The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1896-03-06
WARTIME POTS or GOLD.

| VI AoV y NttiS w SOillt llltlc W lII DE
tales of treasure trove from that large
section of the midsouth which was for
three years of civil war debatable
land, wherein, outside the army posts,
there was no security of person or
property. The invaders themselves
had pretty taste for looting, but
they were nothing like so rapacious as
the guerrillas, who plundered impair
tally men Of all sympathies, and as
often sported blue and brass as the
Confederate gray. The guerrillas had,
indeed, but single active principle
pillage. Gold was at an enormous
premium.
Still, very many did insist OH having
gold, and found life burden after they
go it. The writer remembers, as a
small child, the weeks of unrest that
followed the coming into the house of
a fat bag Of double eagles in exchange
for many hOgsheads of tobacco In
that time and place gold was more
dangerous than dynamite. All the
househI had heard the curdling
blood tales Of the tortures old men in
deed had endured during attempts to
make them reveal the hiding place of
their money. One, family connec-
ton, had been strapped to board and
held with his feet to slow fire until
they were so scrisp he never walked
again; yet to the last he had kept
stoutly silent. Another had been
swung up by the thumbs throughout a
long, cold night, with nothing on but
the garments in which he had been
dragged from bed An old woman
miser had been beaten raw and her
wounds washed with vinegar. Indeed
every variety of torture that fendish
ingenuity could devise was said to
have been practiced to ward the un-
happy possessors Of hidden treasures.
So it became matter first impor-
tance to be able to say truthfully that
you knew nothing of such thing.
Sudden death did come in many
eases. One old farmer, who had held
three years crop until priese were at
their highest, got Sl2 900 in the yellow
metal, took it home and gave it to his
wife, bidding her to do the best she
could with it. She was an easy going.
unthrifty sort of body; and buried it
in the garden in plain sight of every
body about the place, taking only the
precaution to set struggling rose
bush on top of it, and, further, to put
above the gold a bag of silver that she
herself had saved up. That was Fri
day night. On Sunday the family
went to preaching. When they came
home the rosetree lay uprooted, the
bag of silver was gone, and so were a
wagon and team, besides family of
negroes.
They had taken all of their belong
ings, also much of their masters and
run away to the nearest Federal out
posts, which was 20 miles off Pursuit
was useless and would have been fool
ish. The farmer eyed the rifed hole
minute, then thrust his arm down into
it, scratched about furiously, clutched
something deeper down and brought
up the bag of gold. The despoilers,
finding it, had not thought to trust his
wite's hiding further. He was god
ly man, but, Sunday though it was,
he swung the bag over his shoulder
and tramped off into woods. He did
not come back until the night was well
on and said nothing of what he had
done with the money. He never said
anything in fact. Six months later
he was found dead in bed of heart dis
ease, and though his heirs hunted high
and low, have asked the help of the di-
vining rod and con ulted clairvovants,
to say nothing of having cleared up the
whole woodland and dug over the whole
1000 acre farm, to thiS day they have
never found a trace of the lost money.
Another man buried pot of gold in
a rickerty barn, then set fire to the
structure, being certain that no one
would think of rummaging in the ash
eS. And still another put S500,0OO in
gold and greenbacks in the earthen floor
of his smoke house, and let it stay there
five years, not daring to take it out un
til reconstruction was pretty well ac-
compIished. One of his neighbors, the
thrttiest man in the county, was known
to have put Il very large sum in the
rock walls of his cellar, but to have
grown distrustful of that hiding place,
and so to have chosen another. Where
the other was located never came out;
but the man who chose it was secretive,
and did not tell even his only son. BY
and by he was striker speechless and
motionless at a time when he looked to