Confederate Gold and Silver (60 page)

Despite several hours of crisscrossing the city and speaking to several Civil War experts, Paul had nothing positive happen to improve his chances of finding the balance of the treasury. It was nearly 3 pm when he gave up hopes of finding any new information regarding the clues he had. After ignoring the many hints Donna had dropped to him over the past hour, he finally relented and they stopped for a late lunch at a small restaurant on Calhoun Street. It was one that was immediately around the corner from the College of Charleston.

Disappointed by the results of the day, Paul ate only a small portion of his lunch before they finally started making their way back to their car. As they walked back on Meeting Street, he patiently waited outside as Donna browsed through several shops and boutiques. Standing outside one of the shops she was browsing in, he unfolded a copy of the letter Francis had written to President Davis. Slowly he reread the letter to himself. “I know he is not referring to slaves in his letter when he talks about
‘our
black
friends,
while
strong
and
solid’
as it just does not make sense. They were fighting a war in which slavery was one of the principle issues, especially here in the South. The letter was too polite, almost too complimentary, for a Confederate officer to write in those days about slaves. So, if it wasn’t slaves he was talking about, what was it and why can I not figure this out?”

Done with her late afternoon shopping, they casually walked back to their car, cutting through White Point Gardens located at the end of Meeting Street. The park was just around the corner from where they had parked their car. Despite the cool breeze blowing in off the harbor, the sun warmed them as they walked hand in hand. Walking across Murray Boulevard, Paul stopped briefly to admire the view of Fort Sumter lying far out in Charleston Harbor. “What it must have been like that first morning when the Confederates were shelling the fort. If only the fort could speak.”

Donna had kept on walking down the sidewalk, but stopped when she heard his voice. “What’s that, Paul?”

“Nothing, just thinking out loud.”

Walking back across the street they stopped to take a closer look at a monument the city of Charleston had erected in White Point Gardens. They saw it was one dedicated
‘To
the
Defenders
of
Charleston’
, those Confederate soldiers who had served the city so well during the Civil War. As they started to walk back towards the car, Paul stopped to ponder a thought he had. Again, Donna kept walking without him. Realizing he was not behind her; she stopped and turned to look at him. “Paul, are you coming?”

“Yeah, in a minute.” Frustrated by the lack of progress, he sat down on a nearby park bench and took the Francis letter out of his pocket to read again. Pausing before reading the letter, Paul hollered down the sidewalk to his wife. “Donna, I just need a couple of minutes. Just let me think something out and then we will get going.”

“OK, I’ll just take a walk around the park for a couple of minutes, but then we have to get going. It’s going to be late by the time we get back home.”

“What? Yeah, OK.” Paul tried one more time to decipher the Francis clues.

Fifteen minutes later Donna was back from her stroll through the park. Taking off her sunglasses as she sat down on the bench next to him, she asked him if he had made any progress deciphering the clues. “Any luck?”

“Nope! No pun intended, but I don’t have a clue as to what he is trying to tell us. Not a darn clue!” Standing up, Paul refolded the letter and placed it back inside his shirt pocket. “I know as much now as I did before my two trips down to this fine city. It’s here, but I’ll be darned if I can figure it out. OK, let’s go, I need to get you home. Thanks for being so patient.”

Donna was silent for a couple of moments as they started walking to their car, but then she asked him a question. “Paul, some of those cannons I saw in the park have numbers on them. Why is that?”

Lost in his own thoughts, Paul was at first confused by what Donna had asked him. “Numbers? What numbers? I don’t know, probably serial numbers put on them by the manufacturers when the cannons were made.”

Donna laughed at his answer. “I doubt that!”

“OK, so maybe it’s not a serial number, maybe it’s something else, but what’s so funny?”

“Paul, it can’t be a serial number. How would the cannons be able to fire if the number was there? I mean, you know, with the concrete and all that’s there.”

Immediately Paul stopped walking, his brain instantly bombarded with thoughts and questions racing through his mind. Grabbing Donna by the arm, he spun her around on the sidewalk, quickly walking her back in the direction they had just come from. “Show me!”

“Paul, it’s probably nothing. I just saw the numbers and the letters, and I thought you might know what they meant.”

“Perhaps it’s nothing, perhaps it’s everything. Where did you see it? Show me!”

Donna quickly pointed to one of the park’s Seven Inch Banded Brooks Rifle, a cannon which still pointed out at Fort Sumter after all of these years since the war. Like the other cannons in the park it had been permanently mounted on a display for tourists to have their pictures taken next to. A brass plate on the ground below each mounted cannon told visitors the types of cannons they were looking at. As Paul walked towards the cannon, two other cannons known as Columbiad cannons—‘Confederate Rodmans’—sat off to his right. Like the Brooks Rifle, the Columbiads were still pointed out at the fort, poised to fire their next shot. Donna watched from the sidewalk as he slowly walked over to the cannon she had pointed out.

First looking at the barrel end of the cannon, he saw it looked like most cannons that had been put out on public display. It had been painted with several coats of black paint to protect it from the elements. Like the others, the cannon had been placed on a concrete mount and the barrel had been filled with some type of mortar. Paul had always thought these types of historical cannons had likely been filled to keep rain water from damaging the interior of the barrel. Now as he stared at the mortar, his eyes saw the small inscription. Carefully inscribed, and still visible after so many years, were the letters C.S.A. Also still visible was the number 10. The number had been inscribed directly below the letters. Instantly he knew they were the clues he had been looking for.

“You
idiot!”
Paul screamed out loud to no one but himself. His sudden outburst drew puzzled and concerned looks from several nearby tourists in the park. Standing only a few steps away, Donna burst out laughing as she knew her innocent observation had caused him to finally find what he had been looking for. The smile that crossed his face confirmed to her something special was soon to happen.

Quickly they retreated to a quieter section of the park. Sitting down on one of the benches near the King Street section of the park, Paul leaned over and gave his wife a long and passionate kiss. Softly, so others walking nearby could not hear him, he whispered to her. “You found it, Donna! You found it!”

“Paul, I know you are excited about what I just found, and excuse my ignorance, but what is it I just found that has gotten you so excited? And one more thing, back there when you yelled ‘you idiot’, you were talking about yourself, correct?”

Excited by what they had just found, he could not help but laugh at what she had just asked him. “Correct. I am the idiot I was referring to. I spent so much time looking at the cannons themselves and everything else that I missed the obvious clue that was staring me in the face. But you didn’t, you saw it!” Paul leaned over and gave her another long kiss.

Almost whispering so others nearby in the park did not hear him, Paul explained to Donna the meaning of the clues the Francis letter held and what the inscriptions in the cannon meant. “This cannon, and several more like it, were used by Francis to hide the remaining gold and silver in.”

“You mean this cannon is . . . .”

Quickly he put his hand over Donna’s mouth before she could finish her thoughts and before she could let everyone else in the park know what it was they had just found. After taking his hand off of her mouth, Paul gave her another kiss as a way to show her his appreciation for what she had just found.

Donna was completely taken back by the totally out of character public display of affection he had shown her, but she enjoyed it. “Gees, with all this kissing going on, I hope we can figure out some other clues here today as well. I’m starting to like this.”

Paul laughed again and as he did he could feel the tension from the last two weeks leave his body. He was back to being himself at last. But as fast as his body had relaxed, his mind started racing, thinking of the steps he needed to take.

“Donna, you know what this means, right?”

“I think it means I am probably driving home by myself tonight and you are staying down here. Am I correct?”

“Yes, you are. Are you OK with that? I mean, I have to figure out a few more things, make a few phone calls to get the others down here and then start looking for the other cannons. We figured out the last piece of the puzzle, but there’s still a lot of work to do yet.”

“If I said no would you be happy with that answer? Of course you wouldn’t. I want you to be happy and I want you to figure this all out. I’m amazed at what you have found so far. I know when you are ready you are going to rock the world with the story you are going to tell them. So no, I don’t mind you staying down here, go find the rest of it and get it done.”

“Thanks for understanding all of this for me. I appreciate it.”

“I know you do. Tell you what, tell Chick to stop by the house when you call him. When I get home, I will pack a bag with some fresh clothes for you for a couple of days.”

Walking her to her car, Paul kissed her again and then they said their goodbyes. “Call me when you get home so I know you got there safely.”

As Paul watched her drive down the street, his head was already spinning. It was busy trying to figure out what his next step was going to be. Among his many thoughts was how he was going to locate the other cannons that had the same markings as the one they just found. Donna had not even reached the end of the street and he was already on the phone to Chick.

“Hello?”

Still far too excited from what he had just discovered with Donna, Paul skipped the usual telephone pleasantries and got right to the point. “Chick, I need Jayne and you to get down to Charleston right now.”

“Right now? What’s so important that it cannot wait until tomorrow?”

“How about the missing clue we have been looking for. I found it. Well, actually Donna found it, but she didn’t know what she had found until she told me about it. Get down here and then I’ll put the remaining pieces of the puzzle together for you and . . . . can you just get Jayne and get down here? I’ll fill you in some more when you get here.”

“Paul, how can you be so confident about what you have found? We’ve been striking out for the past couple of weeks and all of a sudden you think you have solved the mystery because your wife told you about something.”

“Chick, the letter our friend wrote, in it he talks about
‘the
strong
black
solid
friends
of
ours
who
have
served
us
well
since
Fort
Sumter’
. He also makes a reference to the letters CSA. Chick, he was not talking about slaves, he was talking about cannons. I’m not talking about this on the cell anymore as I don’t know who might be listening. Get Jayne and get down here tonight. I will give you the rest of the story when you get here. You are going to be amazed at what I have discovered. I still don’t have all of the answers yet, that’s why I need you both down here. I need your help. You coming or not?”

“OK, OK, I trust you. Get a couple of hotel rooms ready for us. I’ll get Jayne and we will call you when we are just outside of the city. You want me to get Pete and Bobby Ray down there also?”

“No, not yet. We still have some work to do before we need them here. Listen, before you come down, stop at my house first. Donna is going to pack a bag of clean clothes for me for a couple of days, grab them for me. You guys better pack for a couple of days as well. Call me when you are close to Charleston and I will let you know where we are staying. Chick, I promise this is gonna be the best one yet. Hey, make sure you bring a flashlight.”

After ending the phone call, Paul walked a few blocks until he got to the Charleston Holiday Inn—Mills House. It was one he had seen on Meeting Street earlier in the day. Once there, he reserved three hotel rooms for the next three days. He hoped they would find what they were looking for before the hotel reservations expired.

******

Four hours later Chick and Jayne were finally pulling into Charleston. They barely had time to check into the Holiday Inn before Paul was dragging them down to where the cannons silently stood in the park off of South Battery Road.

As they neared the park, both Chick and Jayne could sense the tone of excitement in Paul’s voice over the discovery he had made. Despite their best efforts at prying the big surprise from him, he resisted their efforts, waiting instead for them to see in person what it was that had made him so excited.

“There she is!” Smiling, Paul proudly pointed at the Banded Brooks cannon which held the clue he hoped would soon lead them to other cannons in the city. Other cannons hopefully with similar markings to the ones he now showed Chick and Jayne.

“OK, we see the cannon. So what’s this got to do with you being so excited and dragging us down here in the middle of the night? I cannot believe one old cannon has gotten you so excited!” Chick still did not grasp what the connection was between the clues and the cannon he was looking at.