THE STRANGE TALE OF THE IOWA SOLDIERS WHO GUARDED CONFEDERATE GOLD

             William F. Taylor, John M. Goddin, J. H. Weisiger and R. T. Reynolds, set out from federally occupied Richmond, Virginia on  April 28 in search of the gold train that belonged to the Richmond banks they represented. The fortune in treasure had traveled
south with President Jefferson Davis and his Confederate government. On May 8, they found what they sought left in Washington, Georgia.

 

After consulting federal officers, the bank officers did not feel safe in trying to ship the money through Augusta and Savannah but decided to haul it over land by wagon to the rail head at Abbeville, South Carolina. The United States Army provided a sergeant and ten men from Iowa troopers as an escort.

 

The new treasure train of five wagons set out from Washington, Georgia on the morning of May 24, 1865. Unbeknownst to the men in the wagons, at least one spy, reportedly a union soldier, alerted a group of former East Tennessee cavalry of the treasure.
 

Local people probably aided the cavalrymen in figuring out the route of the wagon train. The gold wagons and their escort traveled eighteen miles and camped in the yard of what the bankers remembered as the home of William Moss, although more likely the
home of Susan (Mrs. J. D.) Moss, some three miles from the federal pontoon bridge across the Savannah River in Lincoln County, by night fall.

 

The wagon party made camp and ate supper in the moonlight. One of the witnesses would remember of the warm night, that "the air too was pleasant and refreshing." Two men identifying themselves as members of the Moss family rode across the yard at 11
o'clock. A man in a U. S. Army blouse supposedly rode up and surveyed the camp before disappearing into the night.

 

Around midnight a band of some twenty men, carrying carbines, raided the camp. The teamsters fled into the woods. Overwhelmed while asleep, the guard detail of Iowa cavalrymen offered no resistance as the bandits ordered them to surrender, at gun point and on pain of death.

 

The bank agents pleaded that the money belonged to private individuals. However, the robbers, according to the bank agents, identified themselves as members of the 7th and 8th Tennessee cavalry regiments, United States Army (bank officials would also refer to them as ex-Confederates and other sources  would claim that they were former rebels of Vaughn's brigade).

 

The bandits called the pleas "a damned rebel lie." The raiders then quickly busted open boxes of booty. They filled sacks and fled, leaving the rest in their haste, scattered about the ground, in ankle deep piles of gold and silver. The night riders set out to place distance between themselves and any federal rescue party.

Local people, black and white, helped themselves to coins still laying about the camp site the next day. One of the bandits had lost some of his booty when his overfilled haversack fell open during his exit. Other bandits also left trails of spilled treasure. So much gold turned up that the local people jokingly announced that they would rename their Danburg community "California" because of their newly opened gold "mine."

 

The people of the area that had seen the last meeting of the Confederate government, the fleeing Confederate president, and the rebel treasure train, had thus also received the last windfall of secession.
 

The bank agents totaled the money lost at $251,029.90 in coins. John M. Goddin took what remained in the wagons,  $159,929.90, to the railroad at Abbeville and on to Richmond without further incident.

 

Weiseger and Taylor organized a posse to search the Danburg area for the stolen gold while offering a reward of as much as $5,000 and a ten percent recovery fee. General Edward Porter Alexander organized another party. He and the bank officials persuaded some raiders that the money belonged to wives and children of Confederate veterans investing in the banks.

 

With Alexander's help, the bank officials eventually recovered some $111,000 of the stolen money, including some $10,000 from former slaves and $5,000 taken from a Dr. Smith. A member of the Chenault family acted as a mediator in returning some of the stolen funds. Some of the bandits were also taken  although the local people entrusted as guards let the men go.

 

Some of the gold not recovered reportedly became the basis of some personal fortunes in the West. Gold coins continued to turn up in Wilkes County, however.
 

General Robert Toombs of Washington, Georgia, the former Confederate Secretary of State, despite his impoverishment, also turned over $5,000 that, intentionally or accidentally, panicked bandits been thrown in his yard. Federal Captain Lot Abraham accepted the money and agreed to use it to buy food for returning Confederate soldiers and refugees. Federal soldiers began looting the countryside looking for the stolen money. Knowing that some of the former slaves had found gold at the robbery site, groups of white men used torture and lynchings to force information from local African-Americans, forcing as much as $4,000 from one former slave.
 

One mystery remains, the identity of the federal soldiers guarding the gold train on the night of the robbery. Federal Captain Lot Abraham had occupied Washington on May 6, with two companies of the 4th Iowa Cavalry, in pursuit of Jefferson Davis.

 

The escort may have come from the Iowa troops with Abraham although writer Ray Chandler has speculated that the sergeant and  ten men came from the 22nd Iowa Cavalry. Any thoughts on this subject are very much appreciated.

                         

by Robert Scott Davis, Jr.
Family & Regional History Program
Wallace State College
P. O. Box 2000
Hanceville, AL 35077-2000
Office: (256) 352-8265
 FAX: (256) 352-8228
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 Home: (205) 429-5251

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