Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War

13. A Rejuvenated KGC?

171 13 A REJUVENATED KGC? A s bickley languished in prison and the KGC became increasingly dormant, another secret society called the Order of American Knights (OAK) was spreading across the midwestern and Border States. Phineas Wright, a quixotic St. Louis lawyer, had developed the OAK’s high-sounding “declaration of principles,” and he appointed himself “Supreme Grand Commander.” The first OAK temple meeting was held in St. Louis during February 1863, with the St. Louis chapter expanding to more than one thousand members by the end of the year. Wright traveled to Illinois and Indiana, establishing further chapters and appointing a “Grand Commander” for each involved state. Former Missouri governor Sterling Price, now a Confederate major general, backed the society’s formation to help unite southern sympathizers in support of his planned invasion of Missouri. Price reportedly became the “Supreme Commander” of the OAK’s southern section.1 Like the KGC, the OAK was organized in a series of three degrees, with the secret mission of the organization revealed only to the inner circle of the highest degree. The OAK’s publicly professed purpose, disclosed to lowerdegree members, was to protect states’-rights principles and constitutional liberties and fight against the Lincoln administration’s related wartime edicts, such as the suspension of habeas corpus and the Emancipation Proclamation. The OAK’s alleged secret mission was to undermine U.S. military authority, aid the southern Confederacy, promote insurrection, and create a separate northwestern confederacy in the states stretching from Ohio to Minnesota. knights of the golden circle 172 Local OAK temples were organized by township, county, and state, and headed at the national level by a “Supreme Council.” A grand commander was appointed for each involved state, which was divided into military districts, each headed by an OAK major general. The OAK’s rituals incorporated signs, passwords, and an oath of secrecy that mandated obedience to the grand commander’s orders and required the defense of the society’s principles “with . . . sword and life.” Each local temple was expected to arm and drill, and a system of secret police, mail carriers, and smugglers was initiated.2 Felix Stiger, a Union spy who infiltrated the OAK, said that its Indiana leaders told him that the OAK was a reorganization of the KGC.3 William Stinson, a former KGC member who was also serving as a spy for Union authorities , said the OAK was formed at Confederate Major General Sterling Price’s request because the KGC had become unsafe since its rituals and secrets had been exposed and so many questionable characters were being initiated.4 It appears that over time, many of the KGC castles in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states shifted their a∞liation to the OAK. Several OAK leaders, such as Indiana lawyer Lambdin Purdy Milligan, are known to have been KGC members.5 But in reality, the OAK was a separate organization with different principles, rituals, and, in most cases, leadership. Newspapers throughout the country also associated the OAK with the KGC, alleging that the OAK was “being erected on the ruins of the Knights of the Golden Circle.”6 In April 1863, reports circulated throughout the country about the arrest of four alleged Knights of the Golden Circle (more likely OAK) in Reading, Pennsylvania, for resistance to the draft and allegedly organizing a rescue of prisoners.7 In August 1863, Cincinnati ’s Republican papers reported that the KGC (rather than the OAK) was intending to import fifty thousand members from neighboring states in order to elect Clement Vallandigham as governor of Ohio.8 Such reports caused widespread concern among northerners, who suspected a KGC operative was lurking behind every tree.9 Before the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, scam artists sold paper tickets purportedly related to the KGC to local farmers, The scammers told the farmers that the tickets would protect them from Lee’s invading Confederates (who knew nothing about the ruse). Similarly, the New York City draft riots of July 1863 were blamed on the KGC.10 173 a rejuvenated kgc? The Lincoln administration and its army minions did everything possible to associate the new secret societies with the KGC, in order to smear them with the negative notoriety that the southern Knights had by now achieved. For example, despite the fact that the widely circulated October 1864 report by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt concentrated solely on the Order of...