Airdate: Confederate Gold

Next week the History channel premieres Confederate Gold featuring treasure hunters Rick and Marty Lagina (The Curse of Oak Island) searching for lost riches from the Civil War.

This appears to be screening ahead of its US debut (as Curse of the Civil War Gold on March 6).

Treasure hunters Rick and Marty Lagina have been approached by treasure seekers around the world offering leads and seeking advice. A few months ago, Marty learned of a mystery that rivals that of Oak Island when he was introduced to Kevin Dykstra, a fellow Michigan man. Dykstra along with his brothers James and Mark, is obsessed with a story of national treasure that goes back to the Civil War.

In 1865, Union soldiers from Michigan tracked down Jefferson Davis before the defeated rebel president fled the country. They allegedly confiscated something of value from him and smuggled it north on a train. They later buried the train engine to hide their tracks (though Kevin has quite literally found the tracks again), and began arguing over the mysterious treasure. Part of it was allegedly put into a train car on a barge that sank in Lake Michigan. Part of it may lay in a warren of tunnels beneath Michigan. And another trove allegedly exists in Utah in the cave of a man who committed suicide. Kevin believes he can find the buried train, and has permission to dive the Lake Michigan site. He is also investigating the Utah and Michigan leads, as well as banks which may contain remnants of the treasure, and various connected sites in the American south.

Is it all part of a vast conspiracy, one which connects the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to the rise of America’s super-rich, and created a nation where billionaires are king? Truth is gold.

Thursdays from March 1 at 9.30pm on History.