Knights of the Golden Circle - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

There are a number of men in the Soldiers’ Home who as members of the 63rd Indiana infantry  and other military bodies, had a hand in suppressing the Knights of the Golden Circle the most notorious and most feared organization during the Civil War and they often talk over the days of the raids in Fountain County.  The following is a story that is told of the band and the change that 50 years has wrought in the country.  “During the civil ar there existed in a poor portion of western Indiana an organization known as the Knights of the Golden Circle.  The order was composed most of southern settlers coming from North Carolina and the adjoining states who had chosen Jackson Township, Fountain County as their home and had built the little city of Jacksonville (sic) in their midst.  Because of the notoriety which the little village gained at that time as a harboring place for thieves and deserters from the Union Army the name has since been changed to Wallace and such is the enterprising town known today.  The people who live there now are in no way connected with the history of the town during the Civil War and it was from this town that Indiana’s most beautiful young woman hailed.  “When the trouble arose over the slave question the southern settlers around Jacksonville at once expressed themselves as in sympathy with the south.  As they outnumbered the northern sympathizers five to one they were almost at perfect liberty to commit whatever depredations they wished.  They perfected the order of the Knights of the Golden Circle in 1862  and at once began terrorizing the entire region in Jackson Township and the northern part of Parke County.  No northern sympathizer dared to openly express his views on the slavery question as he was liable to be whitecapped or have his property destroyed.  For weeks at a time men who were known to be in sympathy with the north were closely watched and not allowed to leave their homes.  Raids and thievery were common occurrences and it is said many men who lived at that time, that it was not safe to go out after night unless traveling in a crowd.  A short time after the North and South had begun active operations deserters from the Union Army began to flock into Jackson Township and seek homes with the Knights.  They were given a ready welcome for a deserter would naturally be opposed to the army from which he had run away.  It was never necessary for the Knights to live in hiding as they were so much in the majority that they had no fear or interference from the northern settlers in that district.  They did however conduct all of their meetings in secret and the most notorious meeting place as the old Wolf Creek church.  Here they gathered for this secret sessions wholly ignorant of the fact that Oliver P. Morton who was then governor of Indiana had spies in every meeting and was fully informed concerning their plans.”  To find a more suitable place for such an organization to exist would be impossible.  The territory is cut through by both Sugar and Mill creeks and is very rough and covered with dense thickets some of which are so thick that daylight scarcely penetrates their depths.  In these thickets deserters who were waned by the Union Army secreted for months at a time and fed by the Knights.  Here many a member of the organization who was killed in a raid was taken and secretly buried.  No doubt the Knights of the Golden Circle have been accused of many crimes of which they were not guilty but there are a number in which they are known to have taken part.  Their greatest crime and the one for which they were threatened punishment was the declaration that they had seceded from the Union.  If their secession had been recognized it would have resulted disastrously for all the members of the order as a portion of the union army would have been sent in and the entire tribune would have been cleaned out.  As it was, however, it was not necessary to evast the territory as was threatened but the 63rd Indiana Infantry was called to Jacksonville twice to put an end to their depredations and to protect the northern sympathizers living there.  The infantry came first in October 1862 and again in July of 1863.  The last time the Knights assembled and were prepared to march against the troops but were advised not to act so rash by John Davis, a neutral who pointed out to them the foolishness of such a move.  Theis territory formally seceded and was never reinstated.  It is believed by many people that if the matter was pushed the territory would have to be taken back into the union before the residents could vote.  This is the only known case where a seceded portion of the county (sic – country?) has not been taken back into the union. One of the unlawful acts in which the Knights of the Golden Circle were known to have taken part was the murder of a man named Lee, a well known northern sympathizer residing near Waveland, Ind.  Lee was alone one night when he heard the trample of horses’ feet and someone knocked on the door and demanded admittance.  Lee realized at once who the men were and suspecting that the house was surrounded, refused to open the door and sought something with which to defend himself.  He had an old army rifle but no ammunition.  As a last resort he seized a corn knife and determined to defend himself to the last.  After a bloody battle he was captured and killed.  While those in front were ramming the door with rails and gaining entrance some of the Knights in the rear opened fire with their rifles and those in front thought the union army was upon them.  In the riot which followed, Watson Black, a Knight accidentally shot himself under the chin as he was mounting his ho9rse and the bullet cut his tongue off and eventually results in his death.  He was taken by two deserters into the depths of the surround wood and secreted until death, which followed.  A physician in looking over the ground the day following the Lee murder expressed it as his opinion that any man who had lost so much blood could not live long.  Black was buried at night in the old Wolf Creek cemetery and the soil was carried away in blacks in order that no trace of the death could be found by the Unionists.   An investigation of the death of Lee was begun by his relatives at once under the direction of Fletcher Wood of Crawfordsville who was at that time prosecutor of Montgomery County where the murder occurred.  In a short time the three principals in the affair were found out through a girl employed at the home of Jacob Lough.  The man had stopped there on their way to Lee’s and asked for a drink of water.  They told the girl they were looking for some stolen property.  The men settled with Lee’s relatives by each giving them a horse and $1,000.  The scene today is very different around the little city of Wallace from what at was around Jacksonville during the turbulent war times.  The town had no railroad or interurban and all freight and mail is hauled from Hillsboro 9 miles to the north.  There was erected at Wallace last year one of the most modern high school buildings in Fountain County.  It also has a number of modern stores and an enterprising bank.  All of this now exists where once the Knights of the Golden Circle, the most notorious and most feared of all organizations during the Civil War held carnival.”