As the Confederate soldiers marched or rode through York County during the invasion of June 1863, many of them were astounded at seeing multiple farmers along their route making strange hand gestures. At times, these Pennsylvanians also cried out, “Peace! Peace!” Some of these citizens also presented golden-colored pieces of paper purporting to be membership cards in the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secretive society reportedly founded in Kentucky in 1854 to advocate the extension of slavery into Mexico and the West Indies. During the war, pockets of the mysterious organization appeared in various Northern states promoting the Southern cause. Some period newspaper accounts suggest attempts to organize a KGC chapter in Berks County and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
In York County, for some time before the Rebels arrived, a group of strangers had traveled throughout south-central Pennsylvania selling these annual membership cards for $1 and teaching the buyers the password and secret signs and grips (special handshakes).
They were not authorized recruiters from the Knights of the Golden Circle.
They were, in reality, clever con men and greedy shysters from New York City who preyed on the fears of the naive farmers, telling them that when the Rebels arrived, all they had to do was show them the secret gestures, recite the password, and/or show the membership cards (often mentioned as “golden tickets.”).
But, these devious hucksters were not alone. Others since the beginning of the war had tried to take advantage of the strong anti-Lincoln feelings in the region. The press likened them, and their adherents, to the proverbial Trojan wooden horse, seemingly innocent but fraught with potential real danger.
In Part 1 of this Cannonball story, we will look at an article that 19th-century local historian George Reeser Prowell wrote for the June 23, 1905, edition of the York Daily. In subsequent blog entries in this brief series, we will look at various contemporary accounts of the Knights of the Golden Circle specifically in York County and the surrounded region.
Edit - I don't see an answer to the third part of the question here.
hoosier