Knights of the Golden Circle

Knights of the Golden Circle - Cover

Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War

by David C. Keehn

Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War

320 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / 14 halftones

ebook available

History / United States - Civil War Period | History / United States - Southern History

Hardcover / 9780807150047 / April 2013
Paperback / 9780807179536 / March 2023

Based on years of exhaustive and meticulous research, David C. Keehn’s study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret southern society that initially sought to establish a slave-holding empire in the “Golden Circle” region of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Keehn reveals the origins, rituals, structure, and complex history of this mysterious group, including its later involvement in the secession movement. Members supported southern governors in precipitating disunion, filled the ranks of the nascent Confederate Army, and organized rearguard actions during the Civil War.

The Knights of the Golden Circle emerged in 1858 when a secret society formed by a Cincinnati businessman merged with the pro-expansionist Order of the Lone Star, which already had 15,000 members. The following year, the Knights began publishing their own newspaper and established their headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1860, during their first attempt to create the Golden Circle, several thousand Knights assembled in southern Texas to “colonize” northern Mexico. Due to insufficient resources and organizational shortfalls, however, that filibuster failed. 
 
Later, the Knights shifted their focus and began pushing for disunion, spearheading prosecession rallies, and intimidating Unionists in the South. They appointed regional military commanders from the ranks of the South’s major political and military figures, including men such as Elkanah Greer of Texas, Paul J. Semmes of Georgia, Robert C. Tyler of Maryland, and Virginius D. Groner of Virginia. Followers also established allies with the South’s rabidly prosecession “fire-eaters,” which included individuals such as Barnwell Rhett, Louis Wigfall, Henry Wise, and William Yancey. 
 
According to Keehn, the Knights likely carried out a variety of other clandestine actions before the Civil War, including attempts by insurgents to take over federal forts in Virginia and North Carolina, the activation of prosouthern militia around Washington, D.C., and a planned assassination of Abraham Lincoln as he passed through Baltimore in early 1861 on the way to his inauguration. Once the fighting began, the Knights helped build the emerging Confederate Army and assisted with the pro-Confederate Copperhead movement in northern states. With the war all but lost, various Knights supported one of their members, John Wilkes Booth, in his plot to abduct and assassinate President Lincoln. 
 
Keehn’s fast-paced, engaging narrative demonstrates that the Knights' influence proved more substantial than historians have traditionally assumed and provides a new perspective on southern secession and the outbreak of the Civil War.

David C. Keehn is an attorney from Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a history degree from Gettysburg College and a juris doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

Praise for Knights of the Golden Circle

“This history of the KGC is a fascinating look into one of the myriad secret organizations that emerged during the nineteenth century. . . . Keehn pulls together a wealth of disparate and scattered information to construct a compelling, thought-provoking narrative. . . . It is clear that the Knights of the Golden Circle played a massively important role in the period 1859–61, and we have Keehn to thank for bringing their secretive actions to light.”—Civil War History

“David C. Keehn’s well-written treatment of the clandestine Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) sheds considerable light on an understudied group whose members personified the radical southern mindset of the late 1850s and the Civil War years. . . . Despite these issues, Keehn should be applauded for taking on this topic and providing readers with a good sense of how secret southern societies operated.”—Maryland Historical Magazine

“Keehn’s excellent research demonstrates that membership in the Knights created connections between individuals that may not have met otherwise. . . . Keehn illustrates that the KGC was, at least, a far-reaching fraternal organization.”—East Texas Historical Journal

“Secret criminals are elusive animals and typically fail to leave extensive archival paper trails. Keehn should be commended for finding so much evidence about the KGC’s activities, in the process revealing how formidable the organization was in the South.”—Ohio Valley History

“The book is well-written and well-organized. Keehn’s work provides a valuable in-depth treatment of the history of the order, and he does a good job of contextualizing the group within the complex political history of the late antebellum period.”—American Historical Review

“Keehn’s study is an ambitious and well-researched work that seeks to demonstrate how a clandestine association of like-minded individuals turned the southern version of manifest destiny into an influential political force. His work is all the more interesting because secret societies are, well, secret. Thus, they are not the most reliable repositories of written sources upon which historians generally rely. . . . A valuable contribution to the field of Civil War Studies.”—Journal of Southern Religion

“In the first book-length treatment of ‘the shadowy Knights,’ the author has bravely undertaken to separate fact from fiction about these dark figures on the margins of southern history. . . . [A] solidly researched and lucidly written book.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

“David C. Keehn’s new study pieces together a coherent story from limited evidence, helping separate some myths from reality and bringing the Knights into sharper focus. The author has done a tremendous service in piecing together the organization’s story to this point, and it is a work that should stimulate further study.”—Journal of Southern History

Links for Knights of the Golden Circle

Interview with Author David C. Keehn (Civil War Medicine)

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