Confederate Gold and Silver (39 page)

Francis had barely pushed open the wrought iron gates when a voice hollered out to him from the edge of the Inlet. “Those are some important folks buried in there!” Whether it was because of the loss of McKinney or because he was lost in his thoughts about the elaborate cemetery he was standing in front of, Francis was completely taken by surprise by the voice he heard. He sensed his heart had skipped a beat as he had been taken so off guard by the voice calling out to him. Turning to face what had startled him, he saw a man climbing out of a small flat bottom boat not more than thirty yards away from where he had left his horse to drink from the brook. His horse briefly watched as the stranger climbed out of his small boat, but then lost interest and quickly returned to drinking from the brook and munching on the soft green clover growing nearby.

“How did I not see this man or his boat? Am I that upset about losing McKinney I let my guard down that much?” Francis knew doing so could have led to his demise if someone, such as Yankee soldiers, had wanted to hurt him.

“This here is the Allston family cemetery, ya heard of them?” asked the elderly white man who had been in the boat. Francis stared at him as he slowly walked towards the entrance of the cemetery. The old man looked to be about seventy years old. It appeared to have been a tough seventy years of living as the man’s face was heavily wrinkled, almost as if it was weather-beaten from years of living outdoors. As the elderly man walked towards the cemetery, Francis could easily see he walked stooped over.

“Is this the same Allston who I know was the governor of this fine state at one time?”

“Yep, that’s him alright. This here cemetery goes back quite a spell as ya can see. The family has been burying their kin here since just after we beat them redcoats many years ago. This here piece of land, for almost as far as ya can see, is called Turkey Hill Plantation as it once was a spread that thousands of wild turkeys called home. Good eatin’ ones they are too! Still got plenty of them runnin’ around this spot, ya just got to find them. Ya seen any, soldier boy?”

“No, sir, I have not. I just rode up here before you called out to me. I saw the cemetery and the brook over there. Thought I’d let my horse take a drink while I stretched my legs.”

“I seen ya from the river, wondered what y’all were doing.” The old man paused for a moment to look over the uniform Francis was wearing. “Seems this Allston family they got them kinda ties, not sure what the real name is for them, but sees they knew that King George fella, you know from England, and he dun give them a whole lot of land to settle. The way I heard it, after they got the land they dun soon forgot about the old king. Even helped fight against them redcoats themselves; same folks who gave them the land. Kinda peculiar, ain’t it? Seeing how they got the land and then fought against his soldiers and all.”

“I believe it is just that. My late Aunt Alice would have called it ironic.”

“Ya call it what ya want. I don’t know nothing about them fancy words and all, but its dang funny to me. Ya know what I mean?”

“I do, sir. I do.”

“Well, this here cemetery property has a bunch of the Allston kin buried here, including a couple of young children. They’s direct kin to the governor, ya know, R.F.W. Allston himself. Too bad them young folk ain’t had a real time to live, ain’t fair, ain’t fair at all. Never met the man, but I seen him here visiting his kin a few times. Folks around these here parts speak right fondly of the man. Right good fella, I guess. I still call him governor, but he ain’t governor no longer. Doing something else these days I suspect. Still a good man though.”

“I’m sure he is. I also have heard many good references regarding Governor Allston. I hope to meet him someday, perhaps soon.”

“Hey, we been talking a spell and I ain’t got to learn your name yet. My name is Johnny Lincoln. Mostly folks call me Old Johnny or Johnny. You like my last name? Kinda strange a Southern boy having the same name as the President of these here United States, but I ain’t no kin to him. Is that what y’all might call that fancy term ya used before?”

“You mean ironic? Yes, you might call it that.” Extending his right hand to Old Johnny, Francis introduced himself, telling him where he was from and telling him he was headed south to Atlanta. They talked for another several minutes before Old Johnny started moving back to his boat. After saying a brief goodbye, he was back in his boat and soon down the river out of sight.

As Old Johnny moved down the river, Francis walked back to the cemetery and pushed open the wrought iron gates the rest of the way. Standing inside the cemetery his thoughts drifted back to McKinney drowning, to Samuel running away, and to how much harder it was going to be to complete the mission with two less men. As he had those thoughts, he found himself staring at two grave markers where two young infant children had been buried. “How hard it must have been for their parents to bury these two young children. Buried forever; their young faces never again to be seen by their parents. How sad that must have been for them.” As soon as he had run the thought through his head, he replayed the thought one more time. “Buried forever, but why does it have to be forever?” As he ran his thought through his head a third time, he concentrated on just the first two words of the thought. “
Buried
forever
—But it does not have to be forever!” Quickly his eyes scanned the cemetery plot. Just as quickly he was on his horse and racing back to his men. Once back with his men, Francis told them he had an idea, an idea which would allow them to get to Charleston much quicker and much lighter than he had expected they would.

“Sgt. Stine, the rest of us are taking one of the wagons back to the cemetery. You are staying here with the other wagons. We are not going to be too far away, so if you see anyone approaching I want you to fire two shots into the air and we will come back to you. Make sure you have two muskets loaded and ready to fire.”

“Yes, sir, captain. Not to worry, I’ll be fine.”

“Good. Sgt. Odom, make sure we have at least three or four shovels with us in the wagon, the same one you have been driving. When we get to the cemetery, you are going to be our eyes and ears while we are working. Make sure no one is watching us and get back to us if you see trouble. But be close to us, if we see trouble we will fire one shot to let you know we need your help. If you hear that shot, come running as we will be needing your help.”

“Don’t worry none, captain. I’ll have y’all covered. No one is going to bother y’all.”

“Sgt. Banks, tie up Big Ed’s horse to the back of the wagon in the event we no longer have any use for it when we are done. Griffin and Davis, you are riding your horses back with me. Does everyone understand what they are to do? I want to get this done as fast as possible.”

“Yes, sir, but why are we going to a cemetery and why are we bringing a wagon with us?”

“Franklyn, no time for questions right now, just trust that I know what I want to do. You will understand real soon.”

In the short ten minutes it took to get back to the cemetery, Francis and the others kept a constant vigil, making sure they were not being watched by either friends or foe. After they reached the cemetery, he gathered the men by the gate. “Men, we have been pushed hard these past few weeks and we have lost some of our friends along the way. Today we lost McKinney and I am sick over his passing, just like I have been when the others have died. I now fear we cannot properly protect the gold and silver as I would like because of their passing. For that reason, we are going to take one of the flour barrels we have in the wagon and bury it here in this cemetery with some of the gold and silver. Burying the money like we did back in North Carolina will allow us to move to Charleston with at least one less wagon. After we have time to rest there, and perhaps get some new men to help us, we will come back and retrieve the money. I doubt anyone is going to suspect we left some of the money in a cemetery. How does this sound to you?”

“Captain, I have always respected you,” replied Sgt. Odom before he rode off to make sure no one disturbed them as they worked, “but now I fear a man who disturbs the dead. I do agree with your thinking as I also doubt that any god fearing man would look for gold in a cemetery, at least not a god fearing man like me!”

The others shook their heads in agreement with what Odom had just said. Francis only chuckled at his comments as he realized many people, apparently Odom included, had certain fears about death and cemeteries.

After Odom had ridden off to keep watch over them, and after only a few minutes of digging in the soft sandy soil, the men had a good size hole dug. In the minutes which followed, they quickly completed digging a hole that would easily consume the size of the flour barrel they were soon to bury in this handsome cemetery.

It took far longer to unload the heavy bags of gold and silver coins from the wagon, as well as the gold and silver bars, and to carry all of it to where the barrel had been placed in the ground, than it took to dig the hole. As quick as possible they got it done. Francis had Sgt. Davis climb down into the hole they had dug and he carefully placed the heavy bags of coins in the barrel so the bags did not tear when they were placed inside it. After the bags of coins had filled the barrel almost halfway, the men handed Davis several of the gold and silver bars so he could place them on top of the bags of coins. They then filled the rest of the barrel with bagged and loose coins, leaving just enough room for the barrel’s lid to fit snuggly in place. A large rock was then placed on top of the closed wooden lid. Francis had the rock placed there just in the event if someone dug in the area they would hit the rock first and not the lid of the barrel. After the hole was filled in, Sgt. Griffin scattered the remaining dirt outside the grounds of the cemetery while the others did their best to make it look like no one had disturbed the area inside the cemetery where the barrel had been buried.

They had just finished picking up the shovels when Sgt. Banks saw Odom approaching them. “Captain, look yonder. Here comes Odom in a hurry, something is up I bet!”

As Francis looked to see where Odom was, he saw him to riding his horse hard towards them. “OK men, expect the worse. Let’s get moving back to where Stine is waiting for us.”

As they started to move out, Odom galloped up to where Francis had just mounted his horse. “Captain, you need to come take a look at this. We got company coming up river by boat and also coming south on horses on the far side of the river. Not sure if they are gonna meet each other or not, but I knew you’d want to know about this.”

Francis first had Griffin and Banks take the wagon back to where Stine was waiting for them. “Take everything we might need out of the wagon and be ready to leave as soon as I get back. We might burn the wagon, but don’t do anything to it until I get back there.” With Odom leading the way, Francis and Davis went with him to check on the two groups of men he had warned them about.

After tying their horses up in a small stand of pine trees just off the river, Francis, Odom, and Davis, protected from view by a thicket of bushes, watched as a medium sized flat bottom boat was rowed up river. In the boat were three men. Francis could see at least one of them was holding a musket.

On the opposite side of the river from where they were hiding, they also saw a group of five men on horses headed south towards Georgetown. Watching as the two groups of men closed the distance between themselves, it became evident that they knew each other as they called out to one another as they had gotten closer to each other. From their hiding spot, Francis and his men watched as the boat was rowed to shore to where the men on horses had come to a halt. For several minutes the two groups talked to each other, but from where Francis watched he could not hear what was being said. Soon the two groups moved away from each other. Despite being satisfied the men were not Union soldiers or others after them, Francis still had his men wait in the bushes until the others were out of sight. After waiting several minutes, they then rode back to where Stine and the others were waiting for them.

Once back with the others, Francis saw the wagon had been emptied of everything they might need. Another wagon also had been emptied of its remaining provisions. The men had consolidated everything in the other wagons. “Captain, we don’t need these two wagons any longer, you want us to burn them?” asked Sgt. Stine.

“No, just leave them be. We don’t need the attention smoke might bring. Just disable them as best you can. Make it look like they broke down in case someone finds them. That way it won’t look too strange for them to just be sitting here and all. Just make it look good. Then tie up one team of horses to the back of one of our wagons. Unhook the other team, someone will find them soon enough. But hurry, we need to get moving.”

Within several minutes they were underway, headed again towards Georgetown. They still had some twenty miles to travel before reaching the outskirts of the small town. Once there, Francis knew he wanted to keep the wagons out of town as he did not want to risk the gold and silver being seen by anyone. His plan was for only one wagon to accompany him into town so he could obtain some much needed provisions for their move towards Charleston. As they moved along he finished his plans for getting to Georgetown. Looking at his pocket watch, he decided they would try to make another ten miles or so and then spend the night camped fairly close to town. Riding on his horse, Francis continued to think about Georgetown and about the Union army. “Tomorrow I will ride into town and see what I can find in provisions for the trip to Charleston. I also hope I can find out some more news about any Yankees being seen in the area.”

For the rest of the ride the men rode in silence as their collective thoughts reflected back on the loss of McKinney earlier in the day. He had been well liked by all of them, Francis included. As Francis thought about what had happened, he spurred his horse to move out in front of the others as he did not want his men to see the tears which now filled his eyes. He had always found it easier to shed them in private.