The Knights of the Golden Circle Support the Confederacy The Knights of the Golden Circle Support the Confederacy By Alice Mullaly Jefferson Public Radio http://www.ijpr.org/Feature.asp?FeatureID=1555 Welcome to As It Was: Tales from the State of Jefferson As many as 2,500 Southern sympathizers in Oregon joined the national Knights of the Golden Circle society that supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. One of its chapters was in Jacksonville. The organization used secret passwords and signs. If a man stroked his beard with thumb and first finger of his right hand touching and another responded by scratching behind his right ear, these men would know they were both Knights of the Golden Circle. Some members supported forming an independent Republic of the Pacific Coast that would condone a labor force of Chinese, Hawaiian, and Negro slaves. More menacingly, these secret groups bought guns and practiced military drills. An Oregon militia troop was called up in 1864 to quell the threat of openly militant Knights in the Long Tom and Siuslaw River valleys of Southwest Oregon. Joseph Lane, Oregon's Indian fighter, outspoken southern sympathizer and the state's first U.S. Senator, was sent back to Oregon in disgrace, accused of smuggling guns to the Knights. With the defeat of the South in the Civil War, the Knights of the Golden Circle vanished, but their beliefs persisted with many people. Today's episode of As It Was was written by Alice Mullaly, the program producer is Raymond Scully. I'm Shirley Patton. As It Was is a co-production of JPR and the Southern Oregon Historical Society. To share stories or learn more about the series, visit asitwas - dot.org. Source: McLagan, Elizabeth, A Peculiar Paradise: a History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940, The Oregon Black History Project, Georgian Press, 1980 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle http://knights-of-the-golden-circle.blogspot.com
