Mr. Proctor is shot, and Yancy finds a Confederate half dollar in his dying hand. After traveling by horseback to a plantation mansion in Baton Rouge, Yancy learns of the (supposed) sudden death of General Stafford. However, the General is actually still alive, and his coffin instead contains a horde of $500,000 worth of silver and gold bullion, sent from Richmond (originally intended, evidently, for the production in New Orleans, of Confederate coins). The grand-daughter Gloria is engaged to marry the suspicious Earl Bartley. Yancy looks for clues, but is interrupted by one of the conspirators, and taken at gunpoint to a back shed to be shot. Instead, Yancy's bodyguard Pahoo whacks the bad guy on the head, and also finds the tied-up General. They decide to disguise the General as a Union soldier, and board the Sultana steam wheeler, bound south to New Orleans. Eventually, the cache of gold and silver, hidden in cotton bales, is lost in the Mississippi River. Gloria's wedding to Bartley is called off, and he and his buddies are arrested.
—R. Vail