Monday is Juneteenth, the Texas-centric (‘though not Texas-exclusive) holiday commemorating the end of slavery. The American South after the Civil War was as close as I ever came to an academic specialization, so expect some 1860s/Reconstruction links in the coming days.
First off, did you know about the Knights of the Golden Circle?
The Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was a secret society originally founded to promote Southern interests and prepare the way for annexation of a “golden circle” of territories in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean which would be included into the United States as southern or slave states. During the American Civil War, Southern sympathizers in the North, known as Copperheads, were accused of belonging to the Knights of the Golden Circle…
[Founder George] Bickley’s main goal was the annexation of Mexico. Hounded by creditors, he left Cincinnati in the late 1850s and traveled through the East and South promoting an expedition to seize Mexico and establish a new territory for slavery. He found his greatest support in Texas and managed within a short time to organize thirty-two chapters there. In the spring of 1860 the group made the first of two attempts to invade Mexico from Texas. A small band reached the Rio Grande, but Bickley failed to show up with a large force he claimed he was assembling in New Orleans, and the campaign dissolved…
During the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, scam artists in south-central Pennsylvania sold fearful Pennsylvania Dutch farmers paper tickets purported to be from the Knights of the Golden Circle for a dollar. Along with a series of secret hand gestures, these tickets were supposed to protect the possessions and horses of the ticket holders from seizure by invading Confederate soldiers. When Jubal Early’s infantry division passed through York County, Pennsylvania, they scoffed at these ticket holders and took what they wanted anyway, often paying with Confederate currency or drafts on the Confederate government.