Treasure and Empire in the Civil War: The Panama Route, the West and the Campaigns to Control America's Mineral Wealth

Across North America's periphery, unknown and overlooked Civil War campaigns were waged over whether the Union or Confederacy would dominate lands, mines, and seaborne transportation networks of North America's mineral wealth. The Union needed this wealth to stabilize their wartime economy while the Confederacy sought to expand their own treasury. Confederate armies advanced to directly seize the West and its gold and silver reserves, while warships steamed to intercept Panama route ships transporting bullion from California to Panama to New York. Union forces responded by expelling Confederate incursions and solidified territorial control by combating Indigenous populations and enacting laws encouraging frontier settlement. At sea, the U.S. Navy patrolled key ports, convoyed treasure ships, and integrated continent-wide intelligence networks in the ultimate game of cat and mouse. This book examines the forgotten campaigns to control North America's mineral wealth, linking the Civil War's military, naval, political, diplomatic and economic elements. Included are the hemispheric land and sea adventures involving tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, admiral and explorer Charles Wilkes, renowned sea captain Raphael Semmes, General Henry Sibley, cowboy and mountain man Kit Carson, Indigenous leaders Mangas Coloradas and Geronimo, writer and miner Mark Twain, and Mormon leader Brigham Young.