower South generally reacted favorably to his message, and Texas proved notably strong in its support. [2] He organized the first castle, or local branch, in Cincinnati in 1854. The Secretary of War, John Floyd and of Treasury, Howell Cobb, were members of the circle, in addition to Vice President John Breckenridge. You are using an out of date browser. Masons use signs and handshakes to gain admission to their meetings, as well as to identify themselves to other people who may be Masons. Along with a series of secret hand gestures, these tickets were supposed to protect the horses and other possessions of ticket holders from seizure by invading Confederate soldiers. California Senator Milton Latham subsequently did so when he entered the entire PierceSeward correspondence into the Congressional Globe. They were known for their extreme discretion in minimizing civilian casualties, as well as their penchant for using stealth to intimidate their targets. while KGC members were still Cabinet officers and Senators". There was a problem saving your notification. Floyd received instructions from the Order to "seize Navy-yards, Forts, etc. According to Judy Schiff, Chief Archivist at the Yale University Library, the names of the members were not kept secret until the 1970s, but the rituals always have been. In Knights of the Golden Circle, attorney David C. Keehn argues that the secret fraternal order the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) played a much more significant role in the coming of the Civil War than historians have previously acknowledged.Specifically, he claims that the KGC used extra-political pressure to advance secession in Texas and Membership levels were initially first and second degree, but in the 1750s this was expanded to create the third degree which caused a split in the group. A successor organization, the Sons of Liberty, was alleged to have taken its place. The Knights soon had thousands of followers, many of whom formed guerilla armies and began raiding Union strongholds in the West. Appealing to the Confederacy's friends in the North and in the border states, the Order spread to Kentucky as well as the southern parts of such Union states as Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/knights-of-the-golden-circle. WebThe Knights of the Golden Circle had been organized in the late 1850s and were said to be dedicated to preserving the slave states and to establishing a new slave empire in Mexico. Unless otherwise noted, registration for streaming programs typically closes two hours prior to the start time on the date of the program. No evidence has been provided for these suppositions. These conspiracy stories associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle are now part of the historical record associated with the organization, but none of them can be reliably documented. Golden Circle, Dark Plot "Newcomb, James Pearson | The Handbook of Texas Online|", "California Naval History: The Pacific Squadron of 1861-1866", "Gold coins found by California couple unlikely stolen from U.S. Mint", "The great north-western conspiracy in all its startling details", "Watch Lincoln's Secret Assassins Full Episode - America Unearthed", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle&oldid=1150481115, Expansion of slavery in the United States, Proposed states and territories of the United States, Articles containing Spanish-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, The KGC are the villains of the graphic novel, The KGC are portrayed as conspirators in the, The KGC and their potential involvement in President Lincoln's assassination are discussed in an episode of the, The KGC are the antagonists in a story which is featured in the, The KGC are referenced during a discussion concerning a potential assassination plot in the, The KGC are the subject of a historical fiction novel by, This page was last edited on 18 April 2023, at 12:45. [15] In May 1861, members of the KGC and the Confederate Rangers attacked a building which housed a pro-Union newspaper, the Alamo Express, owned by J. P. Newcomb, and burned it down. Jesse James reportedly belonged to a secret society, The Knights of the Golden Circle. In 1864, it became the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with the Ohio politician Clement L. Vallandigham, most prominent of the Copperheads, as its supreme commander. But once the Civil War started, the group switched its focus from colonialism to fervent support of the newly established Confederate government. An 1861 book cover re the Knights of the Golden Circle and their purported flag. KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. [8] The plan was to prevent Lincoln from reaching Washington by capturing him in Baltimore. Knights Receiving reports of the activities of the Order of American Knights (a new name for the alleged order) in Missouri and Illinois, U.S. Pres. Houston, however, regardless of his interest in annexing Mexico to the United States, could not accept the K.G.C.s anti-Union stance and refused to support its schemes. Samuel J. Richardson, farmer, businessman, Confederate officer, Texas state legislator, and police chief, was born in Virginia in 1826. He was the son of William Stuart and Lavinia Richardson. Mason. The documents are a series of 60 folios containing magic rituals. Instead, the group often formed renegade armies and bands of bushwhackers in order to forward their agenda by force. Widespread publicity in Southern expansionist newspapers called attention to the new order, and Bickley soon claimed it had 65,000 members. Not content to simply safeguard the institution where it was already practiced, they insisted on spreading slavery even further, guaranteeing that itand the white supremacy upon which it restedwould endure. Please note that if there is a change in program schedule or a cancellation, we will notify you via email, and it will be your responsibility to notify other registrants in your group. had been created and, therefore, ended its life. The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret society founded in 1854 by American George W. L. Bickley, the objective of which was to create a new country, known as the Golden Circle (Spanish: Crculo Dorado), where slavery would be legal. The group was made up of Shia Muslims who broke off from a bigger sect and banded together in order to establish a utopian Shiite state. The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry. If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe. Join Geni to explore your genealogy and family history in the World's Largest Family Tree. It is considered by many to be a forerunner of the Ordo Templi Orientis and a majority of modern Occult groups. It features the Knights of the Golden Circle in an assassination plot against President Ulysses S. Grant and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil during the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. These clubs were inspired by the philosophies of John C. Calhoun (17821850). Webby Thomas C. Parramore, 2006. Project MUSE - Knights of the Golden Circle Donald S. Frazier, Blood & Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996). In 1914, the group engineered the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Looks like I found the right place. Thanks to you, our group now has several of our members busy researching and discussing the many important facts from John H. Surratt's Diary. The general philosophy of the group was a belief in new age esoteric principles and practices as a method of realizing ones true identity. Appealing to the Confederacy's friends in both the North and the border states, the Order spread to Kentucky, as well as the southern parts of such Union states as Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri. Genuine secret societies have existed for centuries, conducting their business in darkened back rooms and, more often than not, exerting a mysterious influence upon our culture. Castles were established in Salado, Belton and Cameron. The K.G.C. By 1860, one-fourth of Bell Countys population of 4,000 was enslaved. Bickley responded by calling a general convention of the K.G.C., which met in Raleigh, North Carolina, on May 711, 1860. This organization is a distinct one, and is not just a higher degree of Masonry. Other Knights continued to serve in political and administrative roles in the Confederacy. The KGC held numerous peace meetings. Originally, the KGC advocated that the new territories should be annexed by the United States, in order to vastly increase the number of slave states and thus the power of the slave-holding Southern upper classes. [18][19][20], In late 1863, the KGC reorganized as the Order of American Knights. Some supported slavery and others were worried about the power of the federal government. [18], The KGC are the antagonists in a story featured in Atomic-Robo web comic. The country would have been centered in Havana and would have consisted of the Southern United States and a "golden circle" of territories in Mexico (which was to be divided into 25 new slave states), Central America, northern parts of South America, and Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and most other islands in the Caribbean, about 2,400 miles (3,900km) in diameter.[1][2]. List of many KGC members - Knights of the Golden Circle If you register multiple individuals, you will be asked to supply individual names and email addresses so they can receive a Zoom link email. The job was badly botched, and was only completed when a low-level hood named Gavrilo Princip stumbled upon the Archdukes car and shot him to death at close range (see photo). The fundamental documents of the order are known as the Cipher Documents. The plan also called for the acquisition of Mexico which was then to be divided into fifteen new slave-holding states which would shift the balance of power in Congress in favor of slavery. WebThe Knights of the Golden Circle (K. G. C.) was a secret society founded by George W. L. Bickley on July 4, 1854. "The Pacific Squadron of 18611866", in Aurora Hunt, C.S.A. During his lifetime, Boston-born Pike was an author, educator, lawyer, Confederate brigadier general, newspaper editor, poet, and a Thirty-third Degree Mason. Black Hand would be all but forgotten today if not for their unlikely involvement in one of the biggest events of the twentieth century. I will also put the link in our Links section for future reference. You can read that document here. This unusual, three-part wood engraving published in 1865 blames Abraham Lincolns assassination by John Wilkes Booth on the influence of the pro-slavery secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle. Twiggs was appointed a major general in the Confederate States Army on May 22, 1861.[14]. The Knights of the Golden Circle was a secret society that flourished in the U.S. during the American Civil War. In early 1862, Radical Republicans in the Senate, aided by Secretary of State William H. Seward, suggested that former president Franklin Pierce, who was greatly critical of the Lincoln administration's war policies, was an active member of the Knights of the Golden Circle. However, Bickleys correspondence, now archived in libraries and vintage newspapers, reveals many members by name and hometown. Knights of the Golden Circle At that time, the order's prime objective was said to be to raise an army of 16,000 men to conquer and "Southernize" Mexico, which meant making slavery, not legal in Mexico, again legal, while supporting the "Knights of the Columbian Star"those in the KGC's highest level of membershipfor public office.[7]. Knights of the Golden Circle [3][citation needed] As volunteers continued to join McCulloch the following day, the U.S. Army Gen. David E. Twiggs decided to surrender the arsenal peacefully to the secessionists. Some 250,000 to 300,000 oath-bound members were said to have existed in the Midwest. In Cuba, the issue was complicated by the desire of many in the colony for independence from Spain. These investigators also allege that many famed characters from the Civil War era, including John Wilkes Booth and Jesse James, belonged to and acted under the influence of the Knights. This list represents a tiny portion of the KGC's hundreds of thousands of members but it In 1854 a small group of pro-slavery sympathizers formed the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society whose goal it was to create a vast new empire for Knights of the Golden Circle During the Civil War, leaders of the K.G.C. By controlling that wealth, the Knights could preserve slavery in the South from constant attacks by northern abolitionists and spread slave trade throughout sugar- and tobacco-producing countries. Below are all the Halls that are listed on our lists. [11], With the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, the Texas KGC changed its emphasis from a plan to expand U.S. territory into Mexico in order to focus its efforts on providing support for the Southern States' secession from the Union. The Bilderberg Group has become controversial for one key reason: no press is allowed in the conference and no significant details concerning the topics discussed are ever officially released to the public. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=vcsr&GSvcid=755868, function webURL() { SMALL LIST OF KNIGHTS of the GOLDEN CIRCLE RESEARCH According to the records of the K.G.C. Knights of the Golden Circle, Unlike most secret societies, the Golden Circle didnt just concern itself with clandestine meetings and mysterious plans. } As anti-slavery agitation increased after the Dred Scott Decision was issued, the members proposed a separate confederation of slave states, with U.S. states south of the Mason-Dixon line to secede and to align with other slave states to be formed from the golden circle. The Knights of the Golden Circle (K.G.C. Secret society in the mid-19th-century US, Plans to seize Lincoln and inaugurate Breckinridge as president. In most areas only a minority of its membership was radical enough to discourage enlistments, resist the draft, and shield deserters. has drawn the interest of numerous investigators who claim that it was a vast conspiracy that drew inspiration from groups such as the European Knights Templar, Scottish Rite Masons, and the Sons of Liberty. After the Souths surrender, the Knights eventually disbanded. [4] Membership increased slowly until 1859 and reached its height in 1860. [19]. Library of Congress On the left is George W. L. Bickley, head of the Knights of the Golden Circle. Theres a conspiracy that Lincolns assassin was a member of this society. Alexander the Greats epitaph expressed the sentiment that the world is not enough. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Once Texas seceded in March 1861, individual Knights participated in the actions that displaced the authority of the United States in Texas, leading some Unionists such as James P. Newcomb to emphasize the role of the organization in destroying the Union. Knights of the Golden Circle - Google Books S. senior deacon Sr. The Night of The Iron Tyrants (19901991), written by the novelist Mark Ellis and drawn by Darryl Banks, is a four-part comic book miniseries based on The Wild Wild West television series. California Senator Milton Latham subsequently did so when he entered the entire Pierce-Seward correspondence into the Congressional Globe. I went first to our group's extensive Links section and looked through the following list for James Hall. This has been widely discredited, but the term Hashshashin as it refers to the Nizari is believed to be the origin of the modern word assassin.. The group was established along the same lines as the less secretive Freemasons, and supposedly relies on ritual and occult practices as a means for members to move from one level of prestige to another within the organization. Unionists in Texas claimed that the K.G.C. When Abraham Lincoln won the national 1860 election, alarmed Knights flooded local newspapers with propaganda touting the secessionist movement. Like many other secretive societies, the K.G.C. Internal panic over the succession of a new leader, and government attempts to outlaw the group saw to it collapsing entirely in the late 1700s. It formed as an offshoot from Narodna Adbrona, a group that sought to unite all of the Slavic people of Europe under one country. The Knights of the Golden Circle was a pro-slavery secret society founded in the decade before the American Civil War. For this reason, it is best to acquire information on as many as possible, research them in advance, and pick the most likely ones out before going out into Armstrong Knights of the Golden Circle | History, Members, & Influence Hope you didn't miss it! Along with a series of secret hand gestures, these tickets were supposed to protect the horses and other possessions of ticket holders from seizure by invading Confederate soldiers. The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret military organization created in 1859 by George W. L. Bickley in Cincinnati, Ohio. The most popular is that the group tries to steer the direction of public policy, financial markets, and media in certain prescribed directions of their choosing, perhaps even with the goal of forming a so-called one world government. These claims have been brushed aside by the group, which claims global understanding and the end of nuclear proliferation as its main goals. Knights of the Golden Circle - Wikipedia Some of the add-ons on this site are powered by. The order and its alleged influence sparked the formation of Union League clubs to carry on counterpropaganda. Alternative Title: Order of American Knights. Knights of the Golden Circle, a semi-military secret society that was active in the Midwestern states during the American Civil War. In 1859 George Bickley, a freebooter and adventurer, launched a fraternal order which proposed the establishment of military colonies of Americans in Mexico. This would, according to Bickley, protect the Southern states from being overwhelmed by the industrial and commercial interests of the North. During the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, scam artists in south-central Pennsylvania sold Pennsylvania Dutch farmers $1 paper tickets purported to be from the Knights of the Golden Circle. Shadowy sentinels: Mysterious group fostered false 27 (2003) by Michael Uslan and Peter Snejbjerg. For example, the military division comprised the Foreign Guard, those men who wished to participate in the wild, glorious and thrilling adventures of a campaign in Mexico and the Home Guard, men who would support military efforts from home. The plan was to prevent Lincoln from reaching Washingt Every dollar helps. Elkanah Greer of Marshall, for example, served with distinction as colonel of the Third Texas Cavalry, a unit in the cavalry brigade commanded by future governor L. Sullivan Ross. In 1864, it became the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with the Ohio politician Clement L. Vallandigham, most prominent of the Copperheads, as its supreme commander. Richards Alfred Marmaduke Hobby (1836 - February 5, 1881) was a famous Texas merchant, politician, Confederate officer, and poet. K.G.C., Records of the KGC Convention, 1860, Raleigh, N.C. (http://gunshowonthenet/AfterTheFact/KGC/KGC0571860.html), accessed August 27, 2010. Even before that, the K.G.C. By The Numbers: Golden Knights Use Team Effort to Beat Jets argued that their empire would have a virtual monopoly on the worlds supply of tobacco and sugar and perhaps cotton and have the strength to preserve slavery in the South from constant attacks by northern Abolitionists. The Hashshashin, or Nizari, were a mysterious band of Muslim assassins that operated in the Middle East during the 13th century. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph.. A few clouds. Many prominent Texans joined the K.G.C., and Bickley even courted Gov. In order to become a Mason, you must generally be recommended by a current mason. Knights of the Golden Circle Researchers I find some of my best information about the KGC from old online newspaper articles. Warne and Pinkerton learned that they planned to kill The left panel is a portrait of George W. L. Bickley, the Head of the Knights of the Golden Circle. Above him is the word Theory. The central panel Practice shows Booth in profile holding a dagger. The 10 Most Elite Secret Societies In History - Elite Daily If successful, the Knights intended to reinstate slavery in their proposed empire. The Knights failed invasion of Mexico embarrassed Bickley and his movement. Randolph W. Farmer, The Knights of the Golden Circle in Texas: How a Secret Society Shaped a State (Las Vegas, Nevada: Vita Histria, 2022). They opposed the U.S. governments war policy, actively encouraged desertion, prevented enlistments, and resisted the draft. [5] Other KGC members followed Brig. Black History - From Reconstruction to the Present (US), National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets (2007), Shadow of the Sentinel: One Man's Quest to Find the Hidden Treasure of the Confederacy, Knights of the Golden Circle by Tim Talbott, The Mysterious and Secret Order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, The Knights of the Golden Circle, Buried Treasure and John Wilkes Booth, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperhead_(politics), Knight Grand Commander, John Robert Baylor. Joseph Holt, United States Judge Advocate General, submitted a report in October 1864 that warned Secretary of War Edwin Stanton about the danger of this plot, which he attributed at times to the K.G.C. Botts, John Minor. No famous members, but attendees have included Ben Bernanke, the royal families of Spain and the Netherlands, World Bank officials, and representatives from major corporations The Bilderberg Group is not a secret society per se, but it does operate under a similar veil of mystery, which has made it the subject of countless conspiracy theories and criticisms. developed a second plan for invading Mexico later in 1860, but it proved abortive as attention turned to the presidential election and the secession movement that followed immediately across the lower South. Senior Deacon . WebKnights of the Golden Circle, a semi-military secret society that was active in the Midwestern states during the American Civil War.