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K. K. K. SKETCHES,
Humorous and Didactic,
TREATING THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS OF
THE KU-KLUX-KLAN MOVEMENT
IN THE SOUTH.
WITH
A Discussion of the Causes which gave Rise
to it, and the Social and Political
Issues Emanating from it.
BY JAMES MELVILLE BEARD.
PHILADELPHIA:
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER,
624, 626 & 628 MARKET STREET.
1877.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
J. FAGAN & SON,
STEREOTYPERS, PHILAD'A.
Selheimer & Moore, Printers,
501 Chestnut Street.
INSCRIBED TO
Messrs. Geo. C. Reeler and H. R. and J. M. Park,
BOTH AS A MARK OF THE AUTHOR'S ESTEEM AND A TESTIMONIAL
OF GENEROUS AID RENDERED DURING
THE PROGRESS OF THE "SKETCHES."
PREFACE.
These sketches are placed before the public without other apology for
their appearance than may be found in that demand for information on the
subject treated which renders a work of the character a positive necessity
of the times. The secret political movement here introduced to the reader
has contributed more to the sensational character of American politics,
and, at the same time, proven a more influential factor in those political
questions with which we have dealt as a people, than any or all
contemporaneous issues. And yet nothing has been written on the theme
bearing a just proportion thereto,--absolutely nothing,--if we subtract
the unknown quantity in the news problem of the day from this estimate,
and for reasons as varied as obvious. We shall not weary the reader with a
statement of the latter, nor a recitative of the conditions upon which
they are or may have been based. It is enough that we know that no
consecutive nor reliable history of the Order could have been written at
an earlier period; and even at this date, so broken and fragmentary are
those passages referring to its active career, compiled during months of
arduous labor, that the author has been necessitated to group them in a
series of historical sketches, or pen-pictures, and in treating the
subject to adopt the style of the romancist, rather than that of the
historian. He flatters himself, however, that while the reliability of his
historical information is not impaired by this method, that the work will
thereby be rendered more attractive to a large class of readers; and, on
the other hand, as to facts connected with the _morale_ of the weird
subject, he is not hampered by these considerations, but is enabled to
present them in such a concise form, and as sententiously as regards
style, as their share of the task's importance renders peremptory.
From the moment that the resolution to compose these sketches in the
interest of the reading public became fixed in the author's mind, he has
been in constant communication with individuals who were not only
influential leaders of the secret movement, but held high official rank
under it; so that the authenticity of his statements affecting its
_regime_ is placed so far beyond question that the reader is at liberty to
take the latter as _ex cathedra_ utterances of this singularly reticent
body. Should those passages which are occupied with the more exciting
events of K. K. K. history be calculated to awaken _sensation_ in the
public breast, it is a _contretemps_ from which the author begs to excuse
himself in the light of the same admission, adding, moreover, that he has
availed himself of those examples which have gone before him in this
department of literature, and reserved his art-flourishes for less
susceptible divisions of the theme.
The intelligent reader will see no politics, nor evidence of political
bias in the pages of this volume, if he will do the author the simple
fairness of its thorough examination. If in addressing his audience from
the _status in quo_, to which the Ku-Klux troubles were referred in their
origin and bloody career, forcible truths are given their due emphasis, he
begs to assure the public that his utterances are no less strongly
inflected from a standpoint of contrasted locality and habits of political
thought. A man professing no politics but those of his grandfather, and,
despite settled opinions favoring such partisanship, is strongly tempted
at times to question _their_ integrity, would hardly be supposed guilty of
making an obnoxious necessity of some other man's property, in this most
precarious of titled possessions; and lest any should fail to perceive the
allegory which this sentence contains, the author begs to call attention
to it, and to appropriate the _situation_ which it presents. The public
mind is so excited regarding such topics at this moment, that it would
fail to meet expectation, if it should decline to suspect every shadow of
possessing substance, when projected from so suspicious a direction as the
subject chosen; and feeling this, and perceiving the inutility of any
other form of argument, the reader is invited, in conclusion, to adopt the
usual method in such inquiries, and determine for himself the _vexata
quaestio_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Terms of Southern Surrender in the War of the Rebellion--Candor
of Paroled Troops--"Lee's Ragamuffins"--Generals Grant's and
Sherman's Proposed Amnesty--The "Rump Congress" and
Disfranchisement--What the Latter meant--Issues which the War
Settled--How these were Revived by the Pending Congress--Anarchy
in the South--The Loyal League 13
CHAPTER II.
CAUSES OF THE K. K. K. MOVEMENT.
Situation Produced by the War--Discontented Partisans--The War
District in the South--Words of a Northern Tourist--The Curse of
Slavery--President Johnson--How the Work of Reconstruction was
Inaugurated--The Law-making Power vested in Dummy Legislatures--
Disfranchisement--Enfranchisement--The Color Issue which these
Measures brought--A Singular Peace Policy--The War of the
Conservatives in the South against Radicalism did not Revive
Issues concluded by the late Civil Struggle, as the latter
Boasted--Loyal Epithets--"Traitor," "Guerilla," "Southern
Bandit," etc.--The Shamelessness of the State Officials--The
Uneducated Negro a Law-giver--Organization of the Loyal League--
Some of its Peculiarities--The K. K. K. Movement as an Offset to
the League 18
CHAPTER III.
THE KLAN.
A Stirring Episode--Raising the Dead--Night-Hawk Abroad--Moving
toward the Rendezvous--Grand Cyclops of Den No. 5--Forming the
Magic Circle--K. K. K. Drill--On the March--The _Tout Ensemble_
of a Raiding Body--Weird Costuming--Banners Inscribed with the
K. K. K. Escutcheon--How the Scene Impressed Beholders 29
CHAPTER IV.
SUPERSTITIONS REGARDING K. K. K.
Impressions after a K. K. K. Raid--Will Morning never come?--
Conjectures Regarding the Subject in the Minds of those who
should have been Prepared to Render an Opinion--What
Superstitious People thought--The Mill Council--K. K. K.
Arraigned on various Charges, and Acquitted for Want of
Testimony--The Subject an Enigma--Man a Superstitious Animal 38
CHAPTER V.
K. K. K. DEALINGS WITH THE LOYAL LEAGUE.
A Train which brought Welcome Passenger--Caucusing in the Open
Air a Dangerous Proceeding--Correct Surmises--An Old Church,
Bequeathed from Generation to Generation, and Liable to many
Uses--Brothers and Sisters all--The L. L. in full Bloom--Storm
succeeded by a Calm--Weird Visitors--What they left behind them--
Sudden Panic--The Rally--Still in Doubt--The Chairman's
Stratagem--How it didn't Work--Despondent Leaguers taught to Act
for Themselves. 49
CHAPTER VI.
GHOST FEATURE OF THE MOVEMENT. ITS PHILOSOPHY.
Contrasted Views of the Organization inspired by its Dealings
with the Public--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--His
Ideas about "Ghosts," and the Realm which they Inhabit--Spook
Kinsfolk--The ideal "Uncle Tom's Cabin"--Wherein it was a
Failure--The "Infantile Sex" and their Greed for Ghost-lore--
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 61
CHAPTER VII.
DETAILS OF ORGANIZATIONS.
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--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.--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 the 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 71
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--League
Informers--K. K. K. Intimidation of Witnesses--_Memento Mori_--
Crusade of the Ermined Ranks--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." 80
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--
Militia called out and Detectives Employed--The State pronounced
a Ku-Klux Barracks--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 88
CHAPTER X.
THE LOYAL LEAGUE IN COUNCIL.
Speech of Hon. Bones Button before the State Council of the Loyal
League--What followed--Amusing Contretemps 97
CHAPTER XI.
EFFECTS PRODUCED. A PERIOD OF ALARM.
Excitement throughout the State--Scenes at the Capitol--Government
Officials Notified of the Extent of the Disaster--A Quorum of the
Legislative or Judicial Bodies not Attainable--No Departures from
the City--The K. K. K. Cabal Receiving that Attention from
Caucusing Legislators which its Importance Demanded--A Mob at the
State-House--At Sunset the Situation Unchanged--A Sortie from the
Capitol--Mobs along the Route--Seeking Refuge from the Excited
Populace--Out of Danger--The New Situation--An Ugly Specimen of
the Genus Ku-Klux--The Governor Recovers from the Attitude of a
Suppliant--An Amusing Episode 107
CHAPTER XII.
KU-KLUX HORRORS IN TENNESSEE.
The Klan Outlawed--A Rash Act of one of its Dens--Negro
Insurrectionists Placed in the Jail at Trenton--Subsequent
Massacre--Detectives in Pursuit--Members of the Order Indicted--
Efforts to Convict the Accused--Affair in Obion--Why these
Horrors are Classed as Twin Editions--Description of Madrid
Bend--K. K. K. Transactions in this Remote Quarter--Planters'
Jealousy--Message from Mr. J. to the Leaders of the Party--
Cool Treatment it Received--The K.'s Declare their Intention of
Punishing one of the Laborers on J.'s Farm--His Defiance--A
Fierce Skirmish--J.'s Flight--Massacre of Fleeing Blacks--Eight
Colored Men taken from the County Jail at Troy--Their Fate a
Mystery 116
CHAPTER XIII.
KU-KLUX LAW.
Any person, under color of law, etc., of any State, depriving
another of any rights, etc., secured by the Constitution of the
United States, made liable to the party injured, 7034--Penalty for
conspiring, by force, to put down the government of the United
States, etc., 7035--Conspirator's doing, etc., any act in
furtherance of the object of the conspiracy, and injuring another,
liable to damages therefor, 7035--What to be deemed a denial by
any State to any class of its people of their equal protection
under the laws, 7036 125
CHAPTER XIV.
THE K. K. K. IN LOUISIANA.
Adventists--How they Practised on the Parasitical Blacks--A Little
Power is a Dangerous Thing--The Political Situation in '67--The
State Press--The Order of K. K. K. in Louisiana--When the
Government Officials were first Notified of its Presence--The
Feeling in Grant Parish--Riot Growing out of a Personal
Difficulty--Blacks Entrenched in the Court-House at Colfax--
Parley--Negroes Refuse to Surrender--A Second Defiance--Building
Fired--Massacre and Termination of the Bloody Affair--Statistics
of Losses in the Fight--Who were Responsible--The White League or
Camelias--Occupied the K. K. K. Basis in Externals--New Orleans
Riots--Their Effect on the Returning Boards--Coushatta--K. K. K.
in Texas--Border History Uneventful 134
CHAPTER XV.
TALLY-HO!
The Situation in Georgia--Some Things which may be Explained--
Negro Criminals--Taking Refuge in the Ocmulgee Swamps--Ku-Klux
Ambushed--A Terrible Oath--Uncle Jack B.--"Nigger Dogs" in the
"Goober State"--Uncle Jack Interviewed by the Ku-Klux--What
came of it--Getting Ready for the Chase--A Pack of "Negro Dogs"
described--In the Swamps--The Opening Chorus--A Warm Trail--
Disappointment--The Lull is Past--A Last Effort--Another Crime
added to the Calendar--A fresh Start--At Bay--Tragical Scene 143
CHAPTER XVI.
THE "SHAMS."
The Klan in South Carolina--Officious Interference in Politics--
Atrocious Performances of Men in Masks--The "Shams," or
Counterfeit Editions of K. K. K.--How Organized--Their Vocabulary
of Crime--South Carolina Fanatics--How the "Sham" Movement
Affected the K. K. K.--A Resolution of _sine die_ Adjournment--
K. K. K. Horrors on the Increase--Rotten-Egg Battalions--Citizens
sometimes took the Execution of the Law into their Own Hands--A
Case in Point 154
CHAPTER XVII.
A MORAL POINTED.
Experiments in Metaphysics--An Anecdote Dealing with the
Characteristics of some People--Another--Peculiarities of the
Caucasian--Ditto of the African--An "Awakening" among the Children
of the New Abrahamic Covenant--"Brudder Jones's Preechin'"--What it
Wrought--The Pale-Faced Settlers in Distress--An "Artifice" of
Retrenchment--Eloquent Discourse--Nineteenthly, and what followed--
K. K. K. _redivivus_--"Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching,
etc."--A Break for Tall Timber 161
CHAPTER XVIII.
K. K. K. AS A FACTOR IN POLITICS.
Late Announcement of the Earl of Beaconsfield before an Assembly
of Englishmen--The Secret Societies of Europe--True Status with
Regard to Current Politics--Combining the Offices of Regulator and
_Vigilante_ with that of Politician--Its Generical Belongings--Few
Friends Unconnected with its Patronage--Negative Issue which it
Introduced into the Great Campaign--Occupying a Voice in Southern
Counsels--Unprincipled Plagiaries--Dangerous Sentimentalism
Awakened at the North 172
CHAPTER XIX.
THE LAST OF THE K.'S.
A Popular Fallacy--Karl Konstant Kain, Esq.--Awaiting Events--An
Intricate Subject for the Hospitals and Doctors--Getting Even
with the Latter--Yellow Jack on a Raid--K. K. K., Esq. in his
Prison Cell--Promoted to the Hospital--An Uncommon Defiance--K.
Konstant Kain struggles back to Shore--"Do not Weep"--A Critical
Moment--A New Cast and entire Change of Scenery--"Gruel" did it--
Waited upon by a Deputation of Citizens--"Young Man, Go West"--
The New Orleans Pest-House--Konfounded, Krooked Konundrum 180
CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION 189
KU-KLUX SKETCHES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Terms of Southern Surrender in the War of the Rebellion--Candor of
Paroled Troops--"Lee's Ragamuffins"--Generals Grant's and Sherman's
Proposed Amnesty--The "Rump Congress" and Disfranchisement--What the
Latter meant--Issues which the War Settled--How these were Revived by
the Pending Congress--Anarchy in the South--The Loyal League.
The treaty concluded between the conquered and conquering States at the
close of the late civil war, while arranging all external differences and
disarming physical resistance, yet did not provide for certain
contingencies arising from the ethics of the dispute, which were destined
to exert a powerful influence over the destinies of the American people.
Undoubtedly the Southern troops surrendered their standards, and accepted
the conqueror's amnesty in good faith, and we can but believe that their
allegiance to the restored Union--which had been promptly tendered--would
have been crowned with this condition but for the disposition manifested
by the civil power to review the pledges of its ambassadors in the field,
and interpose supplementary conditions that could have no other beneficial
effect than might be supposed to result, in a general way, from the
humiliation of the conquered, and which would naturally tend to a revival
of the _casus belli_. Having returned to their homes, and been soothed
into accord with their new surroundings by those domestic Penates which
had escaped the dispensation of fire and sword, through which they had
mutually passed, "Lee's ragamuffins," as they had been styled by the
Jenkinses of the period, set resolutely to work to restore their fallen
fortunes, and, at the same time, so amend the shattered social fabric as
that their personal and property rights might have that organized
protection which cannot always be assured in times of civil disturbance.
That they had forfeited any of those rights common to citizens of the
republic under which they lived, by taking up arms in defence of a great
national doctrine which, they were firmly persuaded, embodied its genius,
if it did not represent its life, was a bombproof theory never seriously
proposed until the glory of Appomattox had passed into history. To be
denationalized, even in the sense which their severer critics ascribed as
one of the conditions of their voluntary withdrawal from the national
compact, carried with it discomforts of no mean significance; but to have
the ill effects of their so-called treason visited upon them in the
commonest concerns of social being, and to be denied a part in the
administration of those State governments for whose (supposed) integrity
they had imperilled their lives, was the harshest of all possible
reconstruction issues, and one which candid thinkers will regard a very
faint reflection of that peace policy which the measure purported to
represent.
Having determined to supersede the military policy enforced against the
Southern States by the Union generals, with such felicitous results, the
National Legislature, which, immediately upon the close of the war, had
developed those diagnostics which caused fair-minded men of the period to
look upon it as a distempered and revolutionary body (and achieved for it
the title of the "Rump Congress"), resolved to replace it by another,
altogether dissimilar in type, and contrasting strangely with it even in
reference to the objects supposed to be had in view. The people of the
South, contending for the doctrine of State sovereignty, and pledging
their fortunes and their lives in defence of a supposed inalienable right,
and the masses of the North as strenuously opposing this theory, and
asserting that no emergency could arise whereby a member of the Union
might reclaim its sovereignty from the national compact, presented an
issue altogether susceptible of settlement. And, indeed, proceeding upon
the obvious plan that where questions of great practical moment cannot be
adjudicated otherwise, they must submit to the _a fortiori_ of determined
majorities, the Southern people had already been driven to the amplest
concessions regarding this measure; and whatever doubts they may have
retained affecting the metaphysics of the discussion, were quite convinced
that no other plan of adjustment would prove feasible.
But this inference (and it could be presented in no more tangible shape at
the time) was far from satisfying that singular body of peace
commissioners who, in the capacity of a national legislature, had
assembled at Washington, not only to reaffirm the Southern doctrine, but
to reconsider all the mighty results of Grant's and Sherman's campaigns,
by disallowing the claims of the States lately in rebellion, and forcing
them into that mourning period of so-called reconstruction and social and
political anarchy, lately terminated. And thus, during the few years
succeeding this new legislative departure, was presented the singular
spectacle of States belonging to the National Union, who, by certain
inherent properties of their being, could not forfeit, nor submit to
forfeiture of the bond which established their identity therewith, acting
independently of the national government in all things, save those
non-essentials represented by taxation, the performance of military duty,
etc.; and, at a later period, through the mysterious processes of pardons,
congressional amnesties, and reconstruction, becoming (re)-invested with
the only sovereignty which it was claimed they had ever possessed, that
derived from the national compact.
It is needless to say that there was no logical plan supporting that
system of political manoeuvres set in motion by the "Rump Congress,"
whose earliest and latest results--the social and political emasculation
of the white freeman, and the exaltation, in like respect, of the
negro--provoked that state of anarchy in the South which alone could have
rendered possible the great secret movement whose history we are to
discuss in these pages.
It may be doubted whether the mere disfranchisement of the citizens of
these States--though that condition were supposed to include every right
and privilege dear to freemen--would have prevailed with this people to
embrace those extreme measures which, soon after this event, they were
driven to adopt with such unanimity. Loyal League supremacy, and the
elevation of the black man to those political rights from which the
Southern white citizen had been so recently thrust down, were far more
conclusive factors of this result; and as such, in all narratives
pretending to authenticity in delivering the political events of this
period, will be more closely blended with the historical fact.