The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1867-09-27
BICKLEY.
The Extraordinary Career cf an Amer
lean AdVenturer.
From tho Memnbis Avalanche, 17th. |

recently, in Baltimore, of singular per-
sonage, from whose life instructive lessons
might be drawn. This was the notorious
George Buckley. tie founder Of the Knights
of the Golden Circle-a man to whom moro
properly belonged the title OF adventurer
than any other individual in this country.
He was man in whose character there
were MANY flaws, but his best justification
would be a truthful statement of his life,
and some time when the history Of the ear
ly stages of the great rebellion are fully
written, the true character Of the talented,
handsome. vain and INSCRIPTIONS George
Washington Buckley may serve to illus
trate it. Few lives have been more event
full than his. An orphan boy in Virginia,
he ran away at the age of twelve years,
and went TO New Orleans, and from that
time to his death, when considerably over
! forty-years of age, he lived life of adven-
ture, successes, reverses and vicissitudes.
! With grand ideas, great projects, immense
speculations, he held that success IN great
undertakings which were scarcely more
difficult than in those Of more limited char
acter, and ia some respects results justi-
fed his theory. Beginning life with many
disadvantages, he attained good English
and fair classical education. He wrote a
very good work on posons and their an
! tidotes he became successful professor
in a respectable medical college he wrote
a number of excellent medical works, of
which another got the credit; he estab-
/ lished, and for some time edited a very
able mechanics paper he wrote many
creditable articles in medical journals, daily
! papers and literary magazines he edited
| for some time lady's magazine; lie orig
mated the foundation of great institution
of learning; he was on terms of friendship
and intimacy with many distinguished pol
iticians, professional characters and litera-
ry gentlemen. He engaged at one time
extensively in agriculture and vine grow
ing. He founded and, by years of devoted
labof, made the knights of the Golden
Circle to grow, until it had branches in
fourteen Stales, and comprised an aggre-
gate membership of seventeen thousand in-
dividuals Lastly he married and ran
through the fortunes Of three wealthy wo-
men. A man who could do all this must
have beena person of more than ordinary
activity, and it cannct be said that his life
was wholly blank. Before the war he
had mady grand projects. At one time he
| expected to realize a colossal fortune by
the grant of coal mines in the Dominion
Republic at another, unbounded wealth
was to be obtained by monopoly of the
introduction of American agricultural i'm
plements into Russia In the formation of
the Knights of the Golden Circle, his in
spiration probably originally came from
General Quitmau and Mr.. Yancey, but
Mr.. Buckley did not intend to be the tool Of
any political combination. He actually
planned, and his remarkable success for
a time seemed to justify his hopes, to
found great military government in Mex
leo, Of which he should be Emperor. The
care with which his plans were elaborated,
the curious system of laws, institutions,
checks and balances which he had devised,
showed that the hope of grasping an empire
was the ruling idea of his life. Fate stood
in his way. We have seen letters written
to him by both Miramon and Juarez pro-
fering cooperation, grants Of land and
other great advantages. They wished to
have the help of his Knights without in
curing the odium of publicly inviting
them into the Mexican country. The fail
ure of a negotiation to topurchase steamships
from George Law. and the decided stand
of our Government in forbidding armed
emigration to Mexico, delayed Buckley s
plans. Then the war broke out, and the
order of the Knights of the Golden Circle
being composed of Southern men who were
unable to leave the country, drifted into
the rebellion movement and became for Z
time one of its most efficient promoters
Buckley was unscrupulous and unprinci
pied Nature and education had conspir
ed to encourage these traits in his charac
ter 1t would not be much use for any
man who was not unscrupulous and un
principled to aspire to be an emperor
He had warm Southern sympathies, but s.
logical turn of mind that he appreciated
fully the blunders made by both the grea
parties of the country. This brief sketcl
does not exhaust-in fact it scarcely doe
more than suggest the eventful life an'
curious character of the subject Of GU
sketch, whose fecundity of projects ha
been rarely unequalled. The suggestion
Of new discovery in science, OF some neV
application in art, at once inspired HIN
with some grand scheme for controlling it
The most ordinary incidents were seize'
by him as presenting El Doradoss for ad
r.-..vrea Chancin. To be Detained at Ma