It's an interesting story.
By early May, 1865, the Confederate Treasury funds that were previously transported out of Richmond had been almost entirely disbursed in-transit. However, the separate shipment of treasury specie, owned by the Richmond banks, was still largely intact up until the date of the hijack on May 24. These bank assets primarily belonged to two Richmond banks – the Bank of Virginia and the Farmers' Bank of Virginia. According to court statements submitted afterwards by the Richmond banks, the specie consisted of gold and silver coin and bullion, but was principally in gold coin, and was worth about $450,000 (at the time).
The train of five wagons carrying the banks' treasury assets left Washington GA for the return journey to Richmond VA under a travel permit issued by the Union Provost-Marshal-General, and with an inadequate guard of seven Federal cavalryman and several bank officers. During the night of May 24, the encamped wagon train was attacked, about 18 miles from Washington, GA, near the Savannah River, by about twenty armed mounted raiders who had planned the action. It is estimated that the raiders got away with up to about $250,000 worth of the treasure. According to Confederate General E. P. Alexander (who later led an effective effort to recover some of these stolen assets), the hijackers were Confederate stragglers roaming freely over the countryside. One local person, Mary Anne Chennault Shumate, later claimed that the robbers were mostly disgruntled Tennessee and Kentucky soldiers, belonging to Vaughn's command.
The next day, a small assembled group of armed volunteers, under the leadership of E. P. Alexander, managed to recover about $110,000 of the stolen specie from some of the renegades. The recovered property was handed over to a Federal government authorized U.S. Treasury agent in Augusta GA, who arranged for its safe passage back to the custody of the U.S. Treasury in Washington D.C.. (In 1893, the Bank of Virginia was awarded only $16,987.88 of this total of $110,000; the remainder became the property of the U.S. government).
Apparently, when the raided wagon train finally returned to Richmond VA, there was only $160,000 left in its carried casings.
Using these estimates, this leaves about $180,000 of the total of $450,000 that was never accounted for, meaning this missing amount was either stolen or lost.
When news of the hijack was received, several weeks later, Union troops led by General Edward Wild began searching for the unrecovered gold (mainly) in the vicinity. Wild used extreme measures on locals, like members of the Chennault family, to unsuccessfully extract information about the possible whereabouts of the missing specie. For this inappropriate conduct, Wild was subsequently removed from command by Grant.
There are various speculations of what happened to the unretrieved $180,000 worth of predominantly gold. Some think that the gold was buried or stashed somewhere in the local area by the raiders who could not carry it away. Yet others believe that the various hijackers rode away with their shares to spend it and start a new life elsewhere.
Whatever is the truth, it's still a mystery.
Bringing the