Did the FBI secretly find $400m in stolen civil war gold buried in Pennsylvania?

A lawyer has claimed the FBI secretly discovered $400 million in stolen Civil War gold bars buried in a Pennsylvania forest three years ago.

Harrisburg attorney William Cluck said Thursday he’d learned the name of the federal judge who ordered all records of the March 2018 excavation to be sealed.

‘I got what I wanted,’ Cluck told PennLive after submitting a Right-to-Know appeal.

He said he can now apply to the judge in question to unseal the records in the case.

Cluck’s client is Finders Keepers LLC, treasure hunters who say they were banned from digging at Dents Run, where legend says gold bullion was buried.

The FBI later carried out work at the forest but said they didn’t find anything.

According to the 155-year-old tale, a Union Army wagon train was carrying two tons of gold on a 400-mile journey between Wheeling, West Virginia, and Gettysburg.

FBI agents and representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources set up a base off Route 555 in Benezette Township, Elk County, Pennsylvania in March, 2018

According to a 155-year-old legend, a Union Army wagon train was carrying two tons of gold on a 400-mile journey between Wheeling, West Virginia, and Gettysburg. The gold was sent by President Abraham Lincoln to pay Union soldiers (pictured, at the Battle of Gettysburg) but first had to stop at the US Mint in Philadelphia

The treasure-hunting group Finders Keepers has long insisted it found the gold buried in a state forest at Dents Run, but said the state would not allow it to dig

The gold was sent by President Abraham Lincoln to pay Union soldiers but first had to make a stop at the US Mint in Philadelphia.

It was last spotted in St Marys, Pennsylvania, travelling northeast towards the capital. 

When the wagon train didn’t arrive at the Mint, searchers were sent out who discovered empty wagons and the bodies of dead soldiers. 

Various accounts say that the lieutenant charged with leading the wagon had fallen into a fever and divulged the secret of their cargo to the lower ranking soldiers.

Roguish elements within his own squadron are then said to have slain the rest and made off with the treasure.

In any case, despite the best efforts to track down the gold it was never found. 

Different versions say that the shipment was either carrying 26 gold bars or 52, each weighing 50 pounds.

In today’s money it would be worth between $35 million and $70 million.

Cluck’s clients put the value at $400 million, clearly believing there is more than just the single tonne of gold.

Treasure hunters have been searching the forests of Pennsylvania for decades to try and find the legendary stash of gold.

In 2012, Finders Keepers said they’d found the gold but the state would not allow them to dig it.

They say that Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources barred them from excavating the area. 

Lincoln, center right, surrounded by crowd, preparing to deliver the Gettysburg address at dedication of Gettysburg National Cemetery

Instead, federal investigators would later takeover the area, saying their work was part of an ‘ongoing criminal investigation.’ 

Cluck and his clients are sceptical about the FBI’s claim that it didn’t find anything at Dent’s Run.

The lawyer argued that the involvement of the bureau’s Art Crimes Division in the probe and the shroud of silence over the excavation only fuels their suspicions. 

The treasure hunters believe that a ground-penetrating scan carried out by the FBI at the site was evidence they must have thought something big was buried there.

‘They had 50 agents there … We have witnesses that they were there all night with armored cars. So, what are we supposed to believe?’ Cluck said.

‘We are convinced that they found gold.’