Rebel Gold : One Man's Quest to Crack the Code Behind the Secret Treasure of the Confederacy

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: 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: 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: An interesting read.
Review: Is there really millions of dollars of Confederate treasure buried in strategically hidden spots across the Continental United States? Yes according to Bob Brewer, co-author of this book.

Shadow of the Sentinel follows Bob's quest to discover and uncover various hoardes of suposed Confederate treasure using his analytical skills, a few clues and a whole bunch of hearsay and supposition. Amazingly he seems to have 'cracked' the code and been on to something. However, we never really find out of he is as he's either stabbed in the back by his erstwhile partner(s) or is refusing to dig as he doesn't have the proper authorisation.

Bob Brewer is a smart fellow; he also seems to be a naive fellow, too. If you're confident that you've discovered buried treasure, be sure you really know somebody before you tell them.

The book gives a detailed history of the Knights of the Golden Circle whilst Bob's treasure hunt is interspersed with tales of the Knights Templar, Scottish Rite Freemasonry, The Civil War and beyond.

A book certainly worth reading even if the conclusion is inconclusive.

Rating:
Summary: W.D. Ashcraft is Jesse James meets Indiana Jones!!
Review: It's about time someone wrote a good "bible" for treasure hunters. Brewer exposes the Knight's of the Golden circle like no one before. His story is exciting and his method proven.This is the first time I have seen anyone print the Treasure overlay in the mass market media, this is a good thing for treasure hunters, we can use all the tools we can get. This alone justifies the cost of the book! In years to come, it may be as valuble as "Jesse James was one of his names" by Schrader. The book could have used a little more history of W.D. Ashcraft, the Sentinel, and a little less about Brewers "across America quest" for the treasure. I wish Brewer would have revealed how the overlay realy worked and gave better specifics that we as readers could have used as a foundation to build from. I fell like he told just enough to sell the book, without revealing the system. It left me wondering about the Sentinel, while telling me to much about the shadow. But, over all ,it is a good book , and I hope someone will follow up with a "part 2 " that tells more of the life of the KGC Sentinel and their mapping methods, good job guys!

Rating:
Summary: Uncover a True Secret of Freemasonry
Review: The "Shadow of the Sentinel" by Bob Brewer and Warren Gettler exposes a suppressed though vital aspect of the history of the United States starting in the pre-Civil War period with implications that are still being felt by us down to this day. This book examines the efforts of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) -- a secretive, Rosicrucian/Knights Templar/high-degree Masonic-based organization devoted to perpetuate the *ideals* the Confederate Cause including states' rights and individual liberty of a chosen elite to do as they desired free from the tyranny of overreaching federal control. For those who have ever heard the rallying cry, "Save your Confederate dollars for the South will rise again!" By reading this book you now will understand who or what was behind that effort.

This book alternates between two interrelated stories. The first story follows one man's (coauthor Bob Brewer's) lifelong quest to rediscover and comprehend the grand designs of a secretive organization in which his Arkansas forebears deep within the Ouachita Mountains participated -- designs mystically traced upon a trestle board deep within the mountains and wilderness areas of this country that turned out to be continental in scope and intended to be decipherable decades if not centuries into the future. Through Bob's research systematically presented in this book he discovers that the KGC evolved to become the driving force behind the acquisition, storage and future retrieval of caches of precious specie and even arms in what has been called an underground Confederate Federal Reserve and Armory. This history exposed for the first time in "Sentinel" constitutes the second threaded story that examines the deliberately suppressed history of this conspiratorial, seemingly seditious organization -- an organization that in its time infiltrated and pulled the strings at the highest levels of US government especially in the 1870s to 1890s long after it supposedly had been disbanded.

This book demonstrates how even the Jesse James saga plays a direct role in this effort by making a convincing case that he was a KGC field level commander steeped in the mystical Rosicrucian tradition -- a tradition that dates back at least to Francis Bacon's 1626 publication of "The New Atlantis" that firmly places this country on a course of cosmic Manifest Destiny -- a destiny that is still unfolding to this day. The authors then go on to uncover how even the lore of the Lost Dutchman Mine located somewhere within the Superstition mountain range of Arizona was just another cover story for a main cache designed to fund and arm the reestablishment of a Second Confederacy rising from the ashes like a Phoenix. Author Bob Brewer has developed for himself a pretty good idea where this cache is located using methods outlined and expounded in this book. He doesn't, however, just come out and say were it is for like a good teacher he challenges others to learn the seemingly complex and arcane though sublimely simple methods employed by the KGC for themselves. He leaves the actual solution as an exercise to the reader. Like a questing Grail Knight, he strongly believes that the search itself imparts vital and important lessons that would be lost by just merely relying on using solutions derived by others.

As an aside -- In my opinion the main reason that the *noble* though clandestine efforts of the KGC outlined in this book ultimately failed in its objectives is because of its members devotion to the morally bankrupt and ultimately indefensible institution of physical slavery or human bondage lasting in perpetuity. An institution that obdurately clashed with the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Even though Thomas Jefferson, the author of this quote and himself a Rosicrucian adept, was a slaveholder, the physical, pecuniary bondage that is slavery of fellow human beings could not withstand disinfecting power of the light of day and healing power of time.

In conclusion, let this book open up your mind to the far richer undercurrents of American History that the authors uncover and skillfully weave in this historical yet ultimately mythical tale.

Rating:
Summary: A Book You Have To Read...
Review: Wow, what a book. If your interested in reading about lost treasure, this book is for you. Jesse James;The Civil War;The Freemasons,all this is intertwined into an incredible story about a lifelong search for buried treasure.Treasure that has been actually found by the author.Very facinating and revealing reading.