The Knights of the Golden Circle

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.