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Open Legend · Unsolved

Mosby's Confederate Cache

Buried 1863, Haymarket, Culpeper, N. Virginia
COLD TRAIL
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

Mosby's Confederate Cache: still unexplained.

~$350K (1863)

The subject
developing the photograph…
The manifest
~$350K (1863)
The account

Mosby's raiders buried Union officers' valuables between two marked pines, then all the guards were killed or captured.

Leads, where the trail points now
  • The legend places a sack of Union silver and gold buried between two trees in Fauquier County, Virginia, during Mosby's 1863 Greenback Raid.
  • The lead is that the men who buried it were captured and hanged before they could return, so it was never recovered; the ground is private farmland changed beyond recognition.
  • Detecting needs landowner permission, and the two-trees marker is long gone, which is why it has never been found.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • The legend places a sack of Union silver and gold buried between two trees in Fauquier County, Virginia, during Mosby's 1863 Greenback Raid.
  • The lead is that the men who buried it were captured and hanged before they could return, so it was never recovered; the ground is private farmland changed beyond recognition.
  • Detecting needs landowner permission, and the two-trees marker is long gone, which is why it has never been found.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 38.810°, -77.640° View on the Map