SECRET SOCIETIES
LOYAL LEAGUE, WHITE CAMELIAS, WHITE BROTHERHOOD, PALE FACES, KU KLUX
Parent of all was the Union or Loyal League, whose history may be briefly
summarised: Organisation for dignified ends in Philadelphia and New York
in 1862-3; extension into the South among white Unionists; formation,
1866, of negro leagues; admission of blacks into "mixed" leagues; rapid
withdrawal of native whites and Northern settlers until leagues were
composed almost wholly of negroes dominated by a few white political
leaders. Churches, halls, schoolhouses, were headquarters where mystic
initiation rites, inflammatory speeches, military drills, were in order.
The League's professed object was the training of the negro to his duties
as a citizen. It made him a terror and forced whites into the formation of
counter secret societies for the protection of their firesides.
"To defend and perpetuate freedom and the Constitution, the supremacy of
law and the inherent rights of civil and religious freedom, and to
accomplish the objects of the organisation, I pledge my life, my fortune
and my sacred honour." This was the oath in part. Members were sworn to
vote only for candidates endorsed by the league. The ritual appealed to
the negro's superstition. The catechism inculcated opposition to the
Democratic Party, fealty to the Radical Republican, condemnation of
Southern whites as traitors. Candidates for membership were conducted to
the Council Chamber; here, the Marshal rapped the league alarm, the
Sentinel called, "Who comes under our signal?" Answer given, the door
opens cautiously, countersign is demanded, and given in the "Four Ls"--the
right hand pointing upward with the word, "Liberty," sinking to shoulder
level with "Lincoln," dropping to the side with "Loyal," folding to the
breast with "League." The Council receives the novitiates standing, as
they march in arm in arm, singing, "John Brown's Body" and take positions
around the altar before which the President stands in regalia.
The altar is draped with the flag, on which lies an open Bible, the
Declaration of Independence, a sword, ballot-box, sickle, and anvil or
other toy emblems of industry. At first the room may be in darkness with
sounds of groans and clanking chains issuing from corners. The chaplain
calls the league to prayer, invoking Divine vengeance on traitors. From a
censer (sometimes an old stove vase) upon the altar blue flames, "fires of
liberty," leap upward. The Council opens ranks to receive novitiates;
joining hands, all circle round the altar, singing, "The Star-Spangled
Banner" or other patriotic air. Novitiates lay hands upon the flag, kiss
the Bible and swear: "I will do all in my power to elect true and loyal
men to all offices of trust and profit." Instructions in pass-words,
signals, etc., are given. Secret business is transacted.
Negroes were drilled, armed and marched about. Into League rooms social
features were introduced, League literature was read aloud, feminine
branches were formed. Leagues furnished a secret service bureau. Coloured
servants told what happened in white houses. "My cook and I were children
together," a friend tells me. "As we grew up, she made me read and write
her letters. One day, after freedom, she said, 'Miss, put 'tin dar fuh
Jeems tuh write me suppin funny nex' time he do write. We has to have all
our letters read out in church an' when dere's anything funny, de folks
laugh.' Soon she ceased asking my services. Through this plan of having
letters read out in church leagues and bureaus collected information of
happenings in private homes from far and wide. Such gleanings might be
useful in revealing political or self-protective movements among whites,
in hunting a man down; or serving his political or social enemy, or
would-be robber."
In a South Carolina mansion, Mrs. Vincent and her daughter Lucy lived
alone except for a few faithful ex-slaves. A cabin on the edge of the
plantation was rented to Wash, a negro member of the Loyal League, whose
organiser was Captain Johnson, commander of a small garrison in a nearby
town. The captain was fond of imposing fines upon whites against whom
negroes entered complaint. There seemed nice adjustment between fines and
defendants' available cash. One day Wash, pushing past Lucy's maid into
the Vincent parlor, said to Lucy's mother, "I'se come to cote Miss Lucy."
"Leave the house!" "I ain' gwi leave no such a thing! I'se gwi marry Lucy
an' live here wid you." Lucy appeared. "I'se come to ax you to have me.
I'se de ve'y man fuh you to hitch up wid. Dis here place b'long to me. You
b'long to me." She whipped out a pistol and covered him. "Run! Run for
your life!" He ran. When he was out of pistol-shot, he turned and yelled:
"You d----d white she-cat! I'll make you know!" She caught up a musket and
fired. Balls whistled past his head; he renewed his flight.
Next morning, as the ladies, pale and miserable, sat at breakfast, a squad
of soldiers filed in, took seats, helped themselves and ordered the
butler around. The ladies rose and were arrested. A wagon was at the door.
"Please, marsters," said black Jerry humbly, "lemme hitch up de kerridge
an' kyar Mistiss an' Miss Lucy in it. 'Taint fitten fuh 'em to ride in a
waggin--an' wid strange mens." His request was refused. The ladies were
arraigned before Captain Johnson on charge that they had used insulting
language to Mr. Washington Singleton Pettigru; and that Lucy, "in defiance
of law and morals and actuated by the devil," had "without provocation"
fired on him with intent to kill. A fine of $1,000 or six months in jail
was imposed. "I have not so much money!" cried Mrs. Vincent. "Jail may
change your mind," said the captain. They were committed to a loathsome
cell, their determination alone preventing separation.
Lawyers flocked to their defense; the captain would hear none. Towards
nightfall the town filled with white men wearing set faces. The captain
sent for one of the lawyers. The lawyer said: "Unless you release those
ladies from the jail at once, no one can tell what may happen. But this I
believe: you, nor a member of your garrison, will be alive tomorrow." They
were released; fine remitted; the captain left in haste. An officer came
from Columbia to investigate "disorder in the district." He condemned
Johnson's course and tried to reassure the community. It came out that
Johnson had received information that Mrs. Vincent held a large,
redeemable note; he had incited Wash to "set up" to Miss Lucy, urging that
by marrying her he would become the plantation's owner: "Call in your best
duds and ask her to marry you. If she refuses, we will find a way to
punish her." Wash, it was thought, had fled the country. The negro
body-servant of Lucy's dead brother had felt that the duty of avenger
devolved upon him, and in his own way he had slain Wash and covered up
the deed.
A white congregation was at worship in a little South Carolina church when
negro soldiers filed in and began to take seats beside the ladies. The
pastor had just given out his text; he stretched forth his hands and said
simply: "Receive the benediction," and dismissed his people. A
congregation in another country church was thrown into panic by balls
crashing through boards and windows; a girl of fourteen was killed
instantly. Black troops swung by, singing. Into a dwelling a squad of
blacks marched, bound the owner, a prominent aged citizen, pillaged his
house, and then before his eyes, bound his maiden daughter and proceeded
to fight among themselves for her possession. "Though," related my
informant with sharp realism, "her neck and face had been slobbered over,
she stood quietly watching the conflict. At last, the victor came to her,
caught her in his arms and started into an adjoining room, when he wavered
and fell, she with him; she had driven a knife, of which she had in some
way possessed herself, into his heart. The others rushed in and beat her
until she, too, was lifeless. There was no redress."
In black belts, where such things happened and where negroes talked openly
of killing out white men and taking white women for wives, the whites, few
in number, poorly armed and without organisation, scattered over the
country and leading themselves in no insignificant proportion the lives of
the hunted, faced a desperate situation. Many who chanced to give offense
to the ruling faction or who by force of character were considered
obstacles to its advancement, found themselves victims of false charges,
and, chased by troops, had to leave their families and dwell in swamps or
other hiding-places. Compelled by necessity to labour in the field, white
gentlemen going to their toil, let down gaps in surrounding fences so that
they might fly at a moment's notice, and plowed with saddles on their
horses' backs. Northerners, and Southerners who did not live in that day
and in black belts, can form no conception of the conditions which gave
rise to the white secret societies of which the most widely celebrated is
the Ku Klux.
Larger in numbers and wider in distribution was the order of the Knights
of the White Camelia, originating in Louisiana; small protective bodies
consolidating May 23, 1867, in New Orleans, took this title. Extension
over the United States was purposed. Its first article of faith was
preservation of the integrity of the white race, and, in government, white
supremacy. At the door of the Council Chamber the blindfolded candidate
for initiation vowed: "The cause of our race must triumph;" and "We must
all be united as are the flowers that grow on one stem." He swore "Never
to marry any woman but of the white race." Mongrel legislatures were
enacting laws about co-education and intermarriage of races; the whites
were a "bewildered people." In Mississippi, the order of the Knights of
the White Rose was modelled on the White Camelias; in Alabama, the White
Brotherhood and the White League; there were Pale Faces, Union Guards, and
others, all of which, with the White Camelias, may be included in the Ku
Klux movement.
The Ku Klux originated near Pulaski, Tennessee, 1866, in something akin to
a college boys' frolic. Some young ex-Confederates, of good families,
finding time heavy on their hands after war's excitement, banded together
in a fraternity, with initiation rites, signals, oaths of secrecy, and a
name after the Greek, kyklos, a circle, corrupted into kuklos, kuklux, and
adding klan. Their "den" was a deserted house near the town. They rode
at night in queer disguises; at first, without other object than
diversion. Their fear and fame spread; branches were formed in other
counties and States. In their pranks and negro superstition, whites found
weapon for protection and defense. Through troubled neighbourhoods, white
horsemen riding in noiseless procession, restored peace by parade and
sometimes by sterner measures.
[Illustration: MRS. DAVID R. WILLIAMS, OF SOUTH CAROLINA
(Daughter of Governor Miller)
From a portrait by Osgood, photographed by Reckling & Sons]
Notices left as warnings on doors or pinned to town-pumps or trees bore
cross-bones and skull in red ink, and such inscriptions as:
K K K
The Raven Croaked
and we are come to Look on the Moon.
The Lion Tracks the Jackal
the Bear the Wolf
Our Shrouds are Bloody
But the Midnight is Black.
The Serpent and Scorpion are Ready.
Some Shall Weep and Some Shall Pray.
Meet at Skull
For Feast of the Wolf and
Dance of the Muffled Skeletons.
The Death Watch is Set
The Last Hour Cometh.
The Moon is Full.
Burst your cerements asunder
Meet at the Den of the Glow-Worm
The Guilty Shall be Punished.
I have felt defrauded of my rights because I never saw a Ku Klux; my
native Virginia seems not to have had any. I have seen them abundantly,
however, through the eyes of others. One of my cousins went, during K. K.
days, to be bridesmaid to a Georgia cousin. One night, as she and the
bride-elect sat on the piazza, there appeared in the circular driveway a
white apparition of unearthly height, on a charger in white trappings.
Behind came another and another, the horses moving without sound; they
passed in silent review before the girls, each spectre saluting. With cold
chills running down her spine, Sue asked, "_What_ are they?" Her companion
laughed. "Haven't you been saying you wanted to see the Ku Klux?" News
enough next morning! A white man had been found tied to a tree, and over
his head, pinned to the bark, a notice written in his blood, warning him
to leave the county at once unless he desired to be carried out by a
pathway to--a grave with headstone neatly drawn and showing epitaph with
date of death, completed the sentence. He had been flogged and a scratch
on his breast showed whence red ink had been drawn. As soon as untied, he
left for parts unknown.
Neighbourhood darkeys had eyes big as saucers. Many quarters had been
visited. Sable uncles and aunties shook their heads, muttering: "Jedgment
Day 'bout tuh come. Gab'el gwi blow his ho'n an' sinners better be
a-moanin' an' a-prayin'. Yes, my Lawd!" And: "'Tain't jes one Death
a-ridin' on a pale horse! it's tens uv thousan's uv 'em is ridin' now.
Sinner, you better go pray!" A few who had been making themselves
seriously obnoxious observed terrified silence and improved demeanour. An
expert chicken-thief had received a special notice in which skulls and
cross-bones and chicken-heads and toes were tastefully intermixed. Others
were remembered in art designs of the "All-Seeing Eye," reminder that they
were being watched.
The white man was a receiver of stolen goods and instigator of
barn-burnings; had been tried for some one of his offenses and committed
to the penitentiary, only to be pardoned out by the State Executive. In a
North Carolina case of which I heard, a negro firebug who could not be
brought to justice through law, though the burning of two barns and a full
stable were traced to him, disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him
up after a night in which all the darkeys around smelled brimstone and saw
fiery-eyed and long-tailed devils at large. People were hard put to it for
protection against fire-fiends.
In a South Carolina newspaper a notice appeared from a man who gave
warning that he would take vengeance into his own hands if incendiaries
fired his property again.
The Ku Klux ruled its members with iron rod. Mr. M., of the order in
Tazewell, N. C., was building a cabin on his place for a negro who had
come under ban because of evil influence over other negroes; word had been
passed that he was to be crowded out. A message reached Mr. M.: "Do not
let this negro come on your place. K. K. K.", with due skull and
cross-bones accompaniment. To close friends of the order Mr. M. said: "My
rights shall not be abridged by the Klan." The cabin was finished on
Saturday. Sunday he asked a visitor: "Let's take a stroll in the woods and
a look at Henry's cabin." When they came to where the cabin had stood, Mr.
M. exclaimed: "Why, what does this mean? Lo and behold, the cabin and
everything is torn down and the logs scattered every which-a-way!" "And
what's this?" his friend asked, pointing to three new-made graves with
pine head-boards, inscribed respectively in epitaph to Mr. M., Henry, and
Henry's wife, Mr. M.'s death dated the ensuing Sabbath. On a tiny hillock
was a small gallows with grapevine attachment. As one of the order, Mr. M.
knew enough to make him ill at ease. Friends begged him to leave the
country for a time, and he went. "This may look like tyranny," said my
informant, "but Mr. M. ought to have heeded the first message. The order
could only do effective work through unfailing execution of sentence."
Between a young lady and the son of a house in which she was a guest, a
tender passion arose. He had mysterious absences lasting half or all
night, after which his horse would be found in the stables, lathered with
foam. The family rallied him on his devotion to a fair demoiselle in an
adjoining county. Though under cold treatment from the guest, he gave no
other explanation until one day he conducted her and his sister into his
room, locked the door, swore them to secrecy, drew from its hiding-place
up the chimney a Ku Klux outfit and asked them to make duplicates for a
new Klan he was forming. The lovers came to understanding; the girl
reproached him: "Why did you not tell me before?" "I did not know if you
could keep a secret. I have a public duty to perform; the liberty of my
men can be imperiled by a careless word."
The widow of a Ku Klux captain tells me that one night, when her husband
was absent on duty in a town where whites were in terror because the
negroes were threatening to burn it, her own house was fired. She was in
bed, her new-born baby at her side; stealthy steps were heard under her
window. Her old black mauma was afraid to go to the window and look out.
There was a smell of fire; the mauma ran to the door and shrieked alarm. A
shout answered from the cellar, where a faithful negro man-servant was
putting out flames. He had let the incendiaries go away thinking their
purpose fulfilled. The returning husband, sorely perplexed, said: "I do
not see how I can do my duty by my family and the public. I must give up
my Klan." "No," she answered. "All have to take turns in leaving their own
unprotected. I let you go into the army. Some one must lead, and your men
will not follow and obey any one else as they will you." He had been their
captain in the Confederate Army.
To a Loyal League jury or magistrate a prisoner on trial had but to give
the League signal to secure acquittal. A convicted and sentenced criminal
would be pardoned by a Loyal League Governor. Klans took administration of
justice into their own hands because courts were ineffective. In a den,
regularly established and conducted, a man would be tried by due process
before judge and jury, with counsel appointed for defense; evidence would
be taken, the case would be argued; the jury would render verdict; the
judge would dismiss the case or pronounce sentence. The man on trial might
or might not be present. A Ku Klux captain tells me that great effort was
made to give fair trials; acquittals were more frequent than convictions.
But when the court imposed sentence, sentence was carried out.
In the hill country of South Carolina, a one-armed ex-Confederate, a "poor
white," made a scanty living for his large family by hauling. Once, on a
lonely road when his load was whiskey, he was surrounded by negro
soldiers, who killed him, took possession of the whiskey and drank it.
Ring-leaders were arrested and lodged in jail; some were spirited away to
Columbia and released; a plan was afoot to free the rest, among them the
negro captain who had boasted of his crime, and flouted the whites with
their powerlessness to punish him. The prison was surrounded one night by
silent, black-robed horsemen on black-draped horses moving without sound;
jailer and guards were overpowered; cells entered; prisoners tried--if
proceedings interrupted by confessions and cries for mercy can be called
trial. Sentences were pronounced. The black-robed, black-masked circle
chanted "Dies Iræ, Dies Illa." The town awoke from a night of seeming
peace and silence to behold dead bodies swinging from the trees.[20]
The Stevens Mystery, of Yanceyville, N. C., has never been unravelled; the
$5,000 reward which President Grant offered for answer to the question,
"Who killed Stevens?" was never won, though skilled detectives tried for
it. Stevens was a scalawag. He achieved his sobriquet, "Chicken Stevens,"
through being chased out of his native county for stealing chickens. One
of his adherents, when quite drunk, said before an audience of two
thousand negroes: "Stevens stole chickens; that elected him to the
Legislature; if he steals turkeys, it will elect him to Congress." The
pleasantry was cheered to the echo. Stevens was charged with instigating
riots and barn-burnings. He received a mystic warning to leave the
country. He did not go.
One day, while court was in full session, he was seen in the Court Room,
in conversation with several people; was seen to leave in amicable company
with a citizen who parted with him and went out by the street door, while
Stevens entered a county office where clerks were busy; several persons
recalled seeing and speaking to him here, but nobody could remember seeing
him alive afterwards. Yet hall and offices were thronged with his
adherents. He was soon missed by the negroes who set a guard around the
building. Next day he was found in the Grand Jury Room, sitting bolt
upright, dead, strangled or with his throat cut, I forget which. This room
opened on the hall through which a stream of people, white and black, had
been passing all day; a negro cabin commanded a view of the window; a
negro janitor held the key.
Kirke's cut-throats, sent down by Governor Holden, arrested prominent
citizens and carried them to Raleigh. No evidence for conviction could
ever be found, and they were liberated. Stevens' death has been charged to
Ku Klux; also, to his confederates, who, it is said, received instructions
from headquarters to "kill off Stevens," meaning politically, which they
construed literally. I have been told that one of the slayers is living
and that at his death, a true statement will be published showing who
killed Stevens and how.
These stories are sufficient to show the good and the evil of Ku Klux;
there is public peril in any secret order which attempts to administer
justice. Uniform and methods employed to justifiable or excusable ends by
one set of people were employed to ends utterly indefensible by another.
The Radicals were quick to profit by Ku Klux methods; and much was done
under the name and guise that the Klan did not do. Yet, in its own ranks
were men reckless, heedless, and wicked, avengers of personal grudges.
The Invisible Empire, as the Klan was called in its organisation in 1867
under the leadership of Grand Wizard, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, and
with men like General Dudley Du Bose, of Georgia, for division commanders,
had a code that might have served for Arthur's Round Table. Its first
object was "To protect the weak, innocent and defenseless from the
indignities, wrongs and outrages of the lawless, the violent and the
brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed, to succour the suffering and
unfortunate, especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers."
Its second: "To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
and all laws passed in conformity thereto." Its third: "To aid and assist
in the execution of all constitutional laws, and to protect the people
from unlawful seizure and from trial except by their peers in conformity
to the laws of the land."
"Unlawful seizure" was practiced in South Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Mississippi and other States, where white men would be arrested on blank
warrants or no warrant at all; carried long distances from home, held for
weeks or months; and then, as happened in some famous cases, be released
without ever having been brought to trial; in other instances, they were
beaten; in others, committed to penitentiaries; in others, it was as if
the earth had swallowed them up--they have never been heard from. Some
agency was surely needed to effect ends which the Klan named as object of
its existence; that the Klan was effective of these ends in great degree
no one conversant with facts will deny, nor will they deny that
"Tom-foolery" and not violence was its most frequent weapon.
Where Ku Klux rode around, negroes ceased to venture out after dark. Some
told tales of ghastly nocturnal visitors who plead for a drink of water,
saying, "Dee ain' had nay drap sence de Yankees killed 'em at Gettysburg.
An' den, suh, when you han' 'em er gode-full, dee say: 'Kin you let me
have de bucket? I'se jes come f'om hell an' I'se scotchin' in my insides.'
An' den, mun, dat ar hant des drink down dat whole bucket at a gulp, an' I
hyern it sizzlin' down his gullet des same ez you done flung it on de
coals! I ain' gwi fool longer nothin' lak dat! Some folks say it's white
folks tryin' tuh skeer we-all, but, suh, I b'lieve it's hants-er Ole Satan
one!" Terrible experience it was when "A hant--or suppin nur--wid er hade
mighty nigh high ez er chimley ud meet a nigger in de road an' say: 'I
come f'om torment (hell) tuh shake han's wid you!' An' de nigger--he didn'
wanter do it, but he feared tuh 'fuse--he tooken shuck han's wid dat ar
hant, an' dat ar han' what he shuck was a skelumton's--de bones fa'r
rattle!"
The regular Ku Klux costume was a white gown or sheet, and a tall, conical
pasteboard hat; for the horse a white sheet and foot-mufflers. Black gown,
mask and trappings, and red ones, were also worn; bones, skulls of men and
beasts, with foxfire for eyes, nose and mouth, were expedients. A rubber
tube underneath robe or sheet, or a rubber or leather bag, provided for
miraculous consumption of water. In negro tales of supernatural
appearances, latitude must be allowed for imagination. A Ku Klux captain
tells me that one night as he rose up out of a graveyard, one of his
negroes passed with a purloined gobbler in possession; he touched the
negro on the shoulder. The negro dropped the turkey and flew like mad, and
the turkey flew, too. Next morning, the darkey related the experience to
his master (omitting the fowl). "How tall was that hant, George?" "Des
high ez a tree, Marster! an' de han' it toch my shoulder wid burnt me lak
fire. I got mutton-suet on de place." "I was about three feet taller than
my natural self that night," says Captain Lea. George wore a plaster on
his arm and for some time complained that it was "pa'lised."
Klans and Union Leagues came to an end conjointly when carpet-bag rule was
expiring. The Invisible Empire was dissolved formally by order of the
Grand Wizard, March, 1869. It had never been a close organisation, and
"dens" and counterfeit "dens" continued in existence here and there for
awhile, working good and evil. Ku Klux investigations instituted by State
authorities and the Federal Government were travesties of justice. Rewards
offered for evidence to convict caused innocent men to be hunted down,
arrested, imprisoned, and on false accusation and suborned testimony,
convicted and committed to State prisons or sent to Sing Sing. The jails
of Columbia, at one time, overflowed with the first gentlemen of the
state, thrown into filthy cells, charged with all manner of crimes.
The Union League incited to murder and arson, whipped negroes and whites.
But I never heard of Union Leaguers being tried for being Union Leaguers
as Ku Klux were tried for being Ku Klux. There are no Southerners to
contend that the Klan and its measures were justifiable or excusable
except on the grounds that the conditions of the times called for them;
informed Northerners will concede that the evils of the day justified or
excused the Klan's existence. For my part, I believe that this country
owes a heavy debt to its noiseless white horsemen, shades of its troubled
past.[21]
THE SOUTHERN BALLOT-BOX