Contrasted Views of the Organization inspired by its Dealings with the Public—Its Political Bearing—Its Objects not deemed Harmful to Society—New England Transcendentalists, and the Ponderous Science which they put before the World under the Title of “Negropholism”—The Colored Man in the South—Kindly Feeling for the Race cherished by Native Southerners—Households Presided over by Colored Matrons—Superstitious Tendencies of Cuffey—One of the Conditions of his Tropical Nativity—Heathenish Lapses—His Ideas about “Ghosts,” and the Realm which they Inhabit—Interviewing the former—Spook Kinsfolk—He holds them in the highest Veneration—The ideal “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”—Wherein it was a Failure—The “Infantile Sex” and their Greed for Ghost-lore—Fighting their way through Legions of Shadowy Foes to their “Curtained Rest”—Young Professors of the Spiritual Science—Painful Reminiscences—Use to which the Aged Patriarch, or Beldam, as the Case might be, put their Prerogative—Talent for relating Ghost Stories—The Young White Men of the South trained up in this School—Insight into Negro Character obtained therefrom—K. K. K. Affectation of the Supernatural based upon the latter.
The two preceding chapters may occur to those who were not informed of the nature and degree of the excitement which waited upon the movements of these secret organizations in obscure and uninformed neighborhoods, and among the negroes in various localities, as partaking of the hypercritical in narrative. But those who, by reason of residence or other accident, were made conversant with such scenes almost every week in the year, and who were not unfrequently drawn away from the contemplation of social misdemeanors or crimes of the most serious import to split their sides over some ludicrous faux pas, or intended farce, of the perpetrators, will not be slow to discover their basis of fact, nor accord to the author that honesty of purpose to which he lays claim in the conduct of these pages. It was stated in a previous chapter that the secret organization known as the Ku Klux Klan was a political movement intended to offset what was known as the Loyal League, an order whose draft was taken from the negro population, but which was controlled by, and in the interest of, a class of political harpies known as carpet-baggers. The latter element, by means of this political engine, dominated the politics of the South for a period of more than five years, and while its power may not have been broken by the influences set in motion by the counter movement, and though the latter must be condemned on general principles, yet among the people where it had its origin, and stripped of the analogies which the imaginations of fault-finders would be apt to supply, its objects were not deemed harmful to society. As to its wisdom, there can be no doubt that it was aimed at the most salient of the enemy’s weak points.
In treating this proposition, we shall seek to avoid that ponderous science which that branch of transcendentalists who acknowledge Mr. Wendell Phillips as their leader put before the world under the title of Negropholism, and deal with the article as we find it—so much on the greasy surface of the native that the temptation of the carpet-bagger to use it for base ends must be regarded an uncommon one.
[The people of the South, young and old, who were brought up under that social regimen which embodied the negro as a prominent and necessary feature, will appreciate the feelings of the writer when he states that he has not, and never can have, any feeling of enmity towards this race. Some of the tenderest passages in his heart history he is glad to refer to that period when negroes were not only admitted en famille among the whites, but in innumerable instances given absolute control over the household affairs of their masters. He numbers among his cultured acquaintance scores of young men and maidens who never knew any other parentage, and who can never admit a dearer relation than their adopted paternity. The negroes, if vicious and mean, owe it to that cruel divorcement from the Southern social plan effected by their political leaders, and to the life of vagabondage to which they are doomed under the new system; they are not more so by nature than other men. If, therefore, the writer is tempted to speak of their weaknesses, it is in no irreverential sense, and with a laudable object in view, to which this policy will be seen to be strictly antecedent.]
That the negro is by nature grossly superstitious, no one who has had even tolerable means of information will deny. In another chapter we have prevised something on general principles concerning the superstition of mankind, but the comparison to be drawn between the negro and all other branches of the Adamic tree, as to this particular fruitage, is so unequal, that we shall ask the reader to accept the former as a very modified presentation of a theory that was made to order for the crown of Cuffey. And however much this may be untrue with regard to other animals, this faculty of the individual under discussion has nothing whatever to do with his æsthetical being. It does not in any sense enlist that high poetic principle which is one of the conditions of his tropical nativity. Left to himself, with all the appliances of civilization and the encouragement of its examples about him, his superstition will subject him, in the short space of a twelvemonth, to heathenish lapses which the weak-headed Mongolian, under the same outward conditions, has resisted for a period of six thousand years. Voudooism is, perhaps, the weakest form of heathen worship which this moral condition has developed, and, despite the few occasions admitted by the structure of our laws, it is strictly a native product. Those who contend that it is an African transplant, or borrowed from the congeners of the race on those shores, are surely not guided by convictions derived from an examination into its philosophy. But it is a very radical form of savagism in worship, including human sacrifices among its rites, and as we have anticipated that it had its birth in the rice- and cotton-fields of the South, further remark on this division of the argument is deemed unnecessary.
In contrast with other races of beings, the world of shadows is to the imagination of the black man a thing of gloom. The existences who people this realm are hobgoblins, and the standard of the latter a mild abridgment of the arch-fiend. He, nevertheless, holds them in the highest veneration, and is prepared to accept their revelations concerning himself, and indeed all other subjects of mundane philosophy, as oracular. He even holds familiar converse with them—when an interview can be contrived without endangering those barriers of etiquette which preserve to either a fair start in a foot-race—and calculates with tolerable accuracy that the churchyard spawn who affect this characterization are counterfeits. On the latter subject he has doubts, however, which on occasion might be turned to his disadvantage.
Whether it is affectation with him, or a kind of prescience with which he is gifted in view of his moral structure, we do not pretend to decide; but he boasts a knowledge of the private affairs of his spook kinsfolk (they are invariably uncles, aunts, grand relations, etc.) which would be considered sacrilege in another being. If he deems you worthy of such confidence, he will describe to you the ghostly raiment they wear, diversified in other particulars, but always sombre-hued, and in no recorded instance cut bias. He is rarely at fault in assigning the period of antiquity from which they date, and if opportunity served, could lead you to the exact spot where their archæological remains “smell sweet.” He can give, with that emphasis of detail which grows out of perfect familiarity with his subject, their occupations—ranging from yacht-building, horse-culture, and other of the fine arts, all the way down to book-making. And finally, if pressed for information, can state some astonishing facts with regard to their phrenological development. With him these essences are always evil spirits, and though he views them in the constant performance of deeds that would quickly promote them to the hangman’s offices if enterprised in the flesh, yet his philosophy so confounds the means and extremes relating to the transaction, that he can see no way out of the difficulty but to respect the latter as proceeding from the former.
Though they cherish a causeless animosity against himself and his kind, and war on the latter with a chronic wastefulness of the vital spark, which could only proceed from a want of appreciation of this blessing inseparable from their standpoint, yet he cannot go behind his apotheosis to find fault with the system of government upon which it proceeds. In fact, though he avoids the “ghoul-haunted” precincts with which his neighborhood abounds, and trembles when he recites the deeds of valor performed by some warlike example against fleshly hosts, yet when he has taken his distance, and duly calculated the chances in his favor, he delights, above all things, to gather about himself the philosophic weaklings of his race, and, having launched upon his theme, observe the absolute failure of the kink in the woolly crown of each as a thing to be depended on in time of emergency.
The ideal “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had very little of the ghost element in its construction. In this respect, as in some others, it was a miserable failure. The real structure was a ghost’s palace, where they came and went at pleasure, and not unfrequently took up their abode. To this habitation, in ante bellum times, presided over by Uncle Dick or Aunt Rachel, it mattered little—for both were magicians of no mean order—the juveniles of both races flocked after nightfall for supplies of ghost-lore; and to say that they were accommodated will but faintly describe, we fear, that anguished state of soul (what Southern boy or man does not drop a tear on this reminiscence?) with which, a few hours later, they passed out into the darkness and fought their way through legions of shadowy foes to their “curtained rest.”
These ghost stories, which always resulted disastrously for flesh and blood, and had a churchyard twang about them that came with peculiar relish to the youngster under a strong glare of candle- or fire light, were the very apple-pie of farm-life to the “infantile sex,” despite the after-piece, which, after all, was a contingency that might be disposed of at will by the philanthropic source of the mischief. How often have we observed a circle of these young professors of the spiritual science defiantly “lean back” in their proclivities when the crooning narration began, and the great fireplace sent out effulgent rays, suddenly alter their manner for one of marked deference as the ghost-character came on with stately tread and took its place in the forefront of thrilling reminiscence; and then, as the rays of firelight went to sleep with the embers one by one, hitch up their seats within the margin that remained, getting nearer by degrees, until at length, as the story grew towards its denouement and the fire hung over its ashy tomb, crowding from all quarters, they threatened to overturn the narrator—so great was the terror inspired by the shadows which lay behind them.
But to no one had these performances such constant and deep relish as the aged patriarch or beldam, as the case might be, who was elevated by their young suffragans to the post of mentor for the time being. They revelled in this employment, first, because it suited their talents; and second, because it was perfectly adapted to their emotional nature. An African, moreover, is gratified beyond expression by the knowledge that he possesses authority, no matter how brief or weak in extent, which may be exercised over his fellows; and there is not, we believe, a living party to such a bequest of social right and liberty over conscience as that to which we have referred, who was not a sufferer under the arrangement to an extent which he rarely admits to stranger confidences. But this improvement of the occasion which came to him on the part of the fiction-vender was not always done in mere wantonness. Not unfrequently the result achieved was without design, and when the contrary was true, the design was quite an intelligent one. When he acted intelligently, the object kept in view was to gain such an ascendency over the minds of his young auditory that he might reap either present benefits, or call it up to advantage in the future; and when we reflect that his audiences were largely composed of his young masters and mistresses, whose influence was great at head-quarters, and who would one day succeed to the estate, the wisdom of his conclusions must be conceded.
Trained up in this school, and knowing by their later experience of men the precise extent to which the plantation darkey was controlled by the superstitious notions which he disseminated (for he was no hypocrite), the young white men of the South were at no loss in adopting countervailing forces when the Loyal League storm burst upon the country. The superstition of the negro was not a weakness, but a ruling characteristic; and at this central idea of his being the Ku-Klux movement was directed. Being thus addressed to his fears, it will be seen, by any one wishing information on the subject, that the latter was designed to whip him into obedience to what was then thought, but is now known, to be the ruling element in Southern politics. We do not assert that it was a just expedient; we cannot believe, in view of later developments in our local politics, that it was a wise one; but its transactions have passed into history, and it is with them that we are concerned.
CHAPTER VII.
DETAILS OF ORGANIZATION.
A Band of Regulators whose Force at this time numbered a Half Million well-organized and perfectly Drilled Men—Who composed its Draft—Considerations which recommended it to the Better Classes of Society—Its Haunts—Oath-bound Covenant, and Penalties attached—Panoply of Lower Regions—Its Raiding Rendezvous—Galloping forth to Predestined Conquest—It proceeded under a rigid Constitutional System—Territorial Subdivisions—Empire—Realm—Province—Den—Grand Wizard and his Cabinet—Grand Giant—The Commander of a Den—Grand Cyclops—Night-Hawks, etc.—Recruiting Agents—How Members were Initiated—Proposed Initiates might Retire if Displeased with the Conditions of Membership—How far the Klan was “Rebel” in its Draft—Members of State Legislatures, Congressmen, and Governors of States, took its Vows upon them—Its Political Suffrages—Compelling Ignorant Colored Men to relinquish the Franchise—K. K. K. Placards—Empty Coffins containing Ukase of Banishment Carted to the Doors of Obnoxious White Citizens—Its Ideas of Social Decorum.
The mystic order of K. K. K. had scarcely emerged from its swaddling-clothes, as things go in the material universe, ere it had developed into a giant that filled the Southern zodiac, as effectually as the almanac dummy comprehends in his physical outlines the cardinal points of the seasons. Moving from county to county, and from one State to another, it invaded the most remote communities—until within three months from the time that the slogan call had been sounded on the eastern shore of the Mississippi, its bannerets formed a cordon around the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and its dominion over the Trans-Mississippi country was undisputed. A band of regulators, whose force at this time numbered a half million well-organized and perfectly drilled men, it aimed at nothing less than the subjection of the pending elements in the Southern State governments, and as a means thereto, the total overthrow and dispersion of all secret subsidiary agencies. In its ranks all conditions of white society in the South were represented—attracted partly by the weighty political considerations upon which the movement rested, and in not a few instances by its outside of novelty and vague promise of sensation. Proceeding under an oath-bound covenant, it invoked, seemingly—by adopting the emblems of their rule—the powers of darkness to assume the protectorate over its affairs, and levied on the code of pirates for a rule of discipline that should awe the stoutest hearts into meek submissiveness. To break the least of its commandments was esteemed a crime for which death would be a weak expiation, and to retreat from its enterprises, good or evil, bold or weak, was to be exposed to a fate more horrible than the chain and vulture. Their periodical gatherings, or dark seances, were held in caves in the bowels of the earth, where they were surrounded by what might be aptly termed the panoply of the lower regions—rows of skulls, coffins and their furniture, human skeletons, ominous pictures copied from the darkest passages of the Inferno or Paradise Lost; and, brooding over all, that spell-like mystery which waited ever as an inspiration from the tomb upon the movements of the weird brotherhood. Here, habited in full regalia, and seated in alignment on raised benches, the members of the Order were wont to receive trembling initiates, commune together about affairs of government, and plan midnight raids against mortal enemies. Frequently these conferences were brief, but the fires were always lighted, in order that the still inspiration of the scene might not be wanting to the business of the evening—the ever-recurring raid on jail, or state-house, or Forest League. Gowned and helmeted, and mounted on strong chargers, invested, as far as possible, with the character of their riders, the ghostly phalanx galloped forth to predestined conquest, for an invisible host fought at its side, and each man bore a talisman in his outer garb which might have affrighted the armies of an empire from the field.
The government of the Klan proceeded under a rigid constitutional system that was rarely or never amended. Its chief officer, or ruler of what was known as the Empire, was elected to an unlimited term of office, and entrusted with the means of despotic rule. His official title was Grand Wizard, and he was, by virtue of his first appointment, commander-in-chief of the army or military force constituted under the Empire. The officers under the latter held their appointment from him, and composed his counsel, or cabinet. The Grand Division, or Empire, was subdivided into Realms, Provinces, and Dens. The geographical boundaries of the Realm corresponded with those of the congressional districts in the several States under Klan dominion, and hence were equal in number. The chief officer of a Realm was distinguished by the title of Grand Vizier. His territory, as we have indicated, was subdivided into Provinces, whose territorial limits were identical with those of counties in the same location. The ruler of a Province was termed a Grand Giant. Under Provinces, Dens were organized, which, so far as territorial dominion is concerned, had only a neighborhood signification. But they were really the executive force, and through them, as individuals, all the work was accomplished. The commander of a Den, contradistinguished from those of Realms and Provinces, owed his rank and authority to the suffrages of those whom he immediately ruled. He was entitled Grand Cyclops, and under him was an officer known as Exchequer, whose duties had a twofold signification, and applied to the administration of the treasury and recording secretaryship. There were from four to six scouts belonging to the Den, who performed courier duty, and to whom was applied the titular distinction of Night-Hawks; and in addition to these, and also in the non-commissioned rank, each thoroughly organized Den had its Conductors and Guardians, who were local, and the tenor of whose duties is sufficiently indicated by their titles respectively.
The Dens were the recruiting agencies, and the officers to whom was assigned this duty conducted the work with the utmost secrecy and caution. No individual was approached who was not known by his voluntary avowals to be in sympathy with the movement. When such a confession (which must have been made in public) was reported to the Den Council, if no objection was alleged against the individual, a committee was appointed to canvass the subject and report at some future day. Afterwards, if no local disqualifications were still urged, recruiting agents were sent to interview the candidate, who proceeded with such circumspection that they rarely failed to obtain a reply to the inquiries they brought without committing themselves or their cause. A candidate for membership who had been approved was conducted to the Den Council in the night season and by circuitous and unknown routes. He was also securely blindfolded, and the Conductors (officers of escort) were forbidden to communicate with him, until their destination had been reached. Arriving in some sequestered forest grove, he was commanded to dismount, and with eyes still bandaged, and the former policy of secrecy maintained in all particulars, was conducted into the presence of the council. Here, without being permitted to ask questions, he was requested to give heed to what was about to be said, and when the Cyclops, or some individual commissioned by him, had revealed to him the objects and polity of the organization known as K. K. K., and the quality of allegiance exacted from those who entered its ranks, he was requested to state whether he still wished to carry out his original design of connecting himself with the Order. If this interrogatory was replied to in the negative, some very positive oaths and threats enjoining secrecy as to what had transpired were delivered to him, and he was permitted to retire. [This policy was invariably pursued by the Klan, and it is not probable that its vows were ever committed to an individual who had not obtained the full consent of his mind to the concessions he was required to make.] On the contrary, if an affirmative reply was given, the ceremony of initiation was proceeded with,—a formula which we shall not describe in this place, further than to say that the vows, which were delivered in a kneeling posture, were of the most approved iron-clad pattern, and that to each was attached a string of penalties, categorically presented, which aimed at nothing less than the annihilation of the transgressor.
It is wrong to infer, as many have done, that because the political views maintained by the Klan corresponded to those which were avowedly held by ex-Confederate soldiers at that period, that the former was recruited from the latter in large measure, or, as the enemies of both were apt to suggest, as an entirety. Though occupying the territory in which they were domiciled, it is improbable that one-half the available force which the former boasted was derived from the latter source, and it is certain that a majority of the latter did not give their sanction nor countenance to the measures adopted by the Klan in seeking redress for alleged political wrongs. But a very large number of ex-Confederates entered its ranks, and, perhaps for prudential (not political) reasons, the administration of Klan affairs was, in a large measure, committed to this element. Its force, as has been anticipated, was recruited from the entire white population of the States which it occupied; and it certainly was not wanting in that respect for which such movements are almost wholly dependent on the character of their constituency. Members of State legislatures, congressmen, and governors of States, took its vows upon them, and were not unfrequently to be found at its midnight gatherings. In all National and State elections the Klan gave its political suffrages to members of the Order, or known sympathizers. Indeed, to effect its political ends (which were the ends of its organization), there were few extremes of contumacious conduct which it did not practise towards the existing State governments. Not only did it throw the weight of its suffrages in behalf of favorites—it forbade others the exercise of this privilege. Freedmen who were deemed too ignorant to cast an intelligent ballot were visited at their homes in the small hours of the night, and by measures of intimidation, which not unfrequently included the lash, were driven to accept an oath of lengthy abstinence from the League and the polls. White men, who were obnoxious because of their too active instrumentality in League affairs, or their excessive fondness for the class of society which they encountered at its meetings, were equally unfortunate. During the quiet hours of the night ghostly placards, bearing the caption K. K. K. in large letters, and inscribed with the escutcheon of the Order (skull and cross-bones), were posted on their doors, commanding them to “skip out” (a technicality invented by the Klan), or expect the utmost vengeance of the Order. Where the rank of the offender required that some more dignified means of notification be employed, or where the individual was deemed to represent very obdurate qualities of soul, instead of the ordinary method aforesaid, an empty coffin was carted to his door, and in this horrible symbol of its anathemas was placed the order of ejectment.
The social system was sought to be renovated in the use of the same summary methods, and upon crimes of this nature the severest examples of Klan disfavor were constantly visited. The carpet-bag element recently introduced into the country suffered most frequently in this category; and it is not too much to say, that the strict construction placed upon the social laws of the country, and upon social decorum as an abstraction, by the weird fraternity, was to this class one of the most intolerable burdens of Southern exile. To miscegenate was quite bad enough (and a privilege which the State laws denied them), but to be permitted to go a step further, and “conglomerate,” was not to be thought of, and Klan discipline was brought to bear—one of its few acts which has received the unconditional endorsement of both Northern and Southern society.
CHAPTER VIII.
K. K. K. CUSTOMS.
The Klan never did its Work by Halves—How General Orders were Transmitted—Form of General Order—Its Imbroglios with the League—Avoided Conflict with United States Troops—Ku-Klux Prosecutions a Weakness of the Courts—League Informers—K. K. K. Intimidation of Witnesses—Memento Mori—Crusade of the Ermined Ranks—Misdirected Prosecutions—Obligation to Disregard Judicial Oaths when they Conflicted with the Plans and Policy of the Order—No Patch-spots in its System of Government—Weird Drill—Absenteeism not one of the Strong Points of the Brotherhood—The Klan a Bitter Enemy of those Unorganized Parties of Ruffians who made War on their kind in the former’s Name—Its Right to Borrow Sympathy on this Exchange a Grave Question of Doubt—Vendettas Conducted against the “Shams.”
The Klan never did its work by halves, nor never pronounced a meaningless threat. If an individual was warned to leave the country at a certain date, there was no help for it, neither were there any extensions of time or modifications of original orders. Had members of the Order been incarcerated in a county prison for Klan offences, and a rescue been planned, the bars must yield at a certain hour. If some poor wretch was doomed by order of the Council to suffer under its laws of extradition, the weird scout was “over the borders and away” ere its absence could be noted, or electric messages sent to notify the authorities of the impending outrage.
When the Grand Wizard wished to promulgate an order, the newspapers were the medium commonly sought. His commands in the use of this means were delivered to the next in rank, and by him transmitted to the Grand Giant of the province named, an officer who maintained constant communications with the Den system. No Den was required to execute a general order within the territory which it occupied, and in but rare instances did it proceed to enforce its own local measures. This force was, in almost every instance, employed beyond its own boundaries, and not unfrequently crossed the borders of the province, and even the realm to which it belonged, in the execution of raiding commands. The territorial subdivisions of the Order were each numbered according to class, a precaution which was found to be indispensable in the transmission of “general orders.” The latter were usually in the following form:
To the Grand Cyclops of Den No. 5, Province No. 4, Realm No. 3.
Greeting: You are hereby commanded to report with your entire command to the Grand Giant of your province for duty in D. 6, P. 5, R. 4.
Speed. G. W.
These titles were not always employed in the published orders; but where they were omitted, some descriptive term equally well understood was substituted.
The raiding force always moved in the night season, and members of the Order never exhibited themselves in the Ku-Klux rôle in the daytime. When the cock crew, no churchyard edition of the animal ever sought the friendly shadow of the daisies with greater precipitancy than did the individual K. K. K. the inner chambers of the Den.
Their imbroglios were in almost all cases with the organization known as the Loyal League; but though they bore arms, and waged a campaign whose avowed object was the annihilation of this hated enemy, yet in their dealings with its members their ultimatum rarely bore an emphasis strong enough to excite the opposition of the local authorities. And to their credit it must likewise be said (a fact that was considered by the State authorities at a recent date in promulgating pardons to members of the Klan), that they avoided collisions with the United States troops, and in no instance, though frequently pursued, and sometimes driven to the wall by the exertions of the latter when employed in behalf of their enemies, were they ever known to burn powder against their country’s armed servitors. Neither did they interfere with the courts of the country in administering the laws from a national standpoint, though in some instances criminals were taken from the county jails before “oyer” had been pronounced in their cases.
Members of the Order did not, nor could not, according to their construction of Klan government, belong to the jurisdiction of the courts, more especially the Federal courts. And though trials were never interfered with until their officers had satisfied themselves that it would be impossible to convict one of its members on a charge of complicity in its affairs, yet in the event of an unfavorable verdict and attempted sentence, it is certain that resistance of some character would have been offered. Ku-Klux trials were one of the weaknesses of the courts at this period, and while numbers were arraigned on this charge who were guilty, and merited discipline, it may be safely estimated that a majority of these prosecutions were conducted against persons who were not only innocent of collusion in its affairs, but who execrated the Klan as heartily as did their over zealous inquisitors. Members of the League were the informers, and not unfrequently the only witnesses in these trials; and when it is remembered that their zeal for justice, as the blind goddess was viewed by them, burned with about equal warmth against that portion of the white population who were symbolized in this way and those who were not, the farcical nature of these proceedings in numberless instances will be understood. But when it was known that testimony had been suborned against members of the Order, the Klan proceeded to extreme lengths in construing the statute for perjury, and in visiting its penalties on the offender. Not only so, but on the eve of these judicial examinations, the Dens, as well as individual members thereof, were particularly active in the work of destroying testimony by intimidating witnesses, a common form of the threats employed being the words memento mori written plainly on a blank sheet of paper, and clandestinely conveyed to the suspected party. To ignorant persons, the mystery of this latter proceeding alone went not a little way towards accomplishing the object in view.
While such precautions were taken, and no doubt proved of vast service in enabling the Order to resist that crusade of the ermined ranks to which we have referred, the leaders of the K. K. K. succeeded in obtaining, from the membership at large, a very important concession in morals affecting this subject, and one which we believe has been hitherto resisted by the draft of secret societies on this continent, viz., an obligation to disregard judicial oaths where they conflicted with the plans and policy of the Order. To illustrate this point, a leading form of the interrogatory propounded to witnesses in these trials was: “Are you aware of the existence of a secret political organization known as the Ku Klux Klan?” and though parties thus addressed were often possessed of the most incontestable evidence of the truth sought to be elicited, it was not deemed dishonest, nor in any sense immoral, to reply negatively. The oath of secrecy which members (voluntarily) took upon themselves when they entered the Klan was supposed to extinguish the guilt of this transaction, though we are not told precisely in what way the double entendres and tricks of evasion, practised by such witnesses at subsequent stages of the trial, were to be construed.
But as we shall have occasion to refer to this topic from time to time, as the work progresses, we will not at present allude further to the subject of Ku-Klux trials and their furniture of fiction.
The Klan was thoroughly organized. There were no patch-spots in its system of government. Its tactics of drill were in some sense peculiar, but it sufficiently resembled that adopted by the cavalry branch of the United States army to be mistaken for it in all the leading manœuvres. The men were perfect in company drill, and were required to attend all Den meetings, or be assessed onerous fines or other penalties. Absenteeism was not, however, one of the strong points of the brotherhood; and a Den rarely moved towards raiding territory without its full quota of men. The raids moved with astonishing celerity—a circumstance which was rendered necessary to the most perfect secrecy of these movements, and was also imperative in view of the long distances to be traversed. The hours between twilight in the evening and dawn, according to a Medean law of the K. K. K., as we have anticipated, could only be appropriated to this labor; and when it is explained that companies of men frequently left the Den rendezvous for raiding objectives forty miles distant, and returned to the former point without dismounting, our conclusion above will be seen to be authorized.
The Grand Cyclops was not only the chief of the Den Council and an absolutist in authority as to its domestic affairs, but was also the chief officer in command of a raid, and must have been looked to for all special directions regarding its conduct. The Exchequer possessed a similar prerogative, and became the orderly or adjutant on the march.
The Klan was the bitter enemy of those unorganized parties of ruffians who made war on their kind in the former’s name, and the sum of whose villanies never failed to be debited in this way. Hardly a week passed, during the excitement which gave rise to both, and which they, in turn, converted into a reign of terror whose strong points the Duke of Alva might have studied to advantage, in which the secret organization was not made to suffer under some such confidence arrangement; and to say that its adipose suffered under this bereavement of men’s regards which it could so illy spare, will not, we fear, adequately present the situation. It, however, had placed itself in a position by which its motives were liable to be misinterpreted; and as one of its professed foibles was its ability to cover up its tracks in the least mysterious of its transactions; and, as during the French Renaissance, times analogous to these, to wear a mask was esteemed a crime from which all other crimes might be inferred, we doubt whether its right to borrow sympathy on this exchange could be logically maintained.
But while the Klan was doomed to nurse its woes of this character in not a few instances, they proved immedicable wounds; and where the perpetrators became known, or even suspected, it conducted a vendetta against the individual conspirators which proved far more effective than all the organized efforts of the “best government.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE KLAN IN TENNESSEE.
Misgovernment in Tennessee—The Loyal League and the State Administration—The K. K. K. an Outgrowth of the Conditions which the former Inspired—Rapid Development of the Order on Tennessee Soil—Its Purposes of Revenge—Legislation on the Subject—A Governor’s Proclamation—Militia called out and Detectives Employed—The State pronounced a Ku-Klux Barracks—The Loyal League in various Localities Succumbing to the New Element of Conquest—A State Council of the League Summoned to meet at Nashville—The Governor to Preside—The Secret out, and Counter Measures Resolved upon by the Rival Party—Spies sent to Nashville—League Places of Rendezvous throughout the State subjected to Espionage—A War of Extermination against the Latter—A Simultaneous Uprising of the K. K. K. throughout the State and Concerted Raids against the L. L. Rendezvous in various Neighborhoods—Military Accomplishments of the Grand Wizard—Subcommanders in Charge of the Expedition—Capture of Secret Papers—Ku-Klux Hollow-square—Oath administered to Captives—Success of the Undertaking—Shifting of Conditions.
As early as the spring of 1866, the head of the Order announced that the recruiting-books for the State of Tennessee showed a force of eighty thousand men; and it was here, and about this date, that some of the most eventful scenes connected with the history of the K. K. K. were enacted. This State had been committed to League control early after peace was declared by the general government, and the bitter proscription at once inaugurated against the white race, under the combined patronage of the League and the existing State government, not only excited the strenuous opposition of all those who anchored their faith to the Conservative idea in politics throughout this and neighboring States, but called forth a warm protest from those disinterested partisans at the North who had recently been erected into what is known as the moderate Republican or Independent party. Disfranchisement, in its most radical form, excluded the intelligent voters of the State from all participation in its affairs; tax laws came up for amendment at each session of the State legislature, and in connection with other expenses of government (for such they had become), were sextupled in the end; the most quiet and law-abiding neighborhoods were placed under military surveillance, or driven to suffer the penalty of confiscation acts whose terms might have included the entire race of mankind; and finally, every device of ignorant and intemperate legislation applied, whose effect would be to render the government unsuited to the wants of the people, and convert the latter into a body of malcontents. This end appears, indeed, to have been contemplated by the League faction at that stage of its supremacy when its attainment seemed most improbable; but when the reality, or something which very much resembled it, came upon them, they disowned the abortion, and invited their friends at the North to behold with what consistency the old rebel stump was putting forth green shoots of disunion.
We shall not express a preference for either of these bad extremes of the politics of that period, but in order to a proper understanding of the question, we deem it no impropriety to state that it was a fact well known, and illustrated elsewhere, that wheresoever the League animal deposited its spawn, with due regard for atmospheric conditions, the K. K. K. insect would shortly drop its chrysalis.
In looking over the history of those times in Tennessee, the student need be at no loss in seeking out the exact causes of the Ku-Klux movement as it existed on her soil, nor of finding its dimensions from this given mean. As large as was the Klan force, it probably did not exceed the League in numbers, and had many disadvantages to meet which the latter, helped forward by its government patronage, did not regard as impediments. But it had injuries to redress, burning wrongs to avenge, and cherishing these incentives, it laughed at legislative penalties, and burned to join battle with those dispensers of Ku-Klux halters who dealt in this and like judicial pleasantries at their expense.
Having had its birth in the western district of the State, where the elements of a rapid growth were found, it was quickly communicated to the central counties and the neighborhood of the capital, and finding its way thence over the Cumberland Mountains—before its presence was even suspected in that loyal quarter—developed a shamrock growth on the soil of East Tennessee. Within three months from the time the first Den was organized on her territory, the K. K. K. had reached its highest growth in numbers and strength of resources, and announced itself ready and anxious to meet the army in buckram, whom it asserted represented the cause of misgovernment on Tennessee soil. Its plans were quickly developed, and the destruction of a half dozen or more dark-lantern societies, which lay more on the surface of things than was thought to be polite, alarmed the State functionaries, and called attention to their proceedings in a form quite as disagreeable as the most ultra of the party could have desired. The subject first came before the legislature, and steps were taken which it was presumed would “put a head on the monster” (to literally quote one of the Buncombe addresses before that august body), but the indescribable nonchalance of the proceedings, which seemed directed at a child’s toy-house rather than a nest of boa constrictors, only excited the K.’s to new activity. A Governor’s proclamation was next called for; soon afterwards secret measures were instituted looking to the employment of a force of detectives; and finally, the militia were summoned to assemble, but, despite all, the crooked wonder grew, and the more industrious the efforts put forth to curtail its existence the more it grew and the greater the occasion it saw for this exertion.
In the summer of this year, the members of the legislature of Tennessee, in council assembled, pronounced the State a Ku-Klux barracks, and resolved themselves unsafe in their granite citadel at Nashville. The League head-quarters in various parts of the State were succumbing one by one to the new element of conquest, and, indeed, the State seemed on the eve of a revolution, by which, if no more serious results were attained, its territory would be rendered untenable for that class of its population which was known to its enemies as the dark-lantern faction. In this emergency, the leaders of the L. L. resolved to call a State council of the Order, over whose deliberations the Governor should preside, and whose object would be to devise ways and means for the destruction of their troublesome enemies. Great preparations were made accordingly, and without divulging their plans, it was resolved, at the conclusion of the secret proceedings, to hold a mass meeting at the capital which should review the whole subject. This body assembled at the specified date, but not before the rival party had become fully acquainted with its plans and purposes, and in convention assembled resolved upon counter measures.
On the very evening which the Council had set apart for its introductory proceedings (in the city of Nashville), the indefatigable K.’s had issued commands throughout the State requiring every member of the Order to report at his Den head-quarters for special service. A force of spies was dispatched to the neighborhood of the League Council, and the brief period which was to elapse before the Solons would arrive and enter upon the solemn business in hand was appropriated by these secret agents, and their co-conspirators in other neighborhoods, to the work of obtaining information from deserters, chance prisoners, etc., as to the exact location and surroundings of the League places of rendezvous throughout the State. Indeed, while the League had busied itself with a very red conflagration devoted to the Ku-Klux fat, whensoever they should overtake that slippery substance, the much persecuted “krookeds” had doubled back on them, and only awaited a fair wind to convert their little game into a “double reversible,” quite as complicated as any that had dawned upon the patent-machine mind previous to that date.
A war of extermination against the League had been resolved upon months before by the leaders of the Klan, but a favorable moment for a decisive blow, or the emergency requiring it, had not arrived, until both were visible in the proposed State council of the Order and the objects it would consider. Now, destiny seemed rushing upon them, and the time almost too brief to make an intelligent feint on the enemy’s front. But promptness of stratagem, and rapid development of passing advantages, was perhaps the strongest point in the military character of the distinguished leader of this movement, for where others halted, awed by the proportions of an undertaking, or the suddenness of combinations effected in their front, he only felt an inspiration to go forward. The force which participated in the attack on the evening of —— 19th, 1866, did not fall far short of one hundred thousand men, and yet, thirty-six hours previous to this time, the occasion had not presented itself to the mind of the veteran who planned the attack as suitable therefor. A well organized and lightly-equipped force proved unquestionably a sine qua non in rendering the dispositions of the commander successful; but we doubt if it would be fair to subtract this circumstance from the glory of the undertaking, if the reader is informed that it had been developed from the same ingenious source with special reference thereto.
In the attack which followed, each Den constituted an independent force, and was under the immediate command of the Grand Cyclops. Indeed, no other officer was known on the field, though it was sufficiently apparent, at the time, that each had received his allotted task from a superior, and it was afterwards divulged that they had acted under written orders. At ten o’clock precisely, the commands moved (from the various points of rendezvous selected), and were allotted one hour to each ten miles of distance to be traversed. They were in full uniform, and though they carried arms, were commanded not to fire, nor to return a fire, except under orders. En route they avoided public roads and dense settlements, and on approaching their destination changed the order of march (by twos) to close column by fours, when the command was “charge.” After the building, which formed the object of attack, came in view, no time was to be lost, and its investment completed as rapidly as possible. Attempted refugees were to be forced back within the walls, and in no event was an escape to be permitted. A party of six resolute men were detached from each squadron for special duty, in securing the papers, books, and other written documents of the League meeting, and this movement was so far pivotal in its character, that their comrades were commanded to keep their proceedings in view, and be ready at a signal to render them assistance. After a thorough search of the premises had been accomplished, the dismounted men without were commanded to take their station within the building, and form the hollow-square of the order.
As so much has been said concerning this feature of their drill, and so little really known, we give the exact figure in the cut below. It may be imitated by arranging two letters K with their backs to each other, and doubtless originated from this device.