Based on years of exhaustive and meticulous research, David C.
Keehn's study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the
Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret southern society that
initially sought to establish a slave-holding empire in the "Golden
Circle" region of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Keehn
reveals the origins, rituals, structure, and complex history of
this mysterious group, including its later involvement in the
secession movement. Members supported southern governors in
precipitating disunion, filled the ranks of the nascent Confederate
Army, and organized rearguard actions during the Civil War. The
Knights of the Golden Circle emerged around 1858 when a secret
society formed by a Cincinnati businessman merged with the
pro-expansionist Order of the Lone Star, which already had 15,000
members. The following year, the Knights began publishing their own
newspaper and established their headquarters in Washington, D. C.
In 1860, during their first attempt to create the Golden Circle,
several thousand Knights assembled in southern Texas to "colonize"
northern Mexico. Due to insufficient resources and organizational
shortfalls, however, that filibuster failed. Later, the Knights
shifted their focus and began pushing for disunion, spearheading
pro-secession rallies, and intimidating Unionists in the South.
They appointed regional military commanders from the ranks of the
South's major political and military figures, including men such as
Elkanah Greer of Texas, Paul J. Semmes of Georgia, Robert C. Tyler
of Maryland, and Virginius D. Groner of Virginia. Followers also
established allies with the South's rabidly pro-secession
"fire-eaters," which included individuals such as Barnwell Rhett,
Louis Wigfall, Henry Wise, and William Yancey. According to Keehn,
the Knights likely carried out a variety of other clandestine
actions before the Civil War, including attempts by insurgents to
take over federal forts in Virginia and North Carolina, the
activation of pro-southern militia around Washington, D. C. and a
planned assassination of Abraham Lincoln as he passed through
Baltimore in early 1861 on the way to his inauguration. Once the
fighting began, the Knights helped build the emerging Confederate
Army and assisted with the pro-Confederate Copperhead movement in
northern states. With the war all but lost, various Knights
supported one of their members, John Wilkes Booth, in his plot to
abduct and assassinate President Lincoln. Keehn's fast-paced,
engaging narrative demonstrates that the Knights proved more
substantial than historians have traditionally assumed and provides
a new perspective on southern secession and the outbreak of the
Civil War.
General
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