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.

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