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

5. Transforming to Secession

62 5 TRANSFORMING TO SECESSION B ickley hadn’t even left for Texas on the scheduled rendezvous date of September 15, 1860, for the renewed expedition into northern Mexico. Instead, the KGC’s front man was in southeastern Tennessee, appearing on platforms with KGC chaplain Reverend Isaac Spangler and Reverend J. S. Clark. In a speech at Cleveland, Tennessee, Spangler touted the KGC as a “powerful military organization, as a nucleus around which to hang such political considerations as will, if well managed, lead to the disenthrallment of the Cotton States from the oppressive majority of the Manufacturing and Commercial interests of the North.” He claimed that the KGC order numbered “sixty-five thousand Southern men” and that several members of the Buchanan cabinet, as well as all except for three of the southern governors were members.1 The KGC speakers also said the South should support the KGC as a domestic police force, and confidently predicted “the Southern governors will have use for us within six months.” A writer reporting the Cleveland speech for the Nashville Republican Banner under the byline “Bradley” called the KGC’s work a “treasonable conspiracy” and alleged that it was tied in with the southern fire-eaters promoting southern secession: They [the people of Tennessee] have heard much about gov. wise’s letter of 1856 to the Southern Governors, W. L. Yancey’s “Southern League,” Yancey’s letter to Mr. Slaughter, and Gov. R. J. Walker’s letter of June 28, 1858 to President Buchanan in which he says: “Cuba! Cuba! (and Costo Rico [sic] if possible).” . . . 63 transforming to secession These Filibustering and revolutionary documents gotten up by men placed in high position by the people, indissolubly connect them with this K. G. C. Organization. The link between that, and the Yancey Southern League is so perfect, and well defined, that a fool cannot but observe it. According to Bradley’s account, Mr. A. Campbell, a resident of Cleveland, jumped onto the platform at the end of the “piratical discourse” by the “Reverend Filibusters” and denounced their aim as “revolution and ruin to the country.” Campbell’s denunciation reportedly excited so much indignation against Bickley and his entourage that personal violence was feared. Bradley concluded: “We hope these gentlemen will be shown up, and driven out of every community where they may attempt to preach their treason and establish their ‘Castles.’”2 In south Texas, the Corpus Christi Ranchero of September 22 reported with respect to the KGC’s rendezvous: “It appears that they [the arriving Virginia and Maryland Knights] are bound to suffer disappointment, as they expected to meet a large force in Encinal county,” but “there are no Knights in Encinal county, nor no one . . . concentrated at any point in this section.”3 This was followed up by a September 29 report that the scattered KGC members along the Mexican border were heading home. The Ranchero editor speculated: “There must be mismanagement on the part of the leaders, or else a concentration of forces would be better understood .”4 Bickley finally arrived in Galveston on October 11, indicating that he should have arrived on October 1 but had been “unavoidably detained.”5 While some KGC members calculated that one thousand Knights had arrived in Texas, Bickley said that only four hundred to five hundred had reached the border and that prematurely crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico would invite disaster. To explain the deficiency, he cited the di∞culty of transporting the requisite arms and provisions to the rendezvous point. He also alluded to the failure of General William Walker’s filibustering expedition to Honduras, and the approaching presidential contest. Bickley proposed waiting a few weeks until the conditions were right.6 More telling, however, is Bickley’s subsequent disclosure that “many of the prominent men in the organization believe that no attempt should be made until the first of December, at which time we may be more needed at home than abroad.”7 This indicates that Greer and other KGC regimental knights of the golden circle 64 commanders had decided to defer the Mexican expedition to see whether the southern governors would need the Knights’ help in dealing with the escalating secession crisis. But the deferral of the Mexican expedition did not stop the ever-resourceful Bickley. He simply shifted his efforts to rejuvenating and expanding the more than twenty-five KGC castles that were spread across the...