Legacy

It’s circa 1862 and the Civil War is an on going full blown conflict.  Citizens out West like in California weren’t so directly affected, as was the case in much of the West as far East as Western Colorado.  However from Kansas on East it was chaos for the citizenry as well as the military. To be sure those out West were aware of the conflict, but outside of fist fights in local saloons when viewpoints got discussed about the North and South, it was relatively peaceful as if nothing was going on.  Mostly business as usual.

Gold has been found in almost all of the United States, but mostly a product of out West.  There is a mint in San Francisco, Denver, and Philadelphia.  Gold was of considerable interest to both sides of the Civil War as it paid for the war efforts of each.

The trick was to get it from out West to the proper point in the Union or the Confederacy.  Watch that word proper, both sides thought that only meant them.  The Confederacy of course sent agents West to buy Gold directly from the miners and brokers.  To do so meant they had to acquire Yankee cash, a difficult task. But the sellers wouldn’t take no printed Confederate money nor Bank Drafts from any southern bank. A lot of train robbery’s occurred to get Yankee cash.

Any gold secured out West by Confederate agents would be shipped overland by private appearing wagons driven by non uniformed southern sympathizers. In wagons designed to be looking like they carried other things, like lumber, hay, peddler’s wagons, etc.

However gold shipped by Union agents for the North still were using railroads pretty will controlled by the North, even more so as the trains went farther East of course.

The Federal Union of the North had special gold cars for the trains as they came through the wide, wild, and wooly spaces; because train robbery was still practiced for all the usual reasons, amplified by the military conflict going on.

Those special cars in the train had many guards inside and a Union Trooper at each end topside with a swivel mounted Gattling Gun.  That pretty well discouraged roaming packs of bandits by making it obvious that death would come to any robbers who tried.

However, different tactics would be employed as the few transcontinental trains there were got far enough into the East to come into more populace areas.  Then the special car would be off loaded into a regular appearing car that would not attract so much attention.

The gold was in bar form and packed into heavy iron boxes, containing twelve bars at forty pounds each that were then pad locked and a Government seal put upon each to show no tampering.  Still taking no chances, at a major point where the shipment would be divided and sent forward towards Philadelphia by several different trains; each box would be opened its contents inspected and then re locked and a fresh seal put on it.  Indeed a very secure procedure.  Almost flawless.

Now of course both the North and South had agents strategically placed and so there were in reality few secrets that actually got kept by either side. The gold shipping business was no exception.  The South desperately needed gold.  Its agents had reported that even after the dividing of the shipments that heavily armed guards still rode inside with each box of gold; that made it fairly safe inside Yankee territory.   Not totally, just mostly.  The southern agents observed that the gold would be off loaded into a train depot awaiting transfer to other trains.

A potential weak point was in the interest of not wanting to call attention to things, the Union troops assigned to keep an eye on things would post them selves a couple of hundred feet away from the depot and still be able to watch for trouble.

The depot agent was of course a Union man and could be trusted to keep an eye on the several boxes until a train arrived, its Union officers assigned for the purpose, come in open a box and inspect it, re seal it and then load it.

Of course other types of freight also went through the depot, so it wasn’t uncommon for a crate or two, or three to be sitting in the depot awaiting a claimant.  This is the point that allowed one Southern Spy master to formulate a plan.  This Spy Master was the famous Colonel James McAllister,  also known as The Silver Fox in some circles, probably due to the color of his hair as the Colonel was an older gentlemen.

The plan involved sending in a shipment in a fair size crate, marked farm equipment to be off loaded for pickup by a fictional

individual.  That non real person would later show up to claim the crate of farm equipment.

Now initially the crate of farm equipment wouldn’t have farm equipment in it.  It would have a box that appeared identical to the Union gold boxes.  Complete with real looking but counterfeit seal, and the same stock lock that would work with the same key.  In those days locks were fairly universal as were keys. The bottom nine bars would be lead and the top four real gold, so when lifted and inspected it would pass for all gold.

The idea would be to earlier that day to have a couple of Confederate soldiers in plain clothes slip into the station masters house and tie him and his wife if any, up and hold them quietly till after the train had come and gone.

Of course the station master was replaced by a southern spy whose story was that he was substituting for the regular station master who was sick.  That was also the story given to the station clerk, who unbeknownst to the Southern Spy was one Benjamin P. Mason, a Northern spy also known by his friends as “The Bull” because of great personal strength.

Now. like I said earlier, few secrets got kept by either side, so “The Bull” knew what plan “The Silver Fox” had hatched.  That’s why the station manager knew in advance he would be grabbed early in the morning and to just go with the flow and not risk injury.

Now after the main train had arrived and off loaded the boxes of gold to be split and shipped on multiple trains; the fake station manager would send the station clerk on an errand so he could take a full box of gold and switch it for the box of mostly lead.  End result was supposed to be the south would gain nine bars as the dust settled.

Now Benjamin (The Bull) was there as the original shipment group was off loaded and he put a grease dab on  the corner of each, like a card cheat marks cards.  Shortly thereafter he was sent on an errand.  When he came back he noticed one box had no grease dab on it.  He knew that was the one with the four bars of gold and nine of lead.  Now it was time to turn the tables.

Benjamin told the fake station manager that a boy had just handed him a message for the station manager, which he then handed to the fake station manager; it read  “Important, see the gentleman at the hotel in the Lobby, who will be the one in the tall gray hat”  Well the fake station manager figured it was a fellow southern agent who had important information that might effect things, so off he hurried to the hotel, this time it was Benjamin left by himself.

Now Benjamin had a day earlier placed one of those gold looking type boxes in a different crate.  It was filled with rocks.  Now follow this closely, the hand might be swifter than the eye.  Benjamin took the real box full of real gold back out of the southern spy’s crate and placed it back with the others where it belonged; then he took the box of rocks from that other crate and put them in the southern spy’s crate.  Finally he took the box with the nine lead bars and four real gold bars in the other crate that was not the same as the southern spy’

Now to complete the con of the crates, the gentlemen in the hotel with the gray hat was also a Northern agent and he wasted some of the fake station managers time by saying he was on a crutch with a broken leg (faked of course) and it was hard for him to get to the depot for information, and he inquired about train schedule for the next several days.  The fake station manager of course had no idea so he just made guesses.  Mumbled a lot to himself on the way back to the depot.

The next day of course he was gone and the real station manager back on duty, who knew all about the whole deal.  A couple of days later someone showed up to claim the crate of farm equipment.  Benjamin and the station manager being nice guys even helped load it onto that person’s wagon.  That person drove off with a big smile, like the cat that just ate the canary.  No one knows exactly when he stopped smiling.  But to repeat an old phrase, one might say the gold went south, but not in the classic sense it was intended.

The union was pleased to have acquired four extra bars, plus the lead which would be sent to the munitions factory to make more bullets, compliments of the south.

Yes, the intrigue of back and forth and one up man ship kept things lively during the Civil War.

As another person put it, if you are able to observe, it’s always interesting to see the outcome of two con artists going head to head, neither being aware that the other is also a con artist.

That’s all for now folk’s