Confederate Gold and Silver (25 page)

Do
not
cry
for
me
as
I
shall
always
be
with
you.

Affectionately,
Your
Loving
Son,

Judiah

Paul did his best to hold back his tears as he read the letter twice. Hugging his still upset wife as they stood in the garage, the soft whirl of the still running Sony camcorder was all that could be heard. Shutting off the camcorder, they sat down on two lawn chairs in the garage, each quietly sipping a glass of wine as their minds processed what they had just found in the two bottles. After a few minutes, Paul broke the silence as he wanted to see his still upset wife smile again after she had cried so hard while reading Judiah’s letter. “So what do you want to do tomorrow night for excitement?” His comment made Donna laugh briefly, but tears still filled her eyes.

Waiting a few more minutes, Paul turned the camcorder back on and unfolded the small piece of paper which had been with the two letters in the second bottle. As he did, he saw it was a roughly drawn map. “Donna, look at this. This looks like a map that someone has drawn. It makes reference to a spot on the map as being a wooden cross. It also has a spot marked with some stones, but it doesn’t give us any clue as to where the location actually is or who is buried in what I assume to be a grave.”

Donna finished drying her eyes as she looked at the small map for the first time. “Well, someone drew it for some reason. Could it be one of the locations he mentions in his letter?”

“Could be, could be just that, but who knows right now.”

As they silently stood in the garage looking at the map, something clicked inside of Paul’s head. He realized dinner with Bobby Ray was still on the schedule for tomorrow evening, as was dinner with Steve. “With all that’s been going on, I screwed up and scheduled two different dinners on the same night. How did I do that?” Donna was busy reading for the second time the letter Francis had written to his father. She barely acknowledged what Paul had said about tomorrow’s dinner plans. She was simply too engrossed in the letter she was reading.

Grabbing his cell phone, Paul made a quick phone call to Bobby Ray. He had just gotten home after finishing a very long day at work. After a few moments of small talk, Paul begged him to change their dinner plans to Saturday night.

“Yeah, no problem. Everything OK?”

“Oh, yeah, no problems at all. Donna and I are just enjoying another boring and quiet night here at home with a couple of glasses of wine. Not much of anything happening here.”

“That’s good. OK, we will see y’all on Saturday night, say around 7 pm? See y’all then. Bye!”

After Paul had rearranged their dinner plans for the following evening, they tried to figure out how they could use the newly found letters to help clear up some of the missing pieces of the puzzle they knew still existed. The big piece of the puzzle that still needed to be figured out was trying to determine what Captain Francis had been sent to do by General Lee and President Davis. “Of all the letters we just read, I have to think the one Francis wrote to President Davis definitely has some hidden clues within it. We figure some of those clues out and we will know the whole story about what he was sent to do.” Then they decided Donna would hit the computer and try to answer some of their questions by researching certain points the letters brought up. As they were putting their camera equipment away, Paul told her he would have working copies of the letters made the following morning and then would place the originals in their safety deposit box for safekeeping until they decided what to do with them.

The next day would be one of many interesting days Paul would soon experience. The upcoming days would take him back in time so he could solve one of the greatest mysteries of the Civil War.

Summer,
1863

12
Tough
Decisions.
 

“Bully
for
old
K!
Give
it
to
them,
boys!”
Major
General
James
Ewell
Brown
‘JEB’
Stuart,
CSA
Battle
of
Yellow
Tavern,
11
May
1864

After saying goodbye to Captain Kirschner, Francis returned to his men at the Petersburg train station. They had waited for him at the far end of the platform while he had talked with Kirschner. He was greeted with the news that the Confederate officer in charge of all train movements in and out of the station had changed his mind about allowing them to move south on the train. This officer now refused to empty three rail cars of cotton which was being shipped south. While his men had been able to secure some space on the train for their needs, they needed the other three rail cars for the rest of the wagons and horses.

With Sgts. Griffin and Davis in tow, Francis walked to the station master’s office to seek the space he needed on the train. As he walked into the small office, Captain Arthur Bevens, of the Confederate Army Quartermaster’s Office, was busy with the train’s engineer. They were finalizing the tasks needed to get the departure of the southbound train underway. He barely raised his eyes from the paperwork he was looking at on his desk when Francis and his men entered the office.

Somewhat distastefully, Bevens now advised Francis he had no room on the train for their needs. “Captain, as I have told your men I cannot make anymore room for you on this train. I have my orders, and my priorities, and right now you are not a priority for me. The next train is scheduled to depart from here sometime around eleven tomorrow morning. You will simply have to wait until then.”

“Captain, what you are telling me is unacceptable. We have to have those rail cars off-loaded so my men and I can move out when the train is ready to leave. You are going to have to change your priorities, not mine. We must get moving south.”

Sensing tempers were about to start flaring, the train’s engineer, Walter Worden, a short and rather skinny man who wore thick glasses on the tip of his nose, tried to leave the office, but found his path blocked by the two Virginia sergeants. Not looking to add to the problem that was already occurring, Worden quietly moved off to a corner of the office.

After a moment or two of tension and stares between the two officers, Bevens again tried to state his position. He had barely started to speak when Francis quickly cut him off.

“Bevens, my men and I have personally been assigned a mission by both General Lee and President Davis, a mission of the utmost importance to our cause. We must move south immediately and without delay. I have already lost time, and I have already lost some of my men, I will not be delayed any longer. Are you going to clear the rail cars for my men and me or should I have my men just burn the cotton where it sits?” Francis had tried to keep his temper under control, but he now found himself dealing with a bureaucratic idiot who would rather move cotton than men assigned to a specific mission.

“Captain, I resent the tone you have taken here with me. I shall warn you that if you persist with your threats, I shall report you to the Quartermaster’s Office, who will then contact your commanding officer. I sincerely doubt that General Lee or President Davis, or anyone else in command of our armies, has ever even heard of you, yet alone assigned you to a mission for them.”

Francis saw Sgt. Davis take a step towards the still seated Bevens, likely to reinforce to him whose authority they were really acting under, but he stopped him before he could reach the desk. Reaching inside his uniform blouse, Francis threw the envelope containing the letters that had been written for him by President Davis and Secretary Memminger down on the desk for Bevens to read. “Captain, after you read the two letters feel free to walk over to the telegraph office with me. You can telegraph President Davis to make sure the letters are authentic. Be my guest!” Francis had lost his patience with Bevens and now he dared him to send a telegram to Richmond.

Bevens opened the envelope and quickly read the two letters. After noticing whose signatures were at the end of the letters, he placed them back into the envelope, stood up from the chair he had been sitting in and handed the envelope back to Francis. “Captain, I apologize for doubting you. Please accept my sincere apologies for not believing you. Please excuse me so I can make arrangements to have the rail cars emptied so you and your men will have the room you need.”

Francis had gotten what he needed, but now he had one more point to make with Bevens. “Captain Bevens, before you leave I must tell you what you have just read is not to be spoken about with anyone. This mission is of particular importance to President Davis and to the entire Confederacy. I am giving you an order, the same one that was given to me by the President. You are not to speak about what you have read to anyone, for if you do, you will have to answer to President Davis directly. Do you understand?” Nervous and now sweating profusely, Bevens simply nodded his head to show Francis he understood what he had been told.

After Bevens left the office to clear room in the rail cars for Francis, the train’s engineer, who had chuckled out loud as Bevens had left the office, finally got up the courage to speak. “Was that letter really from Ol’ Jeff himself?” The wink he received from Francis let him know that it had been.

“Well, I’ll be! Captain, this here train ride is gonna be the best one ya ever had. Tell me what y’all need and I’ll get it for ya. I like that Ol’ Jeff, he’s a good man.”

It took over two hours to change out the rail cars, but shortly after it was done, and under a hot summer sun, the train moved south out of Petersburg towards North Carolina. As the train moved along the tracks, the heat and humidity were quickly forgotten by most of Francis’ men as they had fallen asleep wherever they could find a comfortable spot.

They had been travelling for only three hours when trouble struck again, but this time it was not caused by the Yankees. Shortly after crossing into North Carolina, one of the steel bars connecting the two sets of the engine’s wheels to each other cracked and the train soon lost traction on the rails. It soon came to a slow stop. After the problem had been identified, Francis learned it would likely take days to repair the damage. The repairs would shut down the rail line until the repairs could be made.

Out of concern that his men, and the precious cargo they were transporting, could fall easy prey to any Union troops who might come upon the stalled train, Francis ordered his men, and Samuel, to unload the wagons from the train and to prepare to move south over land. Looking at a map Worden had on the train, Francis now hoped to move south to Hillsboro, North Carolina. “Hopefully we can link up with the North Carolina Railroad which runs through there.”

******

Outside of Hillsboro they encountered a small group of Confederate replacement troops who were headed northeast towards Richmond. From them, Francis learned Union troops had recently probed the area northeast of Raleigh and that another small Union cavalry unit had also been seen off to the southeast. He also learned other Union troops had conducted a few small raids near Lincolnton, North Carolina, mostly damaging crops and setting fire to a few small buildings. As an experienced cavalry officer he knew if these Union troops moved to join up with each other, and possibly with others in the area, they would likely target the rail lines first. Getting back on another train was a risk Francis knew was not worth taking. They would have to move over land for now.

Gathering his men, Francis told them what he had learned about Union troops being seen in the area. He also told them of his concern about using the railroad to move further south towards Atlanta. “If we can push south over land and get close to Lexington then I believe we will have a better chance of completing our mission and staying alive. Once there we can put the Yadkin River between us and any Yankee troops that might be in the area.”

Over the next four days they slept little and ate simple cold meals as they moved slowly towards Lexington and to safety. But the men, whether they were scouting out in front of the wagon train, or driving one of the wagons over the bumpy terrain, never complained. Francis had grown impressed with their efforts to move the wagons south without complaining a lick. As they were earning his respect, he also was earning theirs as they saw he worked just as hard as they were and that he ate the same simple cold meals they were eating. He showed them, without trying to do so, that he was a different type of a leader than those they had toiled under previously.

After safely reaching the Lexington train station, their only problem came when it was time to load the train with their horses, wagons, and other supplies. Every available space on the station’s platform was crammed with war supplies, cotton, injured soldiers, lumber, and much more, all waiting for future trains to move them to assist in the war somehow. Francis and his men now had to improvise a way to load the rail cars with the heavy wagons and their precious cargo.

From lumber stored on the station’s platform, they crudely built ramps that ran from the ground of the rail yard up to the sides of the now empty rail cars so they could load the wagons onto the train. With Francis supervising the work, and with help from other railroad workers, and from other Confederate soldiers who had been waiting to move out on another train, they pushed and pulled the first few wagons into place without any problems. As they pushed and pulled one of the last wagons up the ramp, one of the ropes the men had been using to pull the wagons onto the train snapped and the heavy wagon rolled backwards. It was simply too heavy for the men to hold in place on the ramp. As the wagon rolled off the side of the ramp, it crashed to the ground and landed on its left side. It was the wagon with the stars painted on it.