The United States today is a divided nation and some say the country may be heading toward breakup, or possibly civil war. That has happened before and the result was disastrous. As many as 750,000 Americans perished during the Civil War. A study of the causes of our last Civil War may help to prevent another.The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) played a major role in starting the Civil War in the United States. Although intended to remain a secret organization of conspirators, it is perhaps the most well-documented conspiracy in United States history. The goal of the KGC was the creation of a new society separate from the United States dedicated to the preservation and expansion of slavery into Latin America.The KGC existed in almost every state in the Union, but nowhere was it as powerful and successful as it was in Texas. Several governors, many senators and military leaders were members, having taken an oath to support the organization and their fellow members. Most of the documents generated by the KGC were destroyed after the war ended as its members feared execution for treason. Not everything was destroyed, though. This book relies on documents created by the organization and its members that have not previously been used by researchers. Many members of this organization remained in positions of authority in state affairs after the abolition of slavery. This book goes far beyond previous published work in establishing the identities of the members of this organization who promoted and encouraged the most disastrous war in American history.Randolph W. Farmer is a native Texan from a family whose ancestors first came to Texas as early as 1817 when it was still a Spanish possession. He is the author of two previously published books on Texas history.

You can't understand the Lincoln Assassination without understanding the Knights of the Golden Circle, the most powerful and secret society in all America at that time. It is somewhat unusual to know how very little has been written about this organization, especially when I've just finished six novels in the series based on hundreds of newspaper articles, periodicals, and magazines. Their existence was well established before the Civil War. The organization grew out of Southern Rights Clubs in the South who were mostly interested in opening up more territory to slavery. These secret clubs financed slave ships that continued to illegally abduct Africans after the slave trade became officially abolished in 1808. In 1855, George Bickley, a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, organized the Southern Rights movement into the highly secretive Knights of the Golden Circle, also known in abbreviated form as the KGC, a volunteer militia initially formed for a new invasion of Mexico. The words in this book were actually written by a member of the Order who never revealed his name. This book will give great insight into who the KGC were and what their purpose was for existence. The Knights of the Golden Circle merged with the expansionist Order of the Lone Star in 1858 and planned an invasion of Mexico which was eventually aborted by a senator from Texas, his name Sam Houston. After calling off the attack, the KGC aimed at fueling secession. State regimental leaders, in concert with folks like John Pettus, Henry Wise, and Texas Ranger Ben McColloch, helped the Knights of the Golden Circle evolve into the paramilitary spearhead of the secessionist movement. These military units came to be known as the Minute Men in South Carolina and the Texas Knights in Texas, over 8,000 strong. There were many discussed attempts on Abraham Lincoln's life, beginning with one organized by the Knights of the Golden Circle in February 1861. The person involved was a hairdresser from Baltimore by the name of Cipriano Ferrandini. He was accused but never indicted for plotting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on February 23, 1861. There has been much discussion of the Knights of the Golden Circle and their influence on the events of that fateful night in Washington City on April 14, 1865. Newspaper articles across the nation advertised the need for troops to muster in Brownsville, Texas in 1860 to eventually attack Mexico. These plans were called off due to the tension between the North and South, and the constant talk of secession. Names associated with the Knights of the Golden Circle (not necessarily proven to be a member) were: President Franklin Pierce, George W. L. Bickley, Brigadier General Elkanah Greer, John Wilkes Booth, Buckner Stith Morris, Lambdin P. Milligan, Jesse James, and Samuel Mudd, one of the accused Lincoln Assassination conspirators.

Explores the legacy of a Civil War-era secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle, and describes efforts to crack the society's system of codes and symbols to identify hidden treasure sites across the American south and west.

This history of secession in the Lone Star State offers both a vivid narrative and a powerful case study of the broader secession movement. In 1845, Texans voted overwhelmingly to join the Union. Then, in 1861, they voted just as overwhelmingly to secede. The story of why and how that happened is filled with colorful characters, raiding Comanches, German opponents of slavery, and a border with Mexico. It also has important implications for our understanding of secession across the South. Combining social and political history, Walter L. Buenger explores issues such as public hysteria, the pressure for consensus, and the vanishing of a political process in which rational debate about secession could take place. Drawing on manuscript collections and contemporary newspapers, Buenger also analyzes election returns, population shifts, and the breakdown of populations within Texas counties. Buenger demonstrates that Texans were not simply ardent secessionists or committed unionists. At the end of 1860, the majority fell between these two extremes, creating an atmosphere of ambivalence toward secession which was not erased even by the war.

Xerographic copy. Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms, 1978. (73-2677).

This unique history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that laid the groundwork for Freemasonry in the United States, Mark A. Lause analyzes how the Old World's traditions influenced various underground groups and movements in America, particularly George Lippard's Brotherhood of the Union, an American attempt to replicate the political secret societies that influenced the European revolutions of 1848. Lause traces the Brotherhood's various manifestations, the most conspicuous being the Knights of the Golden Circle (out of which developed the Ku Klux Klan), and the Confederate secret groups through which John Wilkes Booth and others attempted to undermine the Union. Lause profiles the key leaders of these organizations, with special focus on George Lippard, Hugh Forbes, and George Washington Lafayette Bickley. Antebellum secret societies ranged politically from those with progressive or even revolutionary agendas to those that pursued conservative or oppressive goals. This book shows how, in the years leading up to the Civil War, these clandestine organizations exacerbated existing sectional tensions in the United States. Lause's research indicates that the pervasive influence of secret societies may have played a part in key events such as the Freesoil movement, the beginning of the Republican party, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Lincoln's election, and the Southern secession process of 1860-1861. This exceptional study encompasses both white and African American secret society involvement, revealing the black fraternal experience in antebellum America as well as the clandestine operations that provided assistance to escaped slaves via the Underground Railroad. Unraveling these pervasive and extensive networks of power and influence, A Secret Society History of the Civil War demonstrates that antebellum secret societies played a greater role in affecting Civil War-era politics than has been previously acknowledged.