Rating: 
Summary: Buried treasure, secret societies, & Jesse James
Review: 'Shadow of the Sentinel' weaves together post civil war Knights of the Golden Circle conspiracies with modern day treasure hunting. It also offers up the idea that Jesse James faked his death and lived to be over a hundred as J. Frank Dalton. The book contends he helped the KGC rob and stash loot for the revival of the southern cause. On the trail of hidden treasure co-author Bob Brewer recounts his adventures solving codes, ciphers, and staying clear of modern guards and weary property owners all while finding small caches of buried coins. He was also tricked by a treasure hunting partner and beaten to the biggest stash of all! It really is just an armchair adventure though so don't read this book looking for clues to buried hoards.
Rating: 
Summary: Take this book with a large grain of salt.
Review: After reading this book I find that the authenticity and research is unmatched by any book about our country's history. The reason I say this is once you have read a couple of other books dealing with European history; (The Da Vinci Code, Holy Blood, Holy Grail) you can clearly see where those two books leave off and this book picks up. It is truly amazing the amount of time and research that went into make this book.I have seen the signs and carvings that this book talks about right here in Oklahoma. I have also seen them in Texas and in Arizona and pictures of the same ones in New Mexico. I really find it hard to believe that these signs can just find their own way across thousands of miles of ocean and settle down in obscure places upon our landscape without any rhyme or reason. To read this book and get the most out of it one must keep an open mind. If you know a little about the Knights Templar and their history this will help you immensely in trying to unravel the hidden meanings that are out there just waiting to be found. There is definitely an intermingling of the European secret societies right here in our own country that will be brought forth in the time it takes you to read this book. I hope everyone that reads this book will enjoy it as much as I have.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must Read
Review: After reading this book I find that the authenticity and research is unmatched by any book about our country's history. The reason I say this is once you have read a couple of other books dealing with European history; (The Da Vinci Code, Holy Blood, Holy Grail) you can clearly see where those two books leave off and this book picks up. It is truly amazing the amount of time and research that went into make this book. I have seen the signs and carvings that this book talks about right here in Oklahoma. I have also seen them in Texas and in Arizona and pictures of the same ones in New Mexico. I really find it hard to believe that these signs can just find their own way across thousands of miles of ocean and settle down in obscure places upon our landscape without any rhyme or reason. To read this book and get the most out of it one must keep an open mind. If you know a little about the Knights Templar and their history this will help you immensely in trying to unravel the hidden meanings that are out there just waiting to be found. There is definitely an intermingling of the European secret societies right here in our own country that will be brought forth in the time it takes you to read this book. I hope everyone that reads this book will enjoy it as much as I have.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond the Farthest Stretches of American Imaginations
Review: Erroneously, it turned out, we assumed that Shadow of the Sentinel: One Man's Quest to Find the Hidden Treasure of the Confederacy (Simon & Schuster, 2003), by Warren Getler and Bob Brewer, was going to be a new account of the search for the Confederate treasury that dwindled and disappeared along the path of Jefferson Davis's flight from Richmond and eventual capture in Georgia.The book is about much more money and much bigger mysteries than that.
Reading southern history and Civil War history over the years, we have sometimes stumbled across references to the Knights of the Golden Circle. Usually, the organization is depicted as a clandestine pre-Civil War group of filibusterers intent upon annexing Mexico or Cuba as slave states, or a Civil War-era group intent upon organizing Copperhead opposition to Lincoln and the war in the Old Northwest (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio). Sometimes parallels are drawn between the Freemasons and the Golden Circle, both of which operated with symbols, passwords, degrees of achievement and status, and secrecy.
In Getler's and Brewer's book, the Knights of the Golden Circle have intimate ties to Old World Knights and Scottish Rite Free Masonry, are linked to the highest circles of American Free Masons (through figures as diverse as John Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, General and Mississippi Governor J. A. Quitman, explorer and highest ranking Mason General Albert Pike, Jesse James, Massachusetts politician Caleb Cushing), are interlocked with Cherokee and Choctaw tribal leaders and territories but also with French Rosicrucians, and operated (and may still operate) secretly in a gamut of places such as Charleston, Natchez, Nashville, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Arizona.
As a youngster in western Arkansas, Bob Brewer was introduced to the woods around Polk County, especially under the wing of an uncle and great-uncle who introduced him to numerous hidden symbols and paths-pieces of metal, carvings on rocks and trees, rock formations, and the topography of the land. The old men around Brewer seemed to know secrets and to serve as custodians and watchmen for something, but they were never explicit about their knowledge. Brewer went off to make a career in the Navy, and when he retired in 1977, he returned to his Arkansas home. Readings and recalled signs and associations brought him into a fascination with the search for gold treasures said to be buried thereabouts.
For the next quarter-century, Brewer made the solving of the mystery of the symbols the dominant force in his life. He collected books, read widely, interviewed old-timers, met and worked with fellow treasure-hunters from other parts of the country, studied old maps, made forays and expeditions, collaborated and was betrayed with some parties and formed fruitful alliances with others, actually uncovered a couple of significant treasures, and painstakingly and single-mindedly pieced together a cryptic overlay map that he applied precisely and successfully to three widely separated treasure sites in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Arizona (the famous Lost Dutchman treasure).
A great deal of this account deals with speculations (including poisonings of Quitman and President Zachary Taylor) and shadows, hypotheses and incredibilities, and remarkable coincidences and happenstance findings. Critical to Brewer's successful searching is his early buying into the story that Jesse James was not killed by Bob Ford in 1882, but faked his own death, and that the J. Frank Dalton who claimed to be James and who died in 1951 at age 104 (or thereabouts) really was James and that he provided much information critical to the development of Brewer's overlay map.
The real proof of the pudding, of course, would be the actual uncovering of one or more enormous mother lodes of treasure in the sites Brewer identifies, but the authors beg off from that step, pleading that Brewer never was after gold itself but only after the unlocking of the key to where its locations, and that reverence for the sentinels who guarded it led them to leave it where it is. They claim to be more interested in having established the existence of a very large secret organization and the location of its treasure-perhaps buried to await a second Civil War or some very high spiritual cause-than in removing the millions or billions of dollars of treasure they apparently have located.
Theirs is a story that tests our ability to believe in conspiracies and causes that have been, up until now, invisible to historians or the naked eye. They have turned a mind-blowing mystery that defies everything we have learned into, at best, "a likely story." And, in the process, a likeable story, as well.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but I'm skeptical of some claims
Review: Have almost finished this book. Consider myself deeply patriotic to the United States, grateful that slavery was ended, and opposed to war unless in defense or to protect. I am of the South and feel viscerally Southern. Since reading The Real Lincoln by another author, my enhanced sensitivity to things Southern amazes me. The Shadow of the the Sentinel is fascinating history made current. It is intriguing to think that the Southern leaders had stashed away for another day. And these are truly very different days. At each "find" of a jar of coins, I found myself curiously unsettled and threatened, wanting the treasure, set aside for some cause specifically Southern, to be left intact rather than to be early harvested for plasma televisions or a few new cars. A fascinating collection of search and history and wonder and possibility. A day or so after starting this book, I felt compelled to soon draft a will, forwarding my worldly possessions, modest though they are, to be placed alongside those collected many years ago, toward something, anything, that would acknowledge the gentle and natural and agriculturally-based glory of the South.
Rating:
Summary: engaging on many levels
Review: Have almost finished this book. Consider myself deeply patriotic to the United States, grateful that slavery was ended, and opposed to war unless in defense or to protect. I am of the South and feel viscerally Southern. Since reading The Real Lincoln by another author, my enhanced sensitivity to things Southern amazes me. The Shadow of the the Sentinel is fascinating history made current. It is intriguing to think that the Southern leaders had stashed away for another day. And these are truly very different days. At each "find" of a jar of coins, I found myself curiously unsettled and threatened, wanting the treasure, set aside for some cause specifically Southern, to be left intact rather than to be early harvested for plasma televisions or a few new cars. A fascinating collection of search and history and wonder and possibility. A day or so after starting this book, I felt compelled to soon draft a will, forwarding my worldly possessions, modest though they are, to be placed alongside those collected many years ago, toward something, anything, that would acknowledge the gentle and natural and agriculturally-based glory of the South.
Rating:
Summary: Real Life Da Vinci Code
Review: I cannot recommend this book enough. I went to a Getler book signing not knowing what the book was even about, and he blew me away. Before I knew it, I was having him sign the 5 copies that I had just purchased! My friends and I can't get enough. We anxiously await hearing about Brewer's next exploits! The chapter on Jesse James alone is some of the best history I've come across.
Rating:
Summary: shadow of the sentinel
Review: I have been involved with hunting KGC treasure for 20 years. I believe that The Shadow of the Sentinel will become the Bible for all serious treasure henters. If you do not have this book to take to the field, you might as well stay home and become an arm chair treasure hunter. Your sucess will be about the same. If you are good enough to get close to one of these treasures, then the system that Bob Brewer has developed in the book, will quickly lead you to the treasure. If I had had this book 20 years ago, things would have been very diferent. Remember that in almost all things "Truth is truly stranger than fiction".
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Book
Review: I particularly liked the history that was included in this book. The author makes some claims that seem a bit 'odd' until you read his book and see how he has dotted the i's and crossed the t's with his research. The one downfall of this book, in my opinion, was that Bob Brewer in this book always turns out to be a victim of unethical lying people and he is always the good guy. In my opinion, he came across as a bit of a martyr. That made reading this book somewhat difficult at times. However, this was an interesting read. It makes you believe that if you just connect the clues you too can find gold. Of course, I'm sure it's not the simple. But this book makes it seem possible. Again, the best part of the book was the history. enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A "MUST-READ" BOOK FOR HISTORY BUFFS !
Review: I've read the book---TWICE ! And I'm preparing to read it for a THIRD time !
One word: WOW !
If you have an interest in the KGC ( Knights of the Golden Circle ), Jesse James, the Civil War, or American History---this book is a "must-read" book.
The KGC was a Civil War organization of Confederate sympathizers who collected and secreted millions ( and MAYBE it is BILLIONS ! ) of dollars in gold, silver, currency, weapons and supplies with the avowed objective of continuing the Civil War until the South was victorious. The South shall rise again !
If you will read this book with an open mind you will thoroughly enjoy the great story it tells, but: be prepared to learn that some things you learned in your history books were false !
The author tells of how he has deciphered many clues and maps to recover some KGC treasure caches.
You will learn how Jesse James was associated with the KGC, along with many government officials.
After reading this book ( and it could be a controversial book ! ) I now believe that there are still many KGC caches secreted throughout the U.S. for you and I to find.
For the dedicated treasure hunter, the adventurer and the historian ( and anyone else ! ) this book will definitely get some interesting conversations started !
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