Confederate Treasure at Smith's Ford

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From page 29 of the May issue of Lost Treasure magazine.
Copyright 1983-2001 Lost Treasure, Inc.

There have been many stories written about what happened to the Confederate treasure when the Civil War ended in 1865. The following information has, been derived from letters written by Col. W. J. Palmer to his commanding officer, Maj. Gen. A. Thomas of the Federal Army.

Headquarters Cavalry Division, District of East Tennessee, Athens, Ga., May 6, 1865,

Major General: I had reached the vicinity of Cowpens Battlefield, South Carolina, on April 29, when! received the order to en-deavor to intercept Jefferson Davis, his cabinet and the Confederate spe-cie. I have ascertained that Davis, and the money, with an escort of four bri-gades of calvairy, under Duke, Ferguson and Dibbrill, with scattered detachments of Vaughn. s, Hanie. s, and Butler. s commands, are moving from Yorkville, South Carolina, and have crossed Smith. s Ford of Broad River, toward Umonvilie and Abbe-vile, South Carolina. One of my regi-ments, the Twelfth Ohio, ran into the rear-guard of his escort at the ford and captured ten prisoners, from whom definite information was obtained. The specie was in wagons, and was contained in about one hundred boxes of gold and sixty kegs of silver. Pris-oners thought there was about ten mil-lion in specie in all. cavalry es-cort, about three to four thousand men, have been promised their back pay from this specie. Davis and about 35 men have pushed on to Washing-ton, Georgia. Before disbanding, $35.00 was given to each private sol-dier, and more to officers. I have not yet been able to ascertain what has become of the balance of the specie, but presume it has either been con-cealed or shipped by railroad west-ward, in which latter event it will be stopped either by my party on the rail-road, at Madison; or by Col. Eggles-ton of Wilson. s cavalry, who reached Atlanta on the morning of the 4th..

A second letter to the same com-manding officer is more specific re-garding the outcome of the specie:

Headquarters Cavalry Division Dis-trict, East Tennessee, Howell. s Ford, near Warsaw, on the Chattahoochee, May 12th, 5.P.M.

Major General: On the morning of the 8th instant, while searching for Davis near the fork of the Apalachee and Oconee Rivers, Colonel Betts, Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, captured seven wagons hid-den in the woods, which contained $188,000 in coin, $1,488.00 in bank notes, bonds, etc., of various South-ern States, and about $4,000,000 in Confederate money, besides consid-erable species,. plate and other valuables belonging to private citizens of Macon. The main portion of the, above property comprised the assets of the Georgia Central Railroad and Banking Company, which had been moved out of Macon at the approach of General Wilson. The wagons also contained the private baggage, maps and official papers of General Beaure-gard, and the same of General Pillow. Nothing was disturbed, and I sent the whole in by railroad to Augusta, in charge of Captain Patterson, to be de-livered to the Commanding Officer of the U.S. Forces to await the action of the Government. In regard to the Confederate species, I am satisfied that Davis has not any considerable amount with him, as Breckinridge stated that the government had no mOre than sixty thousand dollars actu-ally belonging to it. It is estimated that the Confederate Government may have had some $32,000,000 re-moved at various points to avoid cap-ture. It is said that Davis left the funds from North Carolina banks at Char-lotte at the insistence of Governor Vance. Funds belonging to South Carolina banks were no doubt left near Abbeville, and that belonging to Georgia and New Orleans was either left and concealed at Washington, Georgia, or shipped by railroad from that point. We believe that payment of Dibbrill. s Cavalry, the only troops not formally surrendered or dis-banded, probably took most of the public funds. It seejns probable that little specie crossed the Savannah River (which means the rest could be hidden in South Carolina), for if Davis felt it necessary to have a divi-sion of Cavalry to guard his train, he would not be apt to move the train without guard, when he found it im-possible to take his cavalry escort across the Savannah River. General Bragg states that no specie came this side (west) of Washington, Georgia..

These two letters, official documents of the Federal Army, would indicate that some of the Confederate specie was buried or concealed in South Carolina, and the ford mentioned should be closely checked over with a good metal detector.