Do We Know What We Think We Know About ... - TheUFOStore.com

UNTOLD HISTORY
• BY STEVEN SORA
We all know the legend of Jesse
James and the infamous James
gang which spread terror
throughout the Midwest, successfully
robbing one bank after another for
years. Sometimes they are seen as Robin Hood
types, stealing from the rich and giving to the
poor. At other times they are seen simply as
robbers, making up for the economic depression
that followed the Civil War. The truth is
much stranger.
Jesse James did start his career during the
Civil War. He followed in the path of his older
brother Frank who was part of a guerilla operation
known as Quantrill’s Raiders—out to win
the Civil War their own way. Even after General
Lee had surrendered, these guerillas continued
their operations. Cole Younger led a group of
Quantrill’s men to rob the Clay County Savings
Association in Liberty, Missouri, that
netted an immense sum, for the times, $70,000.
Even most modern bank robberies net less.
The James-Younger Gang was not doing this
for its own gain, or to hand out money to poor
Missouri farmers. Their goal was nothing short
of becoming the force that would help the
South to rise again. They belonged to a greater
organization known as the Knights of the
Golden Circle, almost exclusively made up of
sympathetic Freemasons, many of whom were
32 ATLANTIS RISING • Number 95
Rosicrucians and often
funded by wealthy English
merchants. It was possibly
the most powerful subversive
organization in the United
States. A document called
the Holt Report declared
that Lincoln’s Secretary of
War Edwin Stanton claimed
there could be several hundred
thousand members,
and that their plan was to
fund a war for Southern Independence
after the civil
war. Stanton did nothing
about them, however, and
may have been a traitor himself.
The James gang took the proceeds of their
twenty to twenty five successful robberies and
hid them in secret stashes from Arkansas to Arizona.
Most remain hidden to this day, guarded
by secret symbols, and protected by guardian
families determined to see that they are not pilfered.
The Secret War for Succession
The decades leading up to the Civil War
saw the movement against slavery growing. The
trade had been the province of a handful of
merchants, united by Masonic lodges stretching
from Newport Rhode Island to Charleston
Albert Pike
Fighting
to to Save Save the the
Confederacy
with with Bank Bank
Robbery Robbery and and
Murder?
South Carolina. The slave
business and the agricultural
industry it supported did not
benefit everyone, but it did
benefit the most powerful.
As the movement to stop
slavery grew, the opposition
became more violent and secretive.
The organization
known as the Knights of the
Golden Circle (KGC) was
born in Ohio. It grew by appealing
to Masonic Lodge
members in the Midwest.
Many were farmers who
spent much of their time in
isolation, so the need to be a
part of the community was strong. The organization
maintained its secrecy through passwords,
temples and lodges, sworn oaths and supreme
councils. The Grand Seal of the
organization was a skull and crossbones, reminiscent
of the Knights Templar. Its units or
lodges in the Masonic sense of the word were
called castles. The KGC attempted to create
one large slave state, and Texas became the
largest bastion of Knights, including Governor
Sam Houston, who was a member. Their wider
ambition was a vast circle from the Caribbean
to Canada, thus the name.
They could also draw on Masons from
around the country, and the world. One Knight
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