Confederate Gold and Silver (41 page)

Standing up from where he had been seated in the third row, a writer directed a question to Paul. “OK, I still am of the opinion that you should be releasing his name to us, but for me personally I will give you some slack on this for now. However, if I find out you are trying to pull a fast one on us I will expose you as a fraud, as a con artist, or whatever the term is that fits you. You need to know that.” Greg Masterson was a North Carolina based free lance writer who had many written articles regarding the Civil War, primarily selling his stories to magazines whose audiences were Civil War and military buffs. Paul knew who he was as he had read several articles Masterson had written over the years.

“Greg, as an amateur history buff I have read some of your work. Most of it I have enjoyed very much. I appreciate you giving us some slack on this and I would expect you to discredit us if you found we were misleading you, but I promise you have nothing to worry about. We are also promising you and everyone else here today, when we finally release the soldier’s name to you, we will also release copies of the letters I found within the bottles. On the table next to me is a sign-up sheet, just write your name and contact information down on the page before you leave today and we will send you a copy of those letters when we are ready to release them. All we are asking for is a little bit of time to follow up on a few leads we think we have and then we will be back in touch with all of you.” Paul paused from speaking for a couple of moments to finish completing a thought he had. Then he spoke directly to Masterson. “Greg, before you leave this morning, please stop and see me so we can talk for a moment.”

Finally Paul gave his audience the biggest piece of news he had for them. It was the bait he hoped the writers would take; bait he hoped they would write about to help him move forward with the clues he was trying to solve. He also hoped the television reporters would talk about it when they did their segments on the evening news regarding today’s press conference. What he told them was not entirely the complete truth.

“The last piece of information I would like to tell you about is we know this Confederate soldier fought his way through North Carolina during a part of the war and then entered South Carolina. We also know while he was in North Carolina he had to bury three of his soldiers along the way, somewhere we believe in the eastern part of the state. When he did, he had a wooden cross made to mark the spot of these three graves. As Civil War buffs, like some of you are, we hope when you file your stories or write your articles you will mention this grave site. We would simply like to examine this site for possible connections to our soldier and then work with the authorities to give those three soldiers a proper burial. We realize these graves may not exist any longer as they may have already been discovered. They also may have been disturbed when a highway, a road, or when a new neighborhood was being built, but it is our hope we can still find the site. It is also our hope one of your viewers or readers might have seen, or know of, a crudely made wooden cross which marks this site. If they do, we hope they would call me so we can work with the local historical society, and with other local authorities, to have the remains exhumed. We would like to have those remains then buried with those of the soldier I found.”

From the back of the room another reporter yelled out a question to Paul. “Why should someone call you about this? Shouldn’t they just call the authorities, perhaps their local medical examiner, and not just you?”

“They could certainly do so, but it’s our hope if someone knows of this grave they have an appreciation for the sacrifices these young soldiers made during a time when our country fought such a terrible war against each other. That grave, if it still exists, is a historical site and we would like an opportunity to connect it to the soldier I found. We would also like to make the grave site a part of an independent documentary film we are considering making. The soldier I found and the three soldiers buried in North Carolina were once Confederate soldiers who served together during the war. We believe it would be a nice gesture to reunite them together again and to properly bury them next to each other. They deserve at least that for the sacrifices they each made.”

Off to his left a television reporter asked another question. “So what else did the soldier’s diary tell you?” Paul smiled at the question at first. “Good guess, not a totally accurate one, but a good guess nevertheless.” Quickly he had a follow-up thought to the question which had been asked. “OK, let them think it’s a diary I found. That works for me.”

“OK, folks, that’s about it for the day, but I just want to reinforce to you one thing. I am a retired state trooper, but more importantly for this matter I am simply a history buff who has stumbled onto some clues about our soldier’s past. My previous career trained me to dig for facts and that’s what I am going to do with the help of my two friends who also have a passion for the Civil War. None of us are interested in making names for ourselves, or making a buck off the remains we have found, or off the clues we think he left behind. As I have already mentioned, we are considering making a documentary about this discovery. If we do, and if it becomes a film which turns a profit, we will donate every cent back to a cause that preserves the history of those who fought in the Civil War.”

With this last statement, Paul concluded his presentation to the reporters and writers. Chick and Jayne, with help from the two armed security guards who stood nearby, closely guarded the items they had spread out on the table. The artifacts were photographed and videotaped over and over by several of the news photographers and video camera operators to help complete the stories their colleagues would later file on this event. As that happened, Paul spent the better part of the next two hours giving one-on-one interviews to reporters from several local and regional television stations. He soon did the same for those newspaper reporters, magazine writers, and others who were present from area historical societies. As he patiently did so, he made sure he gently reinforced his request for help in finding the grave site of the three Confederate soldiers he had mentioned during his presentation. He gave each reporter and writer his personal cell phone number and email address, hoping they would include them in their stories and articles. Paul knew the wooden cross would be key to being able to find at least part of the Confederate treasury. Finished speaking with the last of the reporters, he silently prayed someone would see this story and would then call him with the location of the wooden cross.

During his presentation, and during each of the interviews he did, Paul failed to tell the reporters the grave site of the three soldiers was also likely the same spot Captain Francis had chosen to bury some of the Confederate gold and silver he had been charged with moving south. The same gold and silver Southerners had talked so much about over the years that it had become a legend. He had not failed to tell the reporters about what other secrets the grave site held. It had been his plan all along not to do just that.

******

After the media finally left, Paul went over and sat down next to Bobby Ray. He had waited patiently until the interviews had been completed. From the facial expressions he displayed, it was obvious Bobby Ray was still upset. Now Paul did his best to calm him down. “Look, I know you think I should have told you about finding these items, but I didn’t tell you about them because I didn’t want to put you in a situation that would have made you feel uncomfortable. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to have to tell your boss about these items if he asked you any questions. Besides, I just found these items, I didn’t steal them and I am going to turn them over to some historical society or to someone else when this is over, I promise!”

“What is it that you want, Paul? What do you expect to find from these items you kept? I just don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me about them!” Bobby Ray was still upset with his friend, one he thought he could trust.

“Like I said, I didn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position with your boss, OK?”

“No, that’s not OK!” The tone of Bobby Ray’s voice reflected the displeasure he was now feeling towards Paul. “I appreciate y’all looking out for me, but I’ve been a cop a long time, so why don’t you just stop jerking my chain and just tell me the real reason you didn’t let me know what was going on! What do you think you are going to find from this big mystery of yours? Perhaps another saber, another bayonet or two, or maybe even his musket, or is it the bones of three dead soldiers your morbid curiosity wants to find? Wow, big deal!”

Paul looked around the large conference room to make sure no one else was still in the room before he responded to his friend. Seeing no one except Chick and Jayne, he calmly spoke to his friend. “Bobby Ray, any of that would be nice to find, but I expect to find at least ten million dollars of buried Confederate gold and silver.”

“Yeah, sure.” His friend scoffed at him.

Before he spoke again, Paul stood up and reached into his pants pocket. Withdrawing the gold coins he had found near the soldier’s remains, he sat back down and handed the coins to Bobby Ray. “Well, here’s part of it. Ten million is what I expect to find on the low end, but I hope its worth much more than that when we find it all. I believe I have found the clues we will need to find it. This is the same gold and silver you Southerners have talked about for years, the same gold and silver from the missing Confederate treasury.” He paused for a moment as Bobby Ray examined the gold coins. The next question was one Paul already knew the answer to, but he still asked it anyways. “You coming to help me find this money? I could sure use your help or are you still that ticked off at me?”

“You ain’t joking with me, are you?” The anger Bobby Ray had previously allowed to fester inside of him was now spent. He was stunned by both the gold coins he was now holding in his hands and by what his friend had just told him.

Paul then explained the press conference had been a staged event; one done with an ulterior motive. “I had to pull some kind of stunt to try and find the wooden cross we know existed at one time. I didn’t tell you about that either as I did not want you to get in trouble with your boss.”

Looking up from the gold coins he had been examining, Bobby Ray asked only one more question. “You think you can find it?”

“Bobby Ray, the question is not if I am going to find it, but rather the question should be when am I going to find it. I don’t know what ten million dollars in gold and silver coins looks like, but it has to be one big pile of coins. I will tell you that I am not pulling your leg about this. Just one thing though, if you are coming to help me, you need to promise me you will not mention this to anyone, not even to your lovely wife. You promise?”

“Ten million dollars . . . . wow! Yeah, I promise, and you bet I’m tagging along on this here hunt. I ain’t letting some damn Yankee dig up the whole dang state of North Carolina looking for gold without me being there. Damn straight I’m gonna be there!”

Paul laughed at what Bobby Ray had just said. He knew his friend had gotten over being mad at him. “Bobby Ray, I promise, no more secrets. Now listen, your first job is to follow me to the bank. I want you to help me put some of these items in a large safety deposit box I have rented so they are under lock and key. Too many people will soon know about them and I don’t want them to go missing. Do that for me and then I’ll buy you a beer or two back at my place. OK?”

“Let’s get it done. I need a beer already!”

“Good. We still friends?”

“Not right now we ain’t. Perhaps when you buy me that beer we will be, but right now we ain’t.”

Bobby Ray’s answer made Paul laugh again. Then with Chick and Jayne in tow, the four of them, along with their precious artifacts, started back to Murrells Inlet so they could lock up whatever they could fit in the safety deposit box.

After securing those items they went back to Paul’s house for a few cold beers. Then they sat and waited for the phone to ring. They hoped it would be someone telling them where Captain Judiah Francis had buried the gold and silver.

Summer,
1863

20
Georgetown
to
Charleston.
 

“Well,
it
is
over
now.
The
battle
is
lost,
and
many
of
us
are
prisoners,
many
are
dead,
many
wounded,
bleeding
and
dying.”
Major
General
George
Pickett,
CSA,
Gettysburg,
4
July
1863

It had been a warm gentle rain which had fallen on them during most of the night, but dawn had brought clearing skies and the clean fresh feeling in the morning air gave a nice start to the new day for Francis and his men.

Sgt. Odom had been out scouting the area around their camp to make sure they were not being watched or about to be ambushed by Union troops, but now he returned to camp to report that nary a sole was in sight. The men knew the day was going to be a day of rest for them as Francis was soon to leave them so he could scout the area around Georgetown. They also knew he would try to obtain some fresh food for their journey to Charleston as little was left in the wagons in the form of provisions. They all enjoyed the rare lazy start to the day by drinking their morning coffee and hanging their still wet clothing, wet from the previous night’s rain, from every available space they could find on the wagons so it could dry in the sun.

Before he left for Georgetown, Francis spoke with his men, telling them Odom was coming with him. He would be driving one of the wagons so the provisions could be brought back to camp. Francis warned the others about being too lazy during the day, telling them to make sure they kept a close lookout for approaching Yankee troops and other strangers. “Enjoy the easy day y’all have in front of you, but make sure someone is out riding around the camp. I best not come back to find the gold and silver missing, for if I do y’all better be dead from defending it. Y’all hear me?” His men knew he was joking with them, but they also knew he was serious about someone being awake and protecting their precious cargo the whole time he was gone.