Its principal object was to provide a force to colonize the northern part of Mexico and thus extend proslavery interests, and the Knights became especially active in Texas. Bickley, a Virginian who had moved to Ohio, organized the first 'castle,' or local branch, in Cincinnati in 1854 and soon took the order to the South, where it was enthusiastically received. They were especially strong in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, where Clement L.
In the American Civil War, a reproachful term for those Northerners sympathetic to the South, mostly Democrats outspoken in their opposition to the Lincoln administration. Its members were known as Copperheads Copperheads, Knights of the Golden Circle, secret order of Southern sympathizers in the North during the Civil War.
