As an instance of what the courage of one man can do in a righteous cause,
against a multitude of those who are actuated by wicked and unlawful
motives, the case of Mr. J. K. Halliday, a resident of Jackson County,
near Jefferson, Ga., is perhaps one of the most extraordinary on record.
Mr. Halliday is a native of Jackson County, Ga., where he has always lived
and done business. He was opposed to secession and rebellion from the
first; was continually counselling peaceful measures, and openly avowed
himself a Unionist. During the war, he utterly refused to take up arms
against the Government, and being a man of great influence and large
means, was enabled to avoid conscription into the rebel ranks.
He was a thriving business man, the proprietor of two plantations and a
mill, and kept a large number of hands engaged at work. After the close of
the rebellion and as a measure of concession to the turbulent spirits by
whom he was surrounded, he employed white men to do his labor.
Mr. Halliday soon found, to his inconvenient cost, that these men demanded
exorbitant wages; that they were indisposed to perform a fair day's work,
sometimes not working at all, and then but for a half day, but always
charging him for full time--and he finally became disgusted with, and
discharged them altogether. This was sufficient to bring him into contempt
with the Klan, who charged him with being a "negro lover," as well as a
Union sympathizer, and an open-mouthed Radical.
Threats of his assassination and the destruction of his mill and other
buildings were freely uttered. He was formally "warned" by the K. K. K.'s,
that he must change his course, politically, or he would certainly suffer
death. Halliday's reply to this threat and warning was simply to proceed
to Jefferson, and procure some of the best modern weapons, for defense,
that he could find. With these he returned to his dwelling, awaited
results, pursuing his usual course, advocating such political principles
as he please, and employing colored men as before.
During the spring of 1871, at a meeting of the Ku Klux Camp of Jefferson
County, it was solemnly resolved that Halliday should be killed, and his
property destroyed. The night for the "visitation" was duly decided on;
and through an anonymous note this information was conveyed to Halliday,
the writer begging him as he valued his life, to leave the place, and thus
save himself.
To less resolute men this would have appeared a serious matter, but upon
Halliday the threatened danger had an entirely different effect. It nerved
rather than weakened his brave spirit, and he resolved to "stick." He was
a man full six feet in stature, and well proportioned; he had been long
accustomed to out-of-door life, and was considered one of the most
powerful men, physically, in the county; he knew his strength, and relying
upon that and an unswerving faith in God, he determined to defend himself
and his family to the last.
On the night of the anticipated visit, he placed his wife and his two
children in the upper room of the house, and barricaded the passage way
leading thereto, as best he could.
Mrs. Halliday well knew the desperate character and murderous designs of
the Klan. She clung to her husband, to whom she was devotedly attached,
and expressed her fears as he passed down the stairway, that she would
never see him again, alive! To this Mr. Halliday responded:
"You forget that the GREAT MASTER is with me! Trust HIM as _I_ do," and
kissing her and the little ones, he descended to the ground floor, where
he intended to remain and await the advent of the party.
Some of the more faithful of the negroes observing the unusual care with
which Mr. H. adjusted the fastenings upon the doors and shutters, that
night, hinted to him that they "reck'nd he 'spected trouble," and they
would like to be near him.
"No," said he, "go to your own places and don't come out; if they come in
here, I had rather be alone, for then I can shoot and cut at random and be
sure not to hit any of my own friends. Every man I strike will surely be
one who ought to be stricken."
Mr. Halliday was armed with two rifles, two revolvers, and a long bowie
knife. Shortly before midnight, the Klan made their appearance in front of
the house, to the number of about twenty. Halliday saw them through a
small half-moon shaped aperture at the top of the shutter.
They were all masked, and appeared each to wear a long rubber cape,
falling from the shoulders to the waist. They came straight to the door,
and, without saying a word, commenced to batter it in. The door gave way
in a few moments, and as they rushed in, Halliday discharged his firearms
with such fatal effect, that three of the Klan dropped dead upon the
floor.
The room was intensely dark, and a desperate fight ensued, in which the
assailants more frequently encountered each other than the victim for whom
they were in search.
Halliday was finally grappled by one of the foremost of the party. He
speedily freed himself through his superior strength and the prompt use of
his bowie knife, thrusting it into his assailant's bowels, and throwing
him violently back on to the crowd. The wounded man exclaimed:
"He's got a knife! I'm murdered!"
This caused a panic among the marauders, and the entire crowd left the
house, taking their dead and wounded with them. After making certain that
all of their own number were out, they discharged their firearms through
the open doorway, and beat a retreat, taking a circuitous route, to avoid
being traced by the blood that oozed from the wounds of several of the
number, two of whom died soon after reaching their homes, thus making five
in all who had paid the forfeit of their lives in the unholy cause.
During all the time of this desperate encounter, the feelings of the
wretched wife and frightened children in the upper room, may only be
imagined. The father and husband, single handed, fighting against a horde
of ruffians bent upon his murder; their own fate depending upon his, and
not daring to cry out lest they should be discovered, and thus bring
destruction upon their own heads, their situation was agonizing in the
extreme.
Mrs. Halliday did not forget the last words of her husband, so full of the
strong faith that characterized the man: "_You forget that the Great
Master is with me. Trust Him as I do!_" And sinking upon her knees, she
poured her spirit out in silent and earnest prayer to God for help.
The dead calm that had ensued after the uproarious tumult of the firearms,
and the fierce struggle of the combatants in the room below, alarmed Mrs.
Halliday more than all else. Whether her husband had been overpowered at
last and taken away, or had been left dead upon the floor, with some of
the murderous crew watching to see who would come for the body, she knew
not. Possibly he might be lying there alone, wounded and insensible, with
the life-blood ebbing away, and no friendly hand to stay the crimson tide,
and the thought was terrible and agonizing.
An hour went by. An hour into which years of misery were crowded to the
forlorn woman, and yet no sound of life, no ray of light gleaming through
the impenetrable darkness, to relieve the awful gloom and suspense, or
give her one faint shadow of hope.
Halliday was indeed lying there, exhausted and unconscious from the
numerous wounds and contusions he had received. In his right hand he still
held the bowie knife firmly grasped, as if awaiting the further onslaught
of the foe, while his left was clenched with the determination of his iron
will. The cool wind blowing off the mill-stream and coming in through the
open doorway, aroused him at length to consciousness.
The remembrance of the fight, his successful resistance, the retreat of
the assailing party, and, above all, his wife and children, saved--and by
his own right arm!--came back to his recollection and nerved him to
action. He roused himself from his lethargy, and groping his way to the
stairs, he called out:
"Are you there, mother! and our darlings!"
Who shall tell the feelings of that wife-mother's heart, bowed in its
terrible anguish, and now so suddenly raised to the highest pinnacle of
happiness as she responded, "Here! and safe, thank God, and our husband
and father."
Who shall describe the music that will compare, in Halliday's bosom, to
the pattering feet of his darlings, as they rushed to meet his strong and
loving embraces, and shouted, "Papa, papa!" amid their fast falling tears.
Halliday's wounds, though not fatal, were still serious enough to alarm
his wife, and as early in the morning as she dared, she sent one of the
negroes for a doctor; but it appeared that every doctor in the vicinity
was busy with patients who had been "taken suddenly ill during the night."
One of these was the only son of a widow, the nearest neighbor to the
Hallidays. He had received a "severe fall" the night previous, they said,
upon a sharp instrument that had pierced his bowels and caused his death.
This proved to be the man Halliday had cut. Five funerals attested the
energy and strength of the hero's arm, and the dead bodies of the victims
remained as lasting "warnings" to the "defenders of the white man's
government," and that it was not always wise to attack the members of the
"white man's race."
It is almost needless to add that Mr. Halliday was left free from that
time forth to pursue his own course, politically and otherwise as he
deemed best, and that his persecutors came to realize with him that "the
race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," and that
in the struggle of the right for supremacy over the wrong, "God and one
constitute a majority."