Thursday, May 31, 2012


Discussion in 'Civil War History

 The Knights of the Golden Circle or K.G.C. had its beginnings in the formation of Southern Rights Clubs in various southern cities in the mid-1830s. These clubs were inspired by the philosophies of John C. Calhoun (1782–1850). Calhoun had an illustrious political career serving as a congressman from his home state of South Carolina, a state legislator, vice president under the administrations of both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and a U. S. senator. In addition to the Southern Rights Clubs, which advocated the re-establishment of the African slave-trade, some of the inspiration for the Knights may have come from a little-known secret organization called the Order of the Lone Star, founded in 1834, which helped orchestrate the successful Texas Revolution resulting in Texas independence from Mexico in 1836. Even before that, the K.G.C.'s roots went back to the Sons of Liberty of the American Revolutionary period.

The Knights of the Golden Circle was reorganized in Lexington, Kentucky, on July 4, 1854, by five men, whose names have been lost to history, when Virginia-born Gen. George W. L. Bickley (1819–1867) requested they come together. Strong evidence suggests that Albert Pike (1809–1891) was the genius behind the influence and power of the Masonic-influenced K.G.C., while Bickley was the organization's leading promoter and chief organizer for the K.G.C. lodges, what they called “Castles,” in several states. During his lifetime, Boston-born Pike was an author, educator, lawyer, Confederate brigadier general, newspaper editor, poet, and a Thirty-third Degree Mason. From its earliest roots in the Southern Rights Clubs in 1835, the Knights of the Golden Circle was to become the most powerful secret and subversive organization in the history of the United States with members in every state and territory before the end of the Civil War. The primary economic and political goal of this organization was to create a prosperous, slave-holding Southern Empire extending in the shape of a circle from their proposed capital at Havana, Cuba, through the southern states of the United States, Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. 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. Facing the Gulf of Mexico, these new states would form a large crescent. The robust economy the KGC hoped to create would be fueled by cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice, coffee, indigo, and mining. These seven industries would employ slave labor.

In early 1860 newspapers across the country reported that the Knights of the Golden Circle were recruiting troops in numerous cities to send to Brownsville, Texas, for the planned invasion of Mexico. History is unclear about what went wrong with this invasion, but most historians agree that the well-laid plans never materialized and the invasion never happened. Some say that it failed because George Bickley was unable to provide adequate troops and supplies, but with a civil war looming on the horizon, the invasion’s failure may have been caused by the K.G.C. leaders believing they could not go to war on two fronts simultaneously. They called off their plans for Mexico and started preparing for war with the North.

When tensions between the North and South were at a breaking point and the Civil War had not yet begun, the Knights of the Golden Circle held their convention in Raleigh, North Carolina, from May 7–11, 1860. George W. L. Bickley, as president of the K.G.C., presided at this historic event. The records of this convention have survived until the present day and provide an excellent view of this order's divisions or degrees, goals, accomplishments, and size.

The K.G.C.'s first division was described as being "absolutely a Military Degree." The first division is further divided into two classes: the Foreign and Home Guards. The Foreign Guards class was the K.G.C.'s army and was composed of those who wanted "to participate in the wild, glorious and thrilling adventures of a campaign in Mexico." Those of the second class or Home Guards had two functions: to provide for the army's needs and "to defend us from misrepresentation during our absence."

The second division or class was also divided into two classes which were the Foreign and Home Corps. The Foreign Corps was to become the order's commercial agents, postmasters, physicians, ministers, and teachers and to perform the other occupations that were vital to the achievement of K.G.C. goals. The second class of this degree was the Home Corps. Their job was to advise and to forward money, arms, ammunition, and other necessary provisions needed by the organization and its army and to send recruits as rapidly as possible.

The two classes of the third division or degree were the Foreign and Home Councils. The third division is described in the convention's records as being "the political or governing division." The responsibilities of the Foreign Council were governmental, and it was divided into ten departments similar to those of the United States federal government.



The South began to secede from the Union in January 1861, and in February of that year, seven seceding states ratified the Confederate Constitution and named Jefferson Davis as provisional president. The Knights of the Golden Circle became the first and most powerful ally of the newly-created Confederate States of America.

Before the Civil War officially started on April 12, 1861, when shots were fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and before Texas had held its election on the secession referendum on February 23, 1861, Texas volunteer forces, which included 150 K.G.C. soldiers under the command of Col. Ben McCulloch, forced the surrender of the federal arsenal at San Antonio that was under the command of Bvt. Maj. Gen. David E. Twiggs on February 15, 1861. Knights of the Golden Circle who were involved in this mission included Capt. Trevanion Teel, Sgt. R. H. Williams, John Robert Baylor, and Sgt. Morgan Wolfe Merrick. Following this quick victory, volunteers who were mostly from K.G.C. companies, forced the surrender of all federal posts between San Antonio and El Paso.

Perhaps the best documentation as to the power and influence of the Knights of the Golden Circle during the Civil War is The Private Journal and Diary of John H. Surratt, The Conspirator which was written by John Harrison Surratt and later edited by Dion Haco and published by Frederic A. Brady of New York in 1866. In this journal, Surratt goes into great detail when describing how he was introduced to the K.G.C. in the summer of 1860 by another Knight, John Wilkes Booth, and inducted into this mysterious organization on July 2, 1860, at a castle in Baltimore, Maryland. Surratt describes the elaborate and secret induction ceremony and its rituals and tells that cabinet members, congressmen, judges, actors, and other politicians were in attendance. Maybe the most significant revelation of Surratt's diary is that the Knights of the Golden Circle began plotting to kidnap Abraham Lincoln in 1860, before Lincoln was even inaugurated in 1861, and continued throughout the Civil War, resulting in President Lincoln's assassination by fellow Knight Booth on April 14, 1865.

After trying unsuccessfully to peacefully resolve the conflicts between North and South, the Knights of the Golden Circle threw its full support behind the newly-created Confederate States of America and added its trained military men to the Confederate States Army. Several Confederate military groups during the Civil War were composed either totally or in large part of members of the Knights of the Golden Circle. One notable example of K.G.C. military participation in the Civil War included the Confederate's Western Expansion Movement of 1861 and 1862 led by Lt. Col. John Robert Baylor and Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley.

In 1861 Albert Pike travelled to Indian Territory and negotiated an alliance with Cherokee Chief Stand Watie. Prior to the beginning of hostilities, Pike helped Watie to become a Thirty-second Degree Scottish Rite Mason. Watie was also in the K.G.C., and he was later commissioned a colonel in command of the First Regiment of Cherokee Mounted Rifles. In May 1864 Chief Watie was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate States Army making him the only Native American of this rank in the Confederate Army. Watie's command was to serve under CSA officers Albert Pike, Benjamin McCulloch, Thomas Hindman, and Sterling Price. They fought in engagements in Indian Territory, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri.

One of the most feared organizations of all Confederates, whose members were in large part Knights of the Golden Circle, was what was called Quantrill's Guerrillas or Quantrill's Raiders. The Missouri-based band was formed in December 1861 by William Clark Quantrill and originally consisted of only ten men who were determined to right the wrongs done to Missourians by Union occupational soldiers. Their mortal enemies were the Kansas Jayhawkers and the Red Legs who were the plague of Missouri. As the war raged on in Missouri and neighboring states, Quantrill's band attracted hundreds more men into its ranks. Quantrill's Guerrillas became an official arm of the Confederate Army after May 1862, when the Confederate Congress approved the Partisan Ranger Act. Other leaders of Quantrill's Guerrillas included William C. “Bloody Bill” Anderson, David Pool, William Gregg, and George Todd. Some of the major engagements this deadly guerrilla force participated in included the Lawrence, Kansas, raid on August 21, 1863, the battle near Baxter Springs, Kansas, in October 1863, and two battles at and near Centralia in Missouri in September of 1864. The bulk of Quantrill's band wintered in Grayson County, Texas, from 1861 through 1864.

The K.G.C. played the major role in what is referred to as the Northwest Conspiracy. The Confederate plan was to use the great numbers of Knights in the Northern states to foster a revolution that would spread across Indiana, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and any other state in the North where it was feasible. The Baker-Turner Papers, part of the U.S. War Department’s conspiracy files, revealed much of the history of this widespread movement but were kept sealed for ninety years. James D. Horan, the first person ever allowed access to the U.S. War Department's Civil War conspiracy files and the Baker-Turner Papers in the early 1950s, published Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History in 1954, which details the Northwest Conspiracy. His work used these previously-sealed documents and information gathered by numerous investigators, including the private papers of Capt. Thomas H. Hines, C.S.A., of Kentucky, who was the mastermind behind the huge conspiracy.

Throughout the Civil War, one of the Knights of the Golden Circle's most important roles came in its infiltration of Union forces. Nowhere in the country was this influence more apparent than in the state of Missouri where K.G.C. members filled the ranks of the Enrolled Missouri Militia which was commonly known as the Paw Paw Militia. A newspaper article from the Daily Times of Leavenworth, Kansas, July 29, 1864, serves as a good example in their interview with a member of the Paw Paw named Andrew E. Smith. Smith said:

I am 22 years old and live in Platte county, about two miles west of Platte City I was a member of Captain Johnston's company of Pawpaw militia, under Major Clark, and served about six months.... I am a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle. I joined them at Platte City, and was sworn in by David Jenkins of that place. All of the Pawpaw militia, so far as I know, belong to them....

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Most historians accept this date of surrender as the official end of the Civil War. The Knights of the Golden Circle as an organization, however, continued to work to achieve their goals, which included a prosperous South, for many decades after the Civil War. What had been a secret society adapted to changing conditions and, after the war, became even more secretive than ever before.

In October 1864 U. S. Judge Advocate Joseph Holt submitted a detailed warning to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton about the dangers posed by the Knights of the Golden Circle that was, by that time, operating under various aliases. This document is commonly called the Holt Report, but its real title is A Western Conspiracy in aid of the Southern Rebellion.

After the war's end, the K.G.C. went underground and used many aliases to hide their activities which included making preparations for a second civil war should that option be necessary. Some K.G.C. members accompanied Confederate Gen. Joseph O. Shelby to Mexico. Some soldiers returned to their homes, while others relocated to more remote frontier areas like West Texas where they could help build towns and cities that conformed to their ideals. Some Knights like Jesse Woodson James, older brother Frank James, and Cole Younger turned to robbing Northern-owned railroads, businesses, and banks after the Civil War.

The Knights of the Golden Circle, according to most authorities, ceased its operations in 1916 for two primary reasons. The United States had entered World War I, and by that time most of the old Knights of the Golden Circle had died.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: An Authentic Exposition of the “K.G.C.” “Knights of the Golden Circle,” or, A History of Secession from 1834 to 1861, by A Member of the Order (Indianapolis, Indiana: C. O. Perrine, Publisher, 1861). Donald S. Frazier, Blood & Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996). Warren Getler and Bob Brewer, Rebel Gold: One Man’s Quest to Crack the Code Behind the Secret Treasure of the Confederacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). Dion Haco, ed., The Private Journal and Diary of John H. Surratt, The Conspirator (New York: Frederic A. Brady, Publisher, 1866). Joseph Holt, Report of the Judge Advocate General on “The Order of American Knights,” alias “The Sons of Liberty.” A Western Conspiracy in aid of the Southern Rebellion (Washington, D.C.: Union Congressional Committee, 1864). James D. Horan, Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1954). Jesse Lee James, Jesse James and the Lost Cause (New York: Pageant Press, 1961). K.G.C., Records of the KGC Convention, 1860, Raleigh, N.C. (http://gunshowonthenet/AfterTheFact/KGC/KGC0571860.html), accessed May 5, 2010. Dr. Roy William Roush, The Mysterious and Secret Order of the Knights of the Golden Circle (Front Line Press, 2005).

Bloody Bill Anderson Mystery group:

Jay Longley and Colin Eby

Read more:

The Knights of the Golden Circle Research and Historical Archives

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Knights of the Golden Circle Treasure Maps


Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The Republic of Yucatan & the Golden Circle

In the first half of the nineteenth century New Englanders and Southerners were each moving westward, populating new territories and States and carrying their cultures with them. The competing civilisations, tragically locked together in an ill-advised Union, struggled for supremacy in Federal elections. Each sought to gain the White House and to control the US Congress, hoping to promote policies which would benefit their section. In this struggle, the North had the upper hand based on soil, climate and political borders; they had more territory (from which they carved out States) which suited their culture. Southerners simply had fewer areas they could colonise, and thus were doomed to minority status in the US Federal Government and subject to the increasingly hostile demands of the North. During this period Southerners began searching for other places they could either colonise or bring into the Union on their side. The Southern colonisation and eventual annexation of Texas, a vast, seceded Mexican province, was a major success for the South’s cause and bitterly opposed by much of the North. Some Southerners also dreamed of bringing Cuba, a Spanish colony dominated by a European planter elite much like the Lower South, and other Caribbean lands either into the United States or joining them in an independent, Southern-led confederation. Robert Barnwell Rhett, a leading Southern nationalist during the era, spoke of possibly incorporating large portions of Mexico into what others of the era referred to as the ‘Golden Circle.’ Had it been realised, the Golden Circle would have included the lands around the Gulf of Mexico and the islands throughout the Caribbean. These highly stratified, agricultural regions shared much in common economically, culturally and politically despite the different Western European languages (English, Spanish, Dutch and French) which they spoke. A semi-secret society, the Knights of the Golden Circle, was formed to promote the idea and try to make it a reality. In the end, Southerners failed to heed the advice of Rhett and the Fire-Eaters, waited too long to secede from the United States, and lost their war for independence against the United States. Had the South won the war, it’s possible that the dream of Rhett and other Southern visionaries might have been realised.
One of the areas which would have fit nicely into the Golden Circle was the Republic of Yucatan, a secessionist region on the Gulf of Mexico which had a history of independence:
The Republic of Yucatan was a sovereign state during two periods of the nineteenth century. The first Republic of Yucatan, founded May 29, 1823, willingly joined the Mexican federation as the Federated Republic of Yucatán on December 23, 1823, less than seven months later. The second Republic of Yucatan began in 1841, with its declaration of independence from the Mexican Federation. It remained independent for 7 years, after which it rejoined the Mexican Federation. The area of the former republic includes the modern Mexican states of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo. The Republic of Yucatán usually refers to the Second Republic (1841–1848).
The Republic of Yucatan was governed by the Constitution of 1841, one of the most advanced of its time. It guaranteed individual rights, religious freedom and what was then a new legal form called amparo (English: protection). The 1847 Caste War caused the Republic of Yucatan to request military aid from Mexico. This was given on the condition that the Republic rejoin the Mexican Federation.
The Caste War of 1847 was in fact a race war between the White Yucatecos and the Mayan Indians:
In Spanish colonial times, Yucatán (like most of New Spain) was under a legal caste system, with peninsulares (officials born in Spain) at the top, the criollos of Spanish descent in the next level, followed by the mestizo population, then the native hidalgos (descendants of the Pre-Columbian nobility who had collaborated with the Spanish conquest of Yucatán) and at the bottom were the other nativeindios.
Although Spanish peninsulares frequently left Mexico following the patriots’ victory, Yucatan’s Spanish population largely remained and continued to exercise local rule. Although there had long been tensions between the peninsulares and criollos in the Yucatan as elsewhere, the two groups cooperated because they feared the potential power of the mestizos and the natives.
The indigenous population was particularly concentrated in the Campeche-Mérida region, known as the Camino real, because the majority of the peninsulares and criollos lived in that area. Mayas roughly outnumbered other groups by three to one throughout the Yucatan, but in the east this ratio was closer to five to one. The elites maintained the strictest discipline and control over the Maya population in the east. The Church, generally allied with the stronger classes, also had a preponderant role where the military organization was strongest.
During the Mexican War of Independence, the intelligentsia of Yucatán watched the events to the north, and following 1820 organized their own resistance to Spain, forming the Patriotic Confederation, which declared its own independence from Spain in 1821. The confederation subsequently joined the Mexican Empire that same year, then in 1823 became a part of the federal Mexican government as the Federated Republic of Yucatan. The government of the republic tended towards centralization, and several provinces revolted against it, including Guatemala in the south and Texas in the north. To bear the costs of the war against Texas, the government imposed a variety of taxes including raising importation duties on many items, and indeed put taxation of the movement of even local goods.
In response to this, on 2 May 1839, a federalist movement led by Santiago Imán created a rival government in Tizimín, which soon took over Valladolid, Espita, Izamal and, finally Mérida. To increase his strength, Imán appealed to the Maya population, providing them with arms for the first time since the conquest, and promised that he would give them land free of tribute and exploitation. These forces allowed him to prevail in battle, and in February 1840, he proclaimed Yucatan’s return to a federal regime, then in 1841, an independent republic.
However, the Mexican government of Antonio López de Santa Anna did not accept this independence and invaded Yucatán in 1842, establishing a blockade. Land invasion followed, but the Mexican forces were frustrated in their attempts to take either Campeche or Mérida, and thus withdrew to Tampico.
As Yucatán was struggling against Mexican authority, it was also divided into factions. One faction, based in Mérida, was led by Miguel Barbachano which leaned toward reintegration with Mexico, and the other faction, based in Campeche, was led by Santiago Méndez and feared reintegration would expose the region to attack by the United States, as the Mexican–American War loomed. By 1847, in fact, the Yucatan Republic had effectively two capitals in the two cities. At the same time, in their struggle against the central government, both leaders had integrated large numbers of Maya into their armies as soldiers. The Maya, having taken up the arms given them in the course of the war, decided not to set them down again.
…In June 1847, Méndez learned that a large force of armed Mayas and supplies had gathered at the Culumpich, a property owned by Jacinto Pat, the Maya batab (leader), near Valladolid. Fearing revolt, Mendez arrested Manuel Antonio Ay, the principal Maya leader of Chichimilá, accused him of planning a revolt, and executed him at the town square of Valladolid. Furthermore, Méndez searching for other insurgents burned the town of Tepich and repressed its residents. In the following months, several Maya towns were sacked and many people arbitrarily killed. In his letter of 1849, Cecilio Chi noted that Santiago Mendez had come to “put every Indian, big and little, to death” but that the Maya had responded to some degree, in kind, writing “it has pleased God and good fortune that a much greater portion of them [whites] than of the Indians [have died].
Historians disagree on the reason for this defeat. According to some, the majority of the Maya troops, not realizing the unique strategic advantage of their situation, had left the lines to plant their crops, planning to return after planting. It is said that the appearance of flying ants swarming after heavy rains was the traditional signal to start planting for the Maya rebels, leading them, in this instance, to abandon the battle. Others argue that the Maya had not laid up enough supplies for the campaign, and were unable to feed their forces any longer, and their break up was in fact a search for food.
Though Yucatan was officially rejoined with Mexico in 1848, fighting between Mexican and Mayan forces carried on in the region until 1915. In fact, as late as 1933 a break-away Mayan town had to be taken by force.
It’s easy to imagine a counter-factual history in which at least the Lower South States were independent and helped the Republic of Yucatan. Note in the above history that during the Caste War Governor Barbachano sought help from the United States and elsewhere but received no aid and therefore was forced to accept re-unification with Mexico. By 1848 there was a fairly strong secessionist movement in the Southern States, especially in South Carolina and Alabama. Had the Lower South, or even perhaps just one Southern State, been independent, it might have seen fit to come to the aid of Barbachano and the Yucatecos. The Lower South was incredibly wealthy and some of its money or perhaps a relatively small force might have repelled the Mayans at Mérida and saved the Republic of Yucatan. The racial caste system of the Yucatecos was similar to the social hierarchy of the Southern States and we know from numerous sources that Southerners closely watched the Caribbean area for word of slave uprisings. The worst fear of Southerners was that of a Haiti-style revolt in Dixie with ‘the subject race… rising and murdering their masters.’ Southerners were deeply sympathetic to cultures like their own throughout the Americas and strong connections were maintained between these various lands during the Antebellum period. Would South Carolina, Alabama or a free Southern confederacy have came to the aid of the Republic of Yucatan in 1848? It’s difficult to image someone like Robert Barnwell Rhett or William L Yancey hearing the pleas of Barbachano and turning him down. The Yucatan leader even offered sovereignty over his land in exchange for foreign aid. With a relatively small amount of Southern wealth and manpower the independence of the Yucatan might have been secured, the Mayans and Mexican central government could have been kept at bay and Dixie might have had a nearby ally, colony or confederated State. In such a counter-factual world, the Yucatan today might be considered an integral part of Dixie, a safe, prosperous, First World republic in the Golden Circle.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy the Golden Circle podcast.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Caribbean Project: Knights of the Golden Circle

Posted on  by Hunter Wallace


Thursday, May 3, 2012

(Knights of the) Golden Circle Podcast

Gold Circle Podcast 
 Introduction to Golden Circle

Golden Circle is a Southern nationalist subscription-based podcast from SNN which is produced on average from four to five days per week. Each day's podcast will be approximately half an hour or more in length (though it may be divided up into shorter, topic-based segments which combined total half an hour). The host of the podcast is Michael (SNN's webmaster). This podcast series builds on the free interview podcasts available from SNN but goes more in depth, answers listeners' questions directly, delves into politically-incorrect territory and discusses current events, history and speculation relevant to Southern nationalists (and patriotic people in general). Some of the podcasts will include interviews while many will not.

Golden Circle takes its name from the semi-secret and mysterious Southern nationalist organisation of the 1850s which sought to establish a vast, Southern-led confederation of classical societies in the New World. While our goals are not exactly the same as the original Knights of the Golden Circle (see: About SNN) we are inspired by their activism, revolutionary spirit and forward-looking perspective. SNN's Golden Circle podcast series is not for the faint of heart of weak of spirit. It's not for those who are easily offended or who are afraid to discuss politically-incorrect issues.

Please check out our fee episodes (which we will add to from time to time) below to make sure you want to subscribe to Golden Circle. Understand that no refunds will be offered. The cost for the subscription is very low compared to similar subscription-based podcasts and a great deal of time and effort goes into the research and production of this material. If you are unsatisfied with Golden Circle or wish to cancel your subscription you may do so at any time and you will incur no further charges.

We are happy to welcome you to our podcast. As we emerge from the Dark Age and venture further into the Age of Survival we will unlearn the destructive and false values and ideas of the last half a century – values and ideas which were long alien to Southerners as they struggled to build and maintain a classical civilisation in Dixie. This is a journey our people will take together as the `proposition nation' crumbles around us. And Golden Circle will play a role in this journey.

Welcome aboard!
Gold Circle Podcast

Folsom museum unveils California's role in Civil War

By Eileen Wilson, Telegraph Correspondent

(photo) Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston commanded the US Army on the Pacific Coast in 1861. He was a Southerner, with strong ties to the State of Texas. He later fought for the Confederacy and was killed leading troops into battle.

When you think about the United States Civil War, California might not be the first state that comes to mind.

But that’s what Richard Hurley and T.J. Meekins, curators of Folsom History Museum’s “California and the Civil War Exhibit,” want to change.

“I knew that California backed the Union, and that California gold backed the war effort, but I didn’t realize that Abraham Lincoln only had a total of 32 percent of the vote in California. It was only because it was a four-way race that Lincoln got enough Electoral Votes. He only won because the Democrats couldn’t get united,” Hurley said.

Back up a decade, and you’ll learn that California’s state constitution was drafted establishing the states’ borders and banning slavery. While banning slavery may have been a boon for humanity, the California Constitutional Convention voted unanimously against slavery, not to give blacks freedom, but to keep out slave-powered mining companies.

“Politics in California were so bitter that California’s Chief Justice at the time — a Southern Democrat, challenged our U.S. Senator, a ‘Free Soil’ or Northern Democrat, to a duel. And the plot thickens because the pistols weren’t evenly matched,” Hurley said. “The senator was shot in the lung and died three days later — the event really called attention to the rift in our state.”

According to the exhibit, no one knew if California was going to stay in the Union. A lot hung on the 1860 presidential election that put the 16th president in office.

History buffs are flocking to the small museum, and students who are studying California history should, too.

“We have a steady stream of visitors, and even more people would come if they understood more about California’s role in the Civil War,” said museum Director Mary Mast. “People don’t know that California almost became part of the Confederacy.”

From California’s transition from a sleepy colonial outpost, to the treatment of her Indigenous People, to the Gold Rush and beyond, the exhibit shares a narrative history of the great state, and its involvement in the Civil War.

Californians were sharply divided on which way the state should vote. A group of Secessionists, the Knights of the Golden Circle, organized rebellions, while a Union-loving battalion fought and served in the Massachusetts Cavalry. Californians played their part in the deadly war that killed 600,000 men and decimated the South’s economy for over a century.

“California had very interesting regiments. California had the only militia from a free state that went to fight for a slave state,” Hurley said.

With the somber sounds of Taps or the optimistic When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again playing in the background, it’s easy to imagine a Union soldier with his weapon, or an officer contemplating strategy in his quarters — all are on display in the exhibit.

The extensive artifacts on hand focus on California’s Indigenous People — a favorite subject of co-curator, T.J. Meekins, the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and a final piece that no war exhibit would be complete without – widows’ mourning garb.

Meekins and Hurley appreciate the Sacramento Living History Society, the Native Daughters of the Golden West, and the Sons of Union Veterans for their expertise and help with the exhibit, as well as museum staff and volunteers.

The husband and wife team recently finished a book, Queen of the Northern Mines: A Novel of the Civil War in California, which required years of research and led Meekins to study with, and learn the language of the last of the Mountain Maidu native speakers.

The exhibit will run through Sunday, May 13, and Queen of the Northern Mines is available for purchase at the museum, or at