PERSECUTION OF THE FURGUSON FAMILY FOR OPINION'S SAKE.--AGED WOMEN AND
YOUNG GIRLS STRIPPED NAKED, AND BRUTALLY WHIPPED.--AN AWFUL HISTORY.
_For whereas my father put a heavy yoke upon you,
I will put more to your yoke:
My father chastised you with whips,
But I will chastise you with scorpions._
II CHRONICLES, X, 11.
The terrible narration that here ensues shows more conclusively, perhaps,
than any that has preceded it, the extent of the moral degradation to
which the community in which it was enacted was so surely and steadily
drifting. It would seem that the authors of the outrage had forgotten that
they were born of mothers, who had nursed them tenderly in infancy, or
that there were any longer left in the bosoms of women those feelings of
virtue and modesty usually ascribed to and found in the sex, and the
writer will here premise that the facts herein contained, dreadful though
they are in their disgusting details, have been verified beyond cavil or
the hope of questioning.
Just previous to the breaking out of the rebellion, Dennis Furguson, an
intelligent and hard-working white man, resided with his family in Chatham
county, North Carolina. The family consisted of himself, his wife
Catherine, a daughter, Susan J. Furguson, and three sons, John, Henry and
Daniel. The head of the household was one of the few devoted Unionists who
were thoroughly opposed to the principles then being disseminated by those
who were endeavoring to plunge the country into a civil war, and exerted
all his influence to avoid the great catastrophe.
Mr. Furguson was known as being favorable to the Republicans, and had
voted in the interest of the principles of the party of that name,
whenever opportunity had offered. He had educated his children in a love
of the Union, and taught them the blessings of civil and religious liberty
with their evening prayers, and had succeeded in imbuing them with his own
opinions to such an extent that the family became noted throughout Chatham
county as Unionists and Radicals.
At the breaking out of the war, Furguson determined to remain a
non-combatant, seeking as far as possible not to render himself obnoxious
to his neighbors, but resolving at the same time to maintain a neutral
position. In this, however, he was doomed to a bitter disappointment,
being conscripted into the rebel army and sent to the front. He was taken
prisoner at Fort Caswell, N. C., and was sent to Elmira, N. Y., where he
died, never having seen his family from the night he was so rudely torn
from their embrace, and compelled to serve in the army of the rebellion.
Neither this great calamity, nor the numerous other hardships suffered by
this family for opinion's sake, could shake their firm adherence to the
Union cause. The daughter was a beautiful girl, of great natural
intelligence, but who had been wholly without the advantages of an
education. She was attached to her father with a rare devotion, and
believed it to be a filial duty, which she owed to his memory, to continue
to enunciate the principles in which he had so thoroughly instructed her.
His conscription had strengthened rather than weakened these sentiments,
and she publicly spoke of his death as chargeable to the wicked designs of
the men who had endeavored to overturn and destroy the country.
At the time of the organization of the first Camp of the "Constitutional
Union Guards," or Ku Klux Klan, in Chatham county, Susan Furguson was in
her eighteenth year. Her case was the first one brought to the
consideration of the Camp; but no special action was taken thereon until
it was observed that the sons were following in the footsteps of the
father, and were advocating the same principles of Unionism and
Republicanism that he had taught them. They also learned that Miss
Furguson lost no opportunity to express her convictions to the colored
people with whom she came in contact, and in their eyes her course became
intolerable.
During the October of 1870, the case of the Furguson family was again
brought before the Camp as a flagrant violation of the principles of the
white man's government, and it was resolved that an example should be made
of them. A warning was sent to the family to renounce their political
faith, and cease the promulgation of their opinions, or leave the country.
To this, and subsequent warnings of a similar character, no attention was
paid, and an edict was finally issued by the Commander of the Camp, to
have some, if not all the members of the family, scourged.
On the night of the 10th of November, 1870, the Furgusons retired to bed
at about 10 o'clock. The family was then composed of the widow, Mrs.
Catherine Furguson, the daughter Susan, and the three sons. Between eleven
and twelve o'clock, the attention of the daughter was called to a noise
outside the house, resembling the tramp of horses' feet, and the running
of men. In a moment afterwards, a voice shouted, "Open the door." The
daughter arose hastily, threw a wrapper over her person, and went to the
door and asked, "Who is there?"
The response to this was another command, delivered in more peremptory
tones than at first--"Open the door!" and on her refusing to comply
therewith, the frail structure was broken in, and a man, disguised beyond
all hope of recognition, sprang into the apartment, confronting the girl
with a most terrible oath.
In the dim glare of the candle which Miss Furguson had lighted, and now
held above her head, this hideous looking object presented an appearance
well calculated to terrify a stouter heart. A long black gown hung over
his person to his knees, and his legs were encased in huge army boots,
ornamented with a brace of iron spurs. Over his face was a black mask,
with apertures for the eyes, nose, and mouth, and around these were drawn
ghastly circles of white and red, rendering the face of the figure
exceedingly repulsive. On his breast was the representation of a human
skull worked in white, on a black ground, and surrounded with grotesque
figures worked in red. His head was surmounted with a high conical-shaped
black hat, on which were curious figures worked in white, and edged with
red and yellow.
He commenced his interrogations by asking Miss Furguson if she had ever
seen a KU KLUX; to which the brave girl replied she never had, nor did she
wish to, unless it were more comely than he. This seemed to enrage him,
and turning to the door, he shouted, "Come in!" A horde of twenty men,
similarly disguised, rushed into the room, and the indecent orgies
commenced.
The mother and the three brothers had remained in bed, at the earnest
request of the sister, but were speedily dragged from their resting place.
Daniel was the first one assailed. His night clothes were torn from him in
myriads of pieces, leaving him in an entirely nude state. He was then
thrown down upon the floor, and stretched out at full length; four of the
band seizing and holding him fast while two others came forward and
administered to him upwards of an hundred lashes on the naked person,
drawing the blood at every blow, and raising the quivering flesh in great
ridges upon his back and limbs. The boy fainted under the terrible
punishment, and was then thrown aside to make room for his brothers, Henry
and John, who were each castigated in an equally severe manner.
John Furguson, who was more delicate than his brothers, uttered such
piercing shrieks, as the heavy gum switches descended upon his back and
loins, that his sister became almost insane. In her terrible agony she
sprang upon the leader, and before she could be prevented, tore off his
mask, and, to her horror and amazement, disclosed the face of Richard
Taylor, one of her nearest neighbors, to whom she had often, since the
death of her father, gone for advice and counsel. Taylor threw her rudely
to the floor and replaced his mask as quickly as possible. The girl was
severely stunned by the fall, but as soon as she recovered, cried out, "I
know you, Dick Taylor, and I will have you punished for what you have done
this night."
Taylor immediately discharged his revolver at her, but, in the dim light
shed over the room by the candle, and the excitement of the moment, shot
wide of the object. He then exclaimed, with an oath, "If you move again, I
will kill you dead; and if I ever hear of your telling anybody of this
affair, we will come back and kill you all."
Turning to Mrs. Furguson, he said, "Now, you take your folks and leave
this country. If you are not gone in ten days, we will be here again and
you shall all die."
During the entire time of this whipping the three sons, two of them men
grown, were completely naked, and when the mother and daughter sought to
avert their heads from the shameful spectacle, they were ordered to turn
them back again on pain of instant death, the command being enforced with
pistols presented at their heads, by the hands of men whom they now felt
assured would not hesitate to use them if ordered.
Having issued the edict for the family to leave the country or suffer
death, the gallant defenders of the "white man's government" and the
protectors of the "white man's race" departed.
For more than three weeks succeeding this visitation, the Furguson
brothers were confined to their beds, and the mother and daughter nursed
their wounds, and labored for their support with untiring energy. During
these three weeks Susan Furguson had spread the news of the outrage to all
parts of Chatham County, characterizing the attack upon them as brutal and
savage--a crime that, if left unpunished by men, would surely be punished
by the hand of the Lord. She applied to the Justices of the Peace for
relief, stated that she recognized Dick Taylor, and George and Joseph
Blaylock, citizens of the place, as being present on the night of the
assault, and participating therein, and would make her affidavit to the
facts, and support it with undeniable testimony.
She was everywhere laughed to scorn. The few who sympathized with her and
her family, dared not give expression to their thoughts for fear of a
similar fate. Chatham County was in the hands of the Ku Klux; a reign of
terror had been inaugurated there; the mob had made laws for themselves,
and justice was not to be had.