General Robert E. Lee Surrenders

In 1865, a few days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union forces, all the Confederacy's gold was shipped to Florida enroute to the Bahamas.

Jefferson Davis Led The Exodus

President Jefferson Davis fled with what remained of the Confederate Treasury.  Some sources say that the money was on route back to Virginia; others say that it was to be shipped to France by way of Savannah.
 

Five Wagons Filled With Gold

The gold was loaded onto five wagons on the morning of May 24, 1865. They made it as far as the Chennault Plantation where they were attacked by armed raiders. The gold disappeared.
 

Judah P Benjamin Stole The Gold

Benjamin was born a British subject in Saint Thomas, but the family fled after a swindle. In 1824, he attended Fayetteville Academy in North Carolina, and at the age of fourteen he entered Yale Law School. In 1832 he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he married into a rich family and  became a slave owner, and established a sugar plantation in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. Plantation.

Confederate President Davis appointed Benjamin to be the first Attorney General of the Confederacy on February 25, 1861, remarking later that he chose him because he "had a very high reputation as a lawyer, and my acquaintance with him in the Senate had impressed me with the lucidity of his intellect, his systematic habits, and capacity for labor." Benjamin has been often referred to as "the Brains of the Confederacy."

After Robert E. Lee's surrender, Judah P. Benjamin fled south with Jefferson Davis. 7

 

Benjamin Flees To London

In 1866, he was found in London, a attorney employed by the Rothschilds.  He died on May 6, 1884, and was interred at Père Lachaise cemetery.