GENERAL STEPHEN D. LEE'S CONFEDERATE COIN

 

It is considered one of the Civil War's great mysteries. People ranging from historians to reality television shows have searched for this missing treasure. As farfetched as it sounds, there is a real basis for this legend and the answer to the location of much if not all of the silver may be found in the museum at the Columbus home of Confederate General Stephen D. Lee.

The story begins near the end of the Civil War when just before the fall of Richmond, the gold and silver in the Confederate treasury was loaded on a train and into wagons and sent south for safe keeping. It was said to have been millions of dollars in Confederate gold — $450,000 in gold from a Richmond bank and 39 kegs containing about 39,000 Mexican 8 reale or silver dollar coins.

There are several different versions of what happened to those millions of dollars in gold and silver. However, all the stories have the same beginning. Around April 2nd 1865, President Jefferson Davis and the Confederate cabinet were advised by Gen Robert E. Lee that Richmond was about to fall and that they needed to evacuate immediately or risk capture. They fled Richmond but not before having all the gold and silver removed from the vaults of the Confederate treasury.

Davis and his cabinet officers left on a special train headed to Danville, Virginia. Their train was closely followed by a second train carrying the government's gold and silver. The trains stopped in Danville and here the stories vary.

A history blog by Civil War author and historian Michael C. Hardy fills out the story of the 39 kegs of Mexican silver coins.

When the silver coins reached Danville, they were delivered to Confederate Gen Joseph E. Johnston. He decided to use the coins to pay his soldiers, who had not been paid in weeks and probably then in soon to be worthless Confederate paper money.

The mystery of the missing Confederate silver turns out to be no great mystery. It was Gen Johnston realizing the war was over and on his own authority using the Confederate government's silver to provide some long overdue pay to its soldiers.

And what does the S. D. Lee home and museum have to do with all of this. In the museum is a shadow box containing the buttons from Gen Stephen D. Lee's uniform. Also in the box is an 1857 Mexican 8 Reales silver Liberty Cap coin and a note that says

There on display in the Lee Home is one of the Mexican silver coins which tells the real story of the missing multi-million dollar silver treasure. The 39 kegs of silver coins were not buried or hidden, they were used to pay Confederate soldiers who had not been paid in weeks.

To read the complete article, see:
Ask Rufus: A Mexican silver dollar and a Civil War mystery (https://cdispatch.com/opinions/2021-08-07/ask-rufus-a-mexican-silver-dollar-and-a-civil-war-mystery/)

Confederate Numismatica author Peter Bertam writes:

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
QUERY: ENGRAVED CONFEDERATE CAMP MARION COIN INFO SOUGHT (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n13a15.html)
MORE ON ENGRAVED CONFEDERATE DAVIS FLIGHT MEDALS (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n15a21.html)
ALAN WEINBERG ON DAVIS FLIGHT MEDALS (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n16a20.html)
PETER BERTRAM ON DAVIS FLIGHT MEDALS (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n17a12.html)
MORE ON KENT WHITING'S DAVIS FLIGHT MEDAL (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n47a14.html)
THE LAST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERATE TREASURY (http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n48a10.html)
MAJOR GENERAL BROWN'S DAVIS FLIGHT MEDAL (https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n27a12.html)

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