The First Klan Part 2 Reign of Terror

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eric Gasco and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I can't give you many names,
and you're a Blunder. Hey look, I'm Raisling. I'm got

(00:24):
the b rah A long struggle for freedom, it really
is a revolution. Welcome back to Distorted History. In our
continued examination of the original Ku Klux Klan, last time,

(00:44):
we saw how the clan was originally formed and it's
seeming transformation from silly secret society to a paramilitary terrorist
organization aimed at disenfranchising the newly freed African American population,
removing the radical Republicans from power, and ending reconstruction, all
in the name of restoring the South as much as
possible to the way things used to be. We then

(01:05):
saw the beginnings of the group's expansion from a singular
county or two in Tennessee to being active in all
parts of the state. With this newfound power, the clan
hope to use its capacity for terror and intimidation to
affect the eighteen sixty eight presidential and congressional elections. Yet
before we pick up that story, in the story of
the Clan's expansion throughout the entirety of the Former Confederacy. First,

(01:25):
like always, I want to give credit to my sources
for this series, which include J. Michael Martinez's Carbon Bager's
Calvary and the ku Klux Klan, Elaine France Parsons Ku
Klux the Birth of the Clan during Reconstruction and Alan W.
Tree leases The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction.
And like always, these and any other additional sources that

(01:47):
I use like websites, will be listened on this podcast.
Blueskuy and Covie pages. Plus for anyone who doesn't want
to be bothered skipping through commercials, there is always an
ad free feed available at patreon dot com. Slash di
started history. And with all that being said, let's begin.
As the Klan was spreading all over Tennessee, was also
spreading throughout the entirety of the former Confederacy, a massive

(02:08):
expansion which Nathan Bedford Forest potentially played a rollin. Now
Forrest had been a plantation owner and slave trader before
the war, at which pon he became a faned Calvary
general in the Confederate Army, whose fame and success was
likely in no small part due to the state of
the Union Calvary during the early parts of that conflict. Regardless,
he was it to be fearless and audacious in battle,

(02:30):
and so was service during that war placed him in
the pantheon a Southern Heroes, along with other traders like
Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Following the end of
that bloody conflict, Forest then went into the railroad, building,
and life insurance businesses. However, he has long been known
in history as he had in the original version of
the clan. At the very least, that was how he
presented himself to the present to the government, as he

(02:52):
would travel throughout the South during this period promoting the
organization and its quote honorable end quote purpose. Indeed, in
August eighteen sixty eight, the former Confederate General would boast
at the group at some forty thousand members in Tennessee
and up to five hundred and fifty thousand throughout the
entirety of the South. That being said, there does not

(03:13):
seem to be any definitive evidence that Forrest had anything
to do with the clan until after it had spread
throughout much of the region, meaning that instead of being
a motivating force behind the start and growth of the clan.
Forest seems to have more than anything else, latched onto
the organization, as he seemedly recognized it as a group
that it would be politically advantageous to get close to,
and thus utilized for his own goals. It's unclear, then,

(03:35):
when exactly Forrest actually connected himself to the clan, although
it seems likely that he came to the organization through
John W. Morton, who had served as forrest Chief of
artillery during the war. As more Nuci had attended school
in Pulaski, the birthplace of the clan, and would in
fact become a grand cyclops in the Nashville Clan den Yet,
regardless of whether Forest approached more than about and joining

(03:57):
the Klan, or if Moran approached Forest with the U
offered to become the group's leader or grand Wizard, the
fact that the matter was in the South during the
age of reconstruction, the name Nathan Bedford Forrest brought a
serious level prestige and legitimacy to any organization he was
a part of. Now, Forrest might have opted to join
the Klan in part because he viewed the Union League
as a threat one with its support of the reconstruction

(04:20):
governments of the Southern States, which were manned and supported
by a combination of Southerners, who he viewed as traders, Northerners,
and African Americans forces who good upstanding in quote unquote
loyal white Southerners had to defend themselves against. Indeed, according
to a Democratic leader in Huntsville, Alabama, Forrest had justified
the clan's existence by claiming that in Tennessee, quote Brownlow

(04:42):
was drilling his Negro militia all over up there, and
bad white men, and they, meaning the clan had quote
organized for the protection of society and Tennessee. Indeed, he
would make similar claims during a newspaper interview in August
eighteen sixty eight, where the former Confederate general claimed that
the clan was necessary because of all all the unpunished
crimes that were being committed by the newly freed African Americans,

(05:04):
something which seems decidedly unlikely unless by crimes forrest Men's
stuff like black men and women moving about freely and
generally behaving and speaking light, they were free in equal
citizens of the United States. Yet, regardless of his motivation
for joining the organization, the fact that the matter was
the Clan in eighteen sixty eight expanded from Tennessee to
spread all across the South. Indeed, every state in the

(05:26):
former Confederacy with the addition of Kentucky, would see at
least some Clan activity during this time, with most of
it first appearing in March in April eighteen sixty eight.
Eight times that coincided with the period where most of
these state governments under radical reconstruction were being organized, governments
which were at least partially built upon the idea of
racial equality, or as racist white southers called it, quote

(05:48):
negro domination. Because for these people, unless everything in the
world was being catered to their needs, they became by definition,
the victims. Now, it is quite possible that Nathan Bedford
far played a significant role in the expansion of the
Clan during this period, as he was actively traveling throughout
different regions in the South as a part of his
job as a president of the Selma, Marian and Memphis Railroad,

(06:10):
Because during this time they were trying to expand the
railroad into northern and eastern Mississippi as well as into
western Alabama. Forrests then might have used these and other travels,
the meet with fellow former Confederate officers who were of
a like mind concerning the so called dangers of radical reconstruction,
Men who, while they might not have been politicians or
been a part of the traditional political machinery, had, like Forest,

(06:33):
served as leaders during the war and thus had a
military mindset any way of doing things. The spread of
the clan, though, can't be purely attributed to the influence
of Nathan Bedford Forest. Instead, the legend of the clan
and its activities also simply spread by word of mouth,
which was enough to inspire some sumnitors to just form
their own local chapters without ever formally tying themselves to

(06:54):
the larger organization. Basically, they just adopted the look and
the name and their own interpretation of their tactics. The clan, then,
from the very beginning, would be made up of men
from every class in southern white society, which stands in
star contrast to the popular myth among clan apologists, who
would claim that the original clan had been organized by
men of class in society and then had only grown

(07:16):
out of control when rowdy poor people invaded their noble organization. Indeed,
support for the Klan was so widespread throughout the Southern
States that really only Republicans and staunch Unionists who had
opposed the Confederate cause were the only whites to really
stand against the Klan. In most places, the clan was
so popular, in fact, that juvenile baseball teams, burlesque shows, knives,

(07:37):
pain pills, smoking tobacco, and circus acts would all adopt
the Ku Klux Klan name. A song would also be
published Tittle Ku Kluck's Midnight's Roll Call, and some advertisers
would simply use the initials KKK to draw attention to
their products, while some Southern papers, in an effort to
identify themselves as hardcore and militant conservative rags, also adopted

(07:58):
the name publications like the North Carolina Ku Klux Kaleinoscope, Jefferson,
Texas's Ultra Coup clunx in Houston's Daily Coup cluckx fordet.
To be clear, though, the places where they clan really
took hold and became an active force where locations where
Conservatives and radical Republicans in their African American allies were
relatively close in power and number. In other words, areas

(08:19):
where conservatives already held in overwhelming majority or areas where Republicans, Unionists,
and African Americans severely outnumbered. White Conservatives generally saw little
to no clan activity, as in the first scenario they
really had no need for the Klan and no one
to really harass, while in the other circumstance the clan
risked being crushed. It was then only where the clan
might be able to tip the scales in their favor

(08:42):
that they were the most active and the most dangerous,
which brings us back to the eighteen sixty eight elections,
where the Republican presidential ticket was a nightmare for Southern
Conservatives as it featured Ulysses Ask Grant, who was not
only the commanding Union general who had ultimately defeated their
Blubvic Confederacy, but he had also openly endorsed the Heart
Congressional plan for reconstruction. Meanwhile, posing Grant for the Democrats

(09:04):
was the governor of New York, Ratio Seymour, who ran
on a platform that called for the immediate restoration of
the Southern States, to withdrawal of any restrictions on the
voting rights of former Confederates, and an and of the
Freedmen's Bureau. Basically, they wanted the South to be fully
returned to what it was before the Civil War, just
without slavery. Given this, the clan and locations across the
South attempted to put their proverbial thumbs on these scales,

(09:26):
to varying degrees. In South Carolina, for example, in the
weeks before the election, bands of klansmen rode through the
countryside to visit the homes of various African Americans as
they looked to intimidate them from voting Republican. One way
in which they did this was by simply running past
and firing random shots at homes, while in other cases
they paid special visits to make sure that their message

(09:47):
was clear as they made deliberate threats to residence about
what would happen to them should they vote Republican, activities
which became especially frequent and violent in the Knights immediately
before the election. In Abbeville and part time particular, South
Carolina's clan activities even extended to murder, as they were
responsible for the deaths of State Senators James Martin, a
white man, and be A Randolph, a man of mixed

(10:09):
heritage who had first comes South as the chaplain of
a Negro regiment. Randolphin then opted to stay and found
a school for recently freeing African Americans, acts which earned
him the respect of many of those who had been
recently liberated, whose support then saw him elected as a
state senator. Randolph then swiftly earned the reputation of being
one of the most able and influential Republicans in the state,

(10:30):
an offense which saw him murdered on a railway station
platform in front of numerous witnesses, who then allowed the
three clansmen responsible to simply run away after they were done.
In response to all these various outrages, South Carolina's Republican Governor,
Robert K. Scott was threatened to call out the militia
and or call upon federal troops. Unfortunately, this was a bluff,

(10:51):
and it seems that his opponents knew it, as Governor
Scott dared not call it the militia as few, if
any whites in South Carolina could be trusted, which would
have require the militia to be primarily composed of black men,
which would have surely only served to escalate the situation. Meanwhile,
there weren't really enough federal troops to probably deal with
such a widespread problem as the Clan, Plus the legal

(11:11):
issues for running getting them involved were authorny at best,
as barring acts of Congress granting them such powers or
a declaration of martial law, soundiers had no legal authority
to arrest or hold anyone, regardless of what crimes they committed.
Little then changed in South Carolina, and indeed, on election
day a significant number of armed members of the Klan
and other Democratic clubs would gather outside of polling places

(11:33):
as an active intimidation. As a result, in many African
Americans who dared to approach the ballot boxes that day
were threatened by these armed goon squads, a reality that
was successful massively suppressing African American voting in some areas.
For example, Anderson and Lawrence Counties only had about half
of their registered African Americans vote, while in Abbeville County
less than a fifth actually voted. This and led to

(11:56):
the Democrats successfully electing several congressmen. However, Republican would contest
these elections, any formal investigation was enough to give the
Republicans the victory. Meanwhile, over in Georgia, for the period
of August through October eighteen sixty eight, the Freemen's Bureau
there would report five stabbings, thirty one killings, forty three shootings,
fifty five beatings, and eight whippings of three hundred to

(12:18):
five hundred lashes of peace. Then, on election day, groups
of armed white men surrounded the polls, where at some
locations they literally took away Republican ballance and threatened any
African Americans who attempted to cast them, while at all
the locations these armed whites insisted that African Americans showed
tax receipts to be allowed to vote, something which they
obviously did not have due to the whole being enslave thing.

(12:41):
These tactics then resulted in a minor offswing and Democrat votes,
and more importantly, a massive loss of Republican votes. Alabama
also bore a witness to rampant intimidation tactics, which included
one African American man whose home was rated by a
party of clan members that then proceeded to murder his
wife as he was attempting to climb up the chimney
to flee from them. Then there was a US mail

(13:03):
carrier in the Republican state legislator who were killed in
Tuscaloosa County, crimes which the local sheriff would claim that
he was powerless to pursue and prosecute. Meanwhile, a Republican
rally in the state which featured a senator and a
congressman would be broken up by a mob of at
least twenty men, while in Sumner County, where there was
an African American majority, there would be heavy efforts to
prevent them from voting, with clan related incidents happening on

(13:26):
a daily basis there. Now, as mentioned previously, African Americans
did not just meekly accept this abuse. Instead, some local
black individuals, after some of their own started being abused
and killed, responded by and carrying weapons around with them,
especially when they were going to places which they knew
were targets, like Union League meetings or Republican rallies. Of course,
though black men seeking to defend themselves only serve to

(13:49):
enrage their races white tormentors all the more. Indeed, the
black leader of one of these pro Republican organizations was
murdered on the second of October after being ordered to
stop holding such meetings. Meanwhile, in multiple counties, Black and
in some cases even white Republicans were regularly visited at
night throughout the fall, where they would be drived from
their homes, threatened, robbed, beaten, and in some cases even

(14:10):
killed by clansmen, with the individual in question being more
likely to be left off with a warning if they
said they would vote for the Democrat candidate or otherwise
would simply not vote, while if one was insistent that
they were going to vote Grant, they were likely to
at least be whipped, if not worse. Additionally, a pair
of white Republican senators were also reportedly whipped during one
nightly clan to visit, after which they were then taken

(14:33):
to a train and told not to return. Then, on
top of everything else the clan did, they also apparently
set fire to a pair of public schools for whites,
as they were seen as a manifestation of the radical
Republican regime. And of course, come election day, like we
seen previously in other states, armed whites blockaded the polls
in some precincts, with an estimated five hundred black men
being prevented from voting in a singular area in Sumter

(14:55):
County alone, Predictably, then Democrats would win in the areas
where clan activity at its highest. However, the clan did
not have enough of a footprint at that time to
keep the entire state from continuing to vote Republican. Still, though,
despite everything that was transpiring, Alabama's Republican governor felt to
truly address this situation like the emergency that it was
a failure that embittered those who regularly suffered the clan's depredations. Louisiana, meanwhile,

(15:20):
was another hotbed of clan activity in the lead up
to the eighteen sixty at election, as much of the
state at all levels had been infested with the clan plague,
with some of the worst crimes being condoned and even
committed by supposedly respectable and responsible figures like lawyers, doctors, editors, sheriffs,
and Democratic officeholders, with their primary excuse for their crimes

(15:40):
being the potential danger of African Americans rising up against them.
The thing was to despite their claims of trying to
prevent a not save uprising, the clan targeted both blacks
and whites with their terror campaign, as they were actually
concerned with anyone who was suspected of potentially voting Republican. Indeed,
African Americans would be given so called protection as long

(16:01):
as they promised to vote Democrat in the elections, while
Republican meetings in the state were regularly broken up and
multiple Republican newspapers had their presses destroyed. Additionally, in sant
Elena Parish, two Black churches in a schoolhouse would be
burned down by the clan. Things that were even worse
than Cato Parish, where in October alone, at least forty
two African Americans were killed by the clan in their allies,

(16:22):
while on Brosier Parish some one hundred and sixty two
African Americans would be systematically hunted down and slain by
gangs of whites, which featured some of the region's leading planters.
Things got so bad statewide, including in New Orleans, that
the Republican leadership in the state ultimately chose to advise
African Americans to not even try to vote if they
did not believe they could do so safely. And once again,

(16:44):
in addition to the campaign of terror and murder that
preceded the election, on election day, clan patrols effectively made
it so African Americans could not reach the pulse of vote,
thereby seriously cutting down a Republican votes to the point
that in some areas done a single Republican vote was
kept while and Cato perished. The lone Black men brave
enough to cast a vote for the Republican ticket was

(17:05):
murdered soon after doing so. The terror campaign was so
successful in Louisiana that Clan activity more or less ended
following the election, as their victory had been so complete.
Clan activities in Arkansas, meanwhile, were less universal and nature
in more scattered and disorganized than they were in Louisiana.
That being said, there were stole murders in night rides
targeting African Americans, government officials and voting registrars, attacks which

(17:30):
very clearly targeted Republicans, while the conservative Democratic Party leaders
either ignored everything that was happening or alternatively just outright
denied that the Klan even existed within their state. Meanwhile,
a Democratic paper, the Arkansas Gazette were claimed that it
was actually the Republicans who were adunning the clan disguises
to assault African Americans as they were hoping to benefit
from the outrage that would be directed at the Democrats,

(17:52):
with the Gazette writing that the Republicans had quote invited
a carnival blood that they might be sure of their spoils,
with the paper in this claim despite the fact that
the clan activities in question actively looked to prevent voter
registration among African Americans, which would hardly benefit Republicans in
the Whigs. Leading up to the election, things would actually
get better enough than Arkansas Governor Powell Clayton was forced

(18:14):
to deal with the reality that federal troops would not
be able to squash this problem. Plus, even if they
weren't employed, conservative Democrats would cry about how they were
being used to influence the election, so he began organizing
a militia to fight back instead, following this path despite
knowing that this would be seen as quite the extreme move,
not to mention how difficult it was going to be
to actually creating loyal force that was willing to take

(18:37):
on the Klan, with the effort of form such a
force being most successful in areas where there were already
large anti Confederate populations. Still, though many shares remained, two
friends who actually used the militia to take on the Klan,
which is kind of understandable given that in many cases
these militias were actually outgunned by the Confederate veterans who
made up the Klan. Given the situation, Governor Clayton had

(18:59):
fourth rifles purchased in New York, which were then shipped
to Memphis on their way to Arkansas. However, in Memphis,
the Democratic paper of the Avalanche mean a big show
of crying about how these guns were quote to be
placed in the hands of the Negroes of Arkansas to
then be used quote for the purpose of shooting down
in offensive citizens, you know, those inoffensive clansmen who were

(19:21):
running about terrorizing people. The paper, though, would then all
but encourage its readers to steal and or destroy the
guns in question before they could reach their destination. And
once you known, a ship that was attempted to transport
said weapons to Arkansas would be vooted by a group
of klansmen running on a talk boat who proceeded to
either throw the guns overboard or alternatively steal them so

(19:41):
as to supply their fellow terrorists with them. Given everything
that was going on, then, the frustrated governor claimed then
finally declared that in counties where the laws could not
be enforced due to widespread clan activity, the election simply
would not happen, which meant that the Democrats would not
be able to carry the counties where they were through
violence and intimidation suppressing the vot vote. Fourteen counties in

(20:01):
Arkansas then did not participate in the elections that year,
and as a result, the Republicans continued to hold the
state wide majority, which at long last brings us back
to where we left off last episode in the Klan's
birthplace of Tennessee, where in November, with the elections so
close and Governor Brownlow seeming the content to leave matters
in the hands of the federal troops, the Klan decided

(20:22):
to go back on the word and resume their terrorist
activities in earnest only even the election. In particular, bands
of clansmen in full stupid regalia grew through the countryside,
threatening anyone who dared to vote Republican with death as
a consequence, while in contrast, anyone, including African Americans, who
were willing to swear that they would vote Democrat, were
then given so called protection papers. Meanwhile, come the day

(20:44):
of the election, in the clan's activities, while less outwardly violent,
were still clearly geared toward intimidation, as voting places in
some locations were surrounded by mobs of angry whites. Some
of them would literally charge it any African American who
attempted to vote. Then there was a time when the
crime that one of these polling places learned that a
white Confederate veteran had voted Republican. Unable to comprehend such

(21:05):
an outrage, the Crown then seized a former soldier and
made a humiliating show of attempting to sell him as
a quote unquote white and word sleeve. The end result
of all this was that, out of the twenty one
hundred black men who were registered to vote in Tennessee,
only six hundred and sixty four actually did so that year,
with some of them actually voting Democrats simply so they
might receive protection papers from the Klan. Indeed, both whites

(21:28):
and blacks would later attest that they had voted Democrat
in that election, not because they honestly wanted to, but
because they were too afraid to do otherwise. This, of course,
resulted in Democratic victories in places like Pulaski, the birthplace
of the Klan, whose paper, which was run by one
of the Klan's founders, dismissed accounts of the Klan's terroristic activities,
instead claiming that the Democrat victory was a triumph of

(21:50):
fair play, where every man who had wanted to vote
had been free to do so. The thing was for
as much of an impact as the Klan had on
the electure results, Grant would still win the state and
presidency because a significant number of ex Confederates were legally
not allowed to vote. Still, though it has to be
noted that Grant received eighteen thousand fewer votes in Brownlow
had just a year earlier, and outcome would strongly hints

(22:13):
at the extent of the Klan's efforts, even if they
were not fully successful. Meanwhile, the Klan's efforts were further
annulled for the time being thanks to the House of
Representatives throwing out the returns from several counties due to
the obvious and widespread terrorist activities therein. As a result,
in a couple of instances, Republican congressmen would be seated
following an investigation into what had happened, and the Democratic

(22:34):
party's fairly obvious ties to these events, and while given
how focus the klan's activities were on the election and
how much of an upswinging activity was seen in the
immediate days and weeks before the event, it is somewhat
surprising that the clan's violence did not dissipate once all
the votes were cast. Instead, if anything had actually seemed
to increase. In one instance followed the election, for example,

(22:55):
black railroad workers would come under attack and were whipped
for taking quote. Meanwhile, a teacher at a Friedman school
who had been whipped back in July once again found
themselves being threatened by the clan. However, in this instance,
the costumed hate mungers would receive a halo bullets for
their efforts and the loss of one of their own,
as the teacher had gathered some friends in preparation for

(23:16):
just such an occurrence. Indeed, a statement was put out
after this event, wanning that if the teacher or his
school were attacked again, prominent rebels in the region would
suffer the same fate, which was apparently enough to protect
the teacher and his school. The same, though, could not
be set for the African Americans living in that area
and elsewhere. For example, in Kingston, some two hundred clansmen,
who were convinced in African Americans and not themselves, were

(23:39):
a threat to the public peace, proceeded to take over
that city the costumed terrorists and started marching through the streets,
openly carrying their weapons when assarming any who had been
loyaled to the Union. Then there was the fate of
Seymour Barmour, a former Treasury Department agent who had been
hired as a detective to infiltrate and gather evidence on
the Klan. Barmour would actually manage to join the organization

(24:00):
and gain the trust of its members. However, after a time,
they seemed to grow suspicious of Barmore and his motives,
so they gave him an official warning that it would
be best if he left the region. Barmore, however, for
whatever reason, did not stay away, and indeed would make
a trip to Pulaski, the birthplace of the clan. Now,
nothing would happen while he was in Pulaski. However, on

(24:22):
the train ride back home to Nashville, at least a
dozen disguised klansmen boarded the train and dragged barmore away.
The detective was then taken into the woods where he
was hanged and shot, with his body eventually being pulled
from a nearby river. The thing was as he violence
continued to escalate. Even after the elections. Conservative leaders in
the region began to have second thoughts about this group

(24:42):
of terrorists that they had encouraged, as black workers whose
labor they needed were being driven away, and now even
way planters liked themselves were being threatened and in some
cases even outright murdered. Granted the planters in quest and
worry publicans, but the fact of the matter was members
of their class were now falling victims to the clan,
a reality that led these conservative leaders to realize that

(25:03):
to some degree they lost control their rabbit attack dogs,
which is why at this point you start to see
conservative spokesmen actively speaking out against the increasing violence. This
included Pulaski's newspaper, which had long served as the mouthpiece
of the men who had originally started the Klan, printing
a letter in December eighteen sixty eight saying that the
rating had gone too far, an attitude that, to be clear,

(25:25):
was not necessarily motivated by any kind of actual sympathy
for the clan's victims. Instead, it was more down to
the fact that the violence was starting to having negative
effect on the larger community, as all that violence and
murder not only find the local general populace, but it
also ensured that outsiders had no interest in moving to
or investing in the area, as who would want to
move to or invest their money in an area where

(25:47):
such violence was commonplace, which meant the Clan was now
effecting the economy. Plasy were also making it harder for
ex Confederates to claim that they were reformed and could
thus be trusted with the vote once again. For the
Conservative leaders, then, with the elections already come and gone,
they really didn't see much use for the Klan, as
there was little they could do with the moment to
benefit their interest and they were, if anything, now becoming

(26:11):
an active detriment. A large public meeting was then held
in Pulaski, where speeches against momb violence and mob law
were given. Meanwhile, the states former Conservative governor Neil S.
Brown also made up of penning a public letter in
which he stated that the time for secret societies like
the Clan had now passed. With the central message of
all these statements basically being that the clan's original reign

(26:33):
of terror had been justified, but it now had been perverted,
and thus it was time to move on. Further echoing
this change in attitude among the leads was Nathan Bedford Forrest,
the first so called Grand Wizard of the KKK. As
in January eighteen sixty nine, the former Calvary General seemed
to have second thoughts about his connection to the not
so secret terrorist organization, as he now claimed that the

(26:55):
club had been perverted by those who were more interested
in spreading fear and terror than when they weren't upholding
the honor and traditions of the South, to which I
would argue that it had very much seen that terrorizing
and harassing African Americans was one of the defining aspects
of the South and its traditions, especially the version of
the South, that the Clan was hearkening back to this
and led to Forrest issuing General Order number one, the

(27:17):
first and only order to be sent from quote unquote
Imperial Headquarters during Forrest's time as leader of the organization.
In this statement, Forrest was seemingly insistent that much of
the clan's activities had taken place went too far. For example,
he claimed that African Americans were not supposed to be
disarmed unless they were actively looking to form an insurrection,
and no one was to be raped period. The former

(27:39):
general than round against clansmen who endangered public safety to quote,
achieve personal benefit and private purposes, and to satiate private
revenge by means of its massed features. It was and
as a result of such misuses of the clan's image
and symbolism, that Forrest would order the so called grand
cyclops of each clan den to require their men to
quote a straw in his presence every article of his

(28:02):
mask and costume, with any who refused to do so
being labeled a quote enemy of the order. Now, some
would claim that Forrest did this because he just at
this moment realized that the clan, with its tactics and methods,
was a terrorist organization. The problem within is at Prior
to this, he very much seemed to support the idea
of a secret paramilitary organization whose goal was to restore

(28:24):
power to Southern white men like himself who had supported
the Confederacy, an organization who sought to achieve these goals
by terrorizing it or otherwise preventing newly freed African Americans
and white unionists from casting their votes. Indeed, I find
it notable that his general order specifically complained about men
who used the clan's costumes and tactics for personal ends.
Forrest and more than anything else, seemed to be upset

(28:46):
by the lack of military discipline among the group, and
thus the lack of strict control he had over the
various scattered clan groups and their activities. Plosser was also
the fear that Republicans maman insist upon a military campaign
to krush the Klan once and for all. As an
art Kansas, such a campaign had just been carried out
and has certainly appeared to have been successful, as you see.
Following the election in Arkansas, Governor Clayton had declared Marshall

(29:08):
Law over the objections of members of his own party
who wanted to believe that once the election was over,
the Klan would simply fade away. The state was then
divided into four military districts where a different military commander
would hold sway. That being said, the Northwest District, which
had been the least affected by the Klanis terror campaign
would never have a military commander put in charge, and

(29:29):
indeed no military campaign would be undertaken in that region,
although military units would be organized from the residents of
that part of the state and would then be dispatched
to take on the Klan in other parts of Arkansas. Indeed,
there would be legit battles fought in other parts of
the state between the militia and Conservative forces, like, for example,
Catterson in southwest Arkansas, where Conservative forces claimed they had

(29:50):
just gathered to defend the town as they insisted they
were unaworthy declaration of martial law, and thus did not
realize that their foes were official, state sanctioned militia. They
had just assumed they were fighting against lawless marauders, excuses
that they had to make. Once they were soundly defeated
and the militia began searching the town for weapons, during
which time they found what was quite obviously a clan

(30:11):
meeting place, as it had their little outfits hanging on
the walls and a Confederate flag hanging over an altar.
That wasn't all they found, either, as a militiaman would
also discover a trapdoor in the ceiling, which, upon investigating
the uncovered a group of men huddled inside, who they
then proceeded to arrest on the suspicion that they were
clan members. In all, some sixty three individuals would be

(30:32):
resteding Kennerson for suspected clan connections. On the flip side,
the militia would be accused of crimes of their own,
like torturing prisoners, as they reportedly resorted to similar tactics
as the clan like. For example, they were accused of
hanging some individuals by their next was to extract confessions.
The militiamen were also lacking in military discipline, with some
responding to being fired at by plundering the town where

(30:54):
the shots had come from. That being said, the individuals
responsible for this incident were arrested and the good they
had looted were returned. As for the individuals arrested by
the militia forces, they would typically face a military trial,
some of which resulted in the accused being executed for
their crimes. However, more often than not, the chief clan
criminals fled the region before the militia arrived, thus escaping

(31:16):
from justice. Still, though, even in areas where the militia
was less active, they still instilled enough fear into conservatives
so as to ensure that the clan's terroristic activities came
to an end on their own, as they did not
want to face the militia. In Augusta, for example, a
number of leading citizens were so worried about the militia
that they held a rally where they called for an
end of martial law and the return of the civil government,

(31:38):
as they blamed their problems on a handful of troublemakers.
Such claims, however, would be undermined by their choice of representatives,
as one delegation that was dispatched to meet with Governor
Clayton was led by Colonel A. C. Pickett, who started
off the meeting by telling the governor that the KKK
did not even exist in their county, to which the
governor responded by pulling out a list of klansmen who

(31:59):
had been identified in the county in question, a list
in which Pickett's own name appeared quite prominently. The governor
then handed this list over to Pickett, essentially telling him
I know you're lying and I know you're involved. As
he told the rest of the delegation, who basically go
back home, as he would only lift martial law when
they were able to conclusively prove they actually disbanded the klan.

(32:19):
The most troublesome area of the state that was likely Crittenden,
where whippings of African Americans had been a common terror
tactic and there had even been an assassin nation attempt
on a Freeman's Bureau agent earlier in the year. Indeed,
local whites in Critdon had responded to the thread of
martial law by openly talking about how prepared they were
to cast out the Yankee invaders. Yet despite all this talk,

(32:40):
the clan was still caught off guard when the militia
arrived and started making arrests. Indeed, for all their big talk,
the clan proved to be ineffective as the militia, including
two companies of African American men, moved in. As many
of these men had served during the Civil War and
were thus some of the finest and most capable troops
in the entire state. Martial law would eventually be lifted,

(33:02):
and when it did, clan members who had fled before
the militia would return home, with one such individual murdering
a militia captain in front of multiple witnesses when he did. That.
Being said, despite the occasional outbreak of clan activity, there
were also meetings held in the various counties where the
citizens pledged to maintain law and order, mainly because they
did now want the militia to come back. Indeed, in

(33:23):
eighteen sixty nine, the clan more or less ceased to
exist in Arkansas. The idea in Tennessee and for Nathan
Bedford Forrest then was to bring an end to the
clan's violence on their own so as to prevent such
a campaign. They wanted to spare their neighbors and themselves
from having to suffer and be at the mercy of
the militia and martial law. Plus, this way, the clan
could continue on quietly and discreetly behind the scenes, so

(33:45):
it could be deployed at a later date if necessary.
Popular myth and has it that the clan died following
the issuance of Nathan Bedford Forest Order in January eighteen
sixty nine, which is decidedly not true, as the Klan
had never really been that centrally controlled, and so few
clan members across the South just all of a sudden
hung up or destroyed all their stupid robes and hoods. Indeed,

(34:06):
the Order of By and Larnch had little to no
impact outside of Tennessee, as most clan leaders had no
direct contact with Forrest, and in more than a few cases,
they never even knew that the order existed. As for
Governor Brownlow, who had been calling for militia campaign of
his own in Tennessee, much like the one that had
taken place in Arkansas, he wasn't buying the conservatives claims
that the Klan's reign of terror was really over. After all,

(34:28):
he had backed off on carrying through with his threats
before the election when things had died down, then only
to have the clan's activities picked back up at the
most advantageous tie for the Conservatives immediately before the election. Yet,
just as Brownlow had Marshall Law declared any Tennessee counties
where the Clan had first popped up, he stepped down
from his position as governor. Now, to be clear, he

(34:49):
was not resigning because of some kind of controversy or
because he was afraid to take on the Klan. Instead,
he was resigning to become a US Senator. His decision
to step down at this time, though, would be really
serious blow to the anti clan efforts in his state.
As his replacement, de Wittsey, Center chose to play nice
with the Conservatives rather than follow through with Brownlow's plans

(35:09):
to cross the clan, to which you see immediately upon
taking over, ended martial law, which effectively limited the power
of the militia. Nashville's Present Times would then report that
the consequence all this decision was that quote of all
the organized bands which have put union men to violent
deaths in Middle Tennessee within the last twelve months, noney
single criminal has been punished or even arrested. Now, Centri's

(35:32):
betrayal seems like it might have been an attempt to
court conservative support, as a year later, when he ran
for governor again, Center would have Democrat support as he
defeated a radical Republican rival, a victory in which, along
with other conservative Democratic victories and the legislature, proved to
be an end of radical reconstruction efforts in Tennessee, meaning
that even though the clan was officially disbanded in Tennessee,

(35:54):
with the help of politicians like Center who did not
have the will to actually find the clan still improved
a be victorious in its home state. So the clan

(36:15):
had been unable to prevent Grant from being elightened as
the next president of the United States. They however, had
still proved to be quite an influential and dangerous force,
as through their rampant violence and murders, they had effectually
decimated the Republican vote in many localties across the South,
and in Georgia and Louisiana in particular, they carried the
Conservative Democrats to power. Meanwhile, following Grant's election, Congress would

(36:39):
approved the fifteenth Amendment, which extended the right to vote
to all adult men, including African Americans, an amendment that
was officially ratified a year later when three fourths of
the states approved of it, a bar that was passed
in no small part due to the reconstruction governments that
still held sway in many a Southern state amendment that
outraged racist and conservatives, as they called it the quote

(37:00):
polutionary thing that Congress had ever done, as it made
the quote colored raise, its quote special words and favorites.
Which is all to say that in the twisted little
minds of the clan, they had plenty of reasons to
be outraged and feel like they were being oppressed. So
while Nathan Bedford Forest might have attempted to officially disband
the Klan, and while in some places it did become

(37:22):
pretty much inactive, it would continue on in other places.
Take for example, North Carolina in eighteen sixty nine and
eighteen seventy. The state had not seen a ton of
clan activity prior to this, but it now bore witness
to a serious outbreak of clan violence. You then had
the clan with no more routine of terrorist activities like whippings, threats,
and murders. And there were also numerous cases of arson

(37:43):
acts which some tried to justify by claiming they were
punishing black criminals, who they asserted it set fire to
the barns of local whites, which some might have done
as a response to clan violence against them. Although even
if some African Americans did in fact set fire to barnes,
I highly doubt that the Klan actually bothered to punish
those actually responsible, but instead used this simply as an

(38:04):
excuse to carry out their campaign of terror and intimidation.
Take for example, the case of the Black woman and
her five children who were offectively murdered when their house
was burned down around them. I strongly doubt any of
them were responsible for any kind of crime. Instead, the
reality was who were just looking to intimidate and drive
away Republican voters by burning down African American and white
Republican homes. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the state, a man named

(38:27):
Jacob Sterling was branded four or five times of the
letters UL, presumably because he was a member of the
hated Union League, a group that encouraged African Americans to
vote Republican and in some instances defend themselves when threatened. Predictably, then,
even though he bore the proof of it on his body,
nothing was ever done about this crime because the local
sheriff and the superior court clerk in the area were

(38:49):
both Clan members. By eighteen seventy then, accounts of Clan
crimes were coming in from virtually every part of North Carolina.
Yet local conservative papers justified this violence by claiming the
clan was simply responding to the crimes that had been
committed by African Americans in general and the Union League
in particular. Or alternatively, these papers just pretended that they
clan did not exist at all, but was instead the

(39:11):
creation of Republican papers. Things got so bad in the
state that, since the local authorities are clearly uninterested in
doing anything, there was active talka mon the Republicans that
they should answer the Klan with their own campaign of
guerrilla warfare, with Republican Greensboro Register suggesting that quote, let
this organization be one less vigilance committee. Wherever and outrage

(39:32):
is committed by the KKK. Let them meet, follow the
track and avenge the bud that has been shed before
it is yet caught in the earth. Let them have
such a show of trial as they give their victims,
and know more to put it simply, The paper's position
was quote let us fight fire with fire and shed blood,
as it was their conclusion that quote eight dozen hangings

(39:52):
will save one hundred murders. Now. Governor Holden, for a
while had resisted such calls. However, by May eighteen he
had heard enough of the clan, and so he advised
people to quote load your guns and fire on these
midnight assassins whenever they attack you. Now, granted, this wasn't
always the best course of action, as you could be
outnumbered or they could arrive unexpectedly and take you by surprise,

(40:15):
to which the Governor would advise, quote, if they catch
you at a disadvantage, take your gun down next day,
if you were not too badly whipped, and fight it out,
then a shot or two in every county in the
state will break up these bands of outlaws and murderers. Yet,
despite this call to action, win press to declare marshal law,
Governor Holden resisted, as the States Constitution forbade the suspension

(40:37):
of habeas corpus. The governor then was essentially betting on
health in the federal government and his troops to alleviate
the situation, As he warned an unlast the federal government
quote means to allow all that was accomplished by the
war to be undone, then it must crush out the
coup clocks and those who aid them, or hell will
be a place of rest in peace compared to the South. Now,

(40:57):
how those seemed to be coming, which brings to the
fate of State Senator John W. Stevens. Stevens UC had
been pro union during the war, meaning he had not
supported the cause of succession. Given that, it's unsurprising that
he joined the Republicans after the war was over. What
was surprising, though, is that Stevens, a man who had
grown up in South Carolina, earned a reputation of being

(41:18):
a friend who the newly freed black community, as he
was apparently willing to treat and deal with them as
equals and outrageous betrayal, and thus local conservatives labeled Stevens
as a firebrand who encouraged the violence, despite the fact
that he was known to advise against physical retaliation and
had also made upon of supporting the candidacy of a
moderate Democrat for sheriff. Yet, despite steemingly being fairly reasonable

(41:41):
and accommodating, Stevens would regularly receive threats upon his life,
so he responded by having his house fortified and also
started carrying around a revolver. These precautions, however, would do
him no good, and as he was betrayed by the
very same chaff whose candidacy he had supported as the sheriff,
would lure the state senator into a back room where
he was assaulted and strangled with a robe and stabbed

(42:03):
repeatedly in the chest and neck by multiple assailants, a
murder that local conservatives attempted to blame on African Americans,
all the while claiming that the clan did not even
exist in their part of the state. Not buying a
word of their excuses, Governor Holden would once again call
for federal assistance. Now, Congress would in May eighteen seventy
pass the Enforcement Act, which made offenses committed by the

(42:23):
clan like murder and assault, federal crimes, so that the
perpetrators could not just get off scott free when judged
by friendly state juries. The law, however, by definition, could
only apply to crimes committed after it was passed, and
so the murders of Stevens and many others would continue
to go unpunished. Meanwhile, Grant and Congress did not seem
particularly interested in intervening as a feather they should not

(42:45):
involve themselves in state matters until the state itself had
exhausted all of its resources, which North Carolina had not
done because he had not deployed their militia against the clan,
a fact that Grant was apparently quite critical of. Given this,
Holden and his political eyes, while has decided that they
had little choice but to call out the militia that, however,
was easier said than done, as trying to recruit just

(43:06):
white citizens ran the risk of forming militia units made
out of the very men they were supposed to be
hunting down. And they were also afraid of using all
black units, as while they wouldn't very much be dedicated
to hunting down the Klan, they would also be liable
to enrage the racists all the more so they turned
to the mountainous regions of the state, regions where slavery
hadn't been present and so the residents had generally been

(43:27):
against the Session and the Confederacy. These unionists were then
those primarily called upon to form the militia forces, with
six hundred men, a number of whom were Union veterans,
and a handful of African Americans, ultimately all signing up
for militia service. These men were then put under the
command of one Colonel George W. Kirk of Tennessee, as
he led a force of Federal troops who had come

(43:48):
from the mounts of western North Carolina, and because he
had also recently led militia forces against the Clan in Tennessee,
conservatives then naturally hated Kirk and started making accusations against him,
claims which some Republicans were stupid enough to accept, even
though it seems that their actual issues with Kirk was
that he was quite effective when it came to fighting
traitors Confederate types. It was then because of Governor Holden

(44:10):
and Colonel Kirk that their opponents took to calling this
to Kirk Holden Moore. Regardless, Governor Holden would declare that
a state of insurrection existed in North Carolina, which allowed
him to deploy the militia and appointing military court to
deal with any klansmen that they captured. As the militia
was deployed, though most of the guilty clan members fled,
that being said, one hundred or so were still taken

(44:31):
prisoner in the two counties that the militia was focused upon.
Among these were low level clansmen who had not actually
been involved in the greater crimes and were thus fairly
eager to sell out their fellow clansmen and provide evidence
against them. Additionally, there were also some local prominent figures
who after a time had wanted to moderate the clan's
activities from the inside, yet upon failing to do so,

(44:51):
they had wanted out, but had been too afraid to leave,
as they now feared the monster that they had helped
to unleash. The militia and the military courts, though, offered
them an opportunity, and so they too offered up evidence
against the Klan and its members. The clan then in
the eras where the militia was deployed, just ordered to
melt away. That being said elsewhereeness State those who broke

(45:12):
their oaths to the clan were denigrated both privately and publicly.
All the while, the conservative papers continued to insist that
the crimesy Clan and committed were no different than the
ones that they claimed the Union League were guilty of. Meanwhile,
the governor's position was weak as he really did not
have the authority to call for military trials, which left him,
in this entire campaign, vulnerable to a legal counter strike

(45:34):
from the Clan and their allies. As a result, some
prisoners were successful in having their cases brought before the
Supreme Court, which then ruled in their favor. Additionally, a
number of other prisoners were free due to the overwhelmed
state lawyers not being prepared to present their evidence. Yet,
a situation that was not helped by many of those
who had previously confessed and volunteered information against their fellows

(45:54):
now seeking to retract those statements. Plus even when they
did try to bring state charges and cases, like those
who were connighted with the Stevens murder, once those cases
were handed over to the local authorities, they were buried. Meanwhile,
Colonel Kirk would be sued for false arrest by some
of the men that he had apprehended, as now the
clansmen were using the law against the people who had

(46:14):
been trying to stop them from breaking the law. Colonel
Kirk then was forced to remain under guard by his
own men or by federal troops until the federal case
against him was thrown out, as this unusual situation was
preferable to being taken in by local authorities who would
have surely handed him over to the Klan. This sole
campaign then ultimately proved to be a complete failure asked.

(46:34):
Despite this attempt to stop the Clan in North Carolina
from aiding the Conservative Democrats from beginning control of the state,
they still managed to win the elections and were thus
able to take control of the legislature, in which point
these conservative forces held impeachment proceedings for Governor Holden, who
they charged had exceeded as powers by calling out the
militia and attempting to hold military trials, charges that he

(46:55):
was found guilty of, thanks and part to members of
his own party agreeing with the Democrats. As a result,
the Klan would continue to terrorize North Carolina, as Holden's
successor was effectively left with no power with which to
combat them. Meanwhile, over in Alabama, the clan at first
to rhyme in that state like it had in many
others in eighteen sixty eight, and if anything, it only

(47:16):
increased its activities following the presidential election of that year.
In response, Alabama's Republican Governor, William H. Smith, had the
legislature passed a pair of laws which were similar to
one's passed in other states, that were designed to try
and combat this growing menace, laws which included heavy penalties
for wearing masks in other disguises, especially when committing violent
or destructive crimes. Additionally, any local official who failed to

(47:39):
prosecute such individuals were then also liable to face a
heavy fine and be removed from office. Thus, they looked
to target not only the Klan but their support structure
of local officials, something which they doubled down on by
making it so victims of the klan or family members
of the clan's victims were able to seek damages from
the county should those responsible not be prosecuted and conn Meanwhile,

(48:01):
the laws also made it so that anyone who killed
or wounded a costumed individual who was actively committing a
violent or destructive crime were free and clear of any
legal ramifications of such an action, which all sounds going
on paper, But the problem was the States courts had
zero interest and actually taking on the clan, thus making
these laws bringing pointless. As a result, those who ran

(48:22):
a found the clan, despite these laws, had little in
the way of support and assistance. Take for example, Gerald Chouteau,
a former seafholder who had supported the Confederacy, but following
the end of the war, had accepted and supported reconstruction.
He then became a Republican and even started doing things
like helping the freed people who lived on his plantation
organize a Grant club, which I assume was some kind

(48:43):
of pro ulysses as Grant Republican organization. It was then
for acts likeness as Chateaux and his entire family were
constantly harassed. For example, on the fourteenth November eighteen sixty eight,
a man rode by Chotau's house, firing five shots into
the yard where his children were playing. Then the following night,
a group of men wrote around his house for an
extended time, periodically firing guns as they did. That, however,

(49:07):
was far from the end, as several months later, while
Chantau and his immediate family were out of town, the
clansmen returned to burn down his house and whip four
African Americans who were living on the plantation as they
were told to leave the county on pain of death. Chanteau,
though still continued to refuse to leave, so on the
twelfth of August the following year, while more elections were

(49:27):
being held, the clan again attacked his plantation and in
doing so killed a white man who had been there
to help protect it, with this man being the fifth
to be killed in nighttime raids in that county in
the last six months alone. Meanwhile, on the same night
the man was killed on Chatou's property, the clan also
attacked as seriously wounded George W. Houston, a black legislator,

(49:47):
incidents which a local conservative paper blamed on the victims,
as they insisted it was Chutau's fault his children were
shot at, his house was burnt down, any man was
killed on his property because his quote in sindiary conduct
from MENI months past has filled the public mind with
apprehension of danger, with the paper going on the claim
that Chanteau was tricking ignorant black people into supporting radicals

(50:09):
like himself, and in doing so was sowing mistrust between
the races, as if years of enslavement and miss treatment
hadn't done that all on its own. Indeed, the paper
even went so far as to declare that the men
who had died while protecting Chouteau's home would have been
alive had he just stayed home and minded his own business.
Given this kind of atmosphere, you can understand why the
aforementioned black legislator Houston, who had been wounded in a

(50:32):
clan attack, opted to lee from Montgomery, while Chantonna's family
left Alabama altogether. Now, to be clear, these were not
unique incidents. Such harassments were taking place all across the state. Indeed,
the governor would receive numerous letters, each containing much the
same message that is contained in this one sent by
Republican in Florence, who wrote, quote, our county is full

(50:53):
of coup clocks. They are going about at night, much
to the terror of many citizens. This individual then provided
one example the kind of terror they had to regularly
deal with, as he detailed how quote, on last Saturday
night week our town was visited by the Ku KLUNKX
to the number one hundred and fifty or more. These
clansmen then proceeded to murder one black individual, whip another,

(51:14):
and threaten several others. Indeed, the writer of this letter
was among those who were visited by the Klan, as
were woken up in eleven at night to be accosted
by the costumed individuals who wanted to confront the letter
writer about what they had supposedly said about the Klan,
all of which apparently wasn't an unusual occurrence, as the
writer would note that quote, several persons have been killed

(51:35):
in the county in any mysterious way, with the implication
being the Klan was responsible. As such, the letter writer
would declare and known certain terms that quote, terrorism and
anarchy reigns in this county. Yet, despite receiving numerous missives
telling similar stories. Governor Smith still refused to send in troops,
which then led to a number of African Americans in

(51:56):
the state to form their own arm bands so as
to defend themselves, as they were not just going to
sit there and allow themselves to be terrorized and murdered
by the clan. Local whites. However, as they were wont
to do, saw the fact that African Americans were organizing
and arming themselves as the greatest of all threats imaginable,
so they started forming their own even larger armed bands,

(52:17):
which took to running about the countryside with Igolo breaking
up the organized African American groups and capturing their leaders.
Which is all to say that the governor's refusal to
send in troops did nothing to calm the situation down. Indeed,
in early eighteen seventy Indie Counties, Worthy Clan was most active.
There were a series of seven murders within three months,
plus a number of black schools were burned down while

(52:39):
their teachers were run off. Then Comarche County Solicitor Alexander Boyd,
a white man, was shot several times as he was
killed in his bed in the hotel where he was
staying while on the exact same night, Black Republican Jim
Martin was also murdered. It was then the murders of
these prominent individuals that finally convinced Governor Smith to do something,
as he requested troops from the federal government and sent

(53:01):
in one John Minis, a special Agent whose mission it
was to uncover and hopefully prosecute those responsible. However, the
grand jury that was responsible for looking into these cases
would ultimately decide that not only had Boyd's killers come
from someplace else, but it was impossible for them to
discover who they were. As for the murder of Jim Martin, well,
they didn't even bother with that case, an experience that

(53:23):
led Special Agent Minas to conclude that they were never
going to get anywhere with the local courts. As for
the troops the governor had sent for, they ran into
a similar roadblock as they were re line on local
officials asking for assistance, and obviously they had no interest
in doing anything against the Klan, which led General Crawford
to note that quote the whole civil system is pausing

(53:43):
to the core. They were all either too incompetent to
a freight or too sympathetic to the Clan to do anything.
Many Shares, for example, refused to do anything, with some
doing so because they were in league with the clansmen,
while others were too afraid of retaliation. One local Share,
for example, after repeated demands from local Republicans to do
something anything, responded that he dare not do so because

(54:06):
he and no one who would protect him. Meanwhile, even
in the rare cases where Shares actually stood up to
the clan terrorists and did their job, like the sheriff
of Morgan County who arrested klansmen for brutally assaulting an
African American, the judge and prosecutor on the case worked
hand in hand with the Klan to Thworida's efforts. Then,
even in the exceedingly few cases where all the authorities

(54:26):
involved actually tried to do something, their efforts were still
typically undone. For example, on Lawrence County in June eighteen
sixty nine, eight klansmen would actually be arrested after undertaking
a campaign of robbing houses, burning them down, and also
hanging a man through the aid while they were in jail,
then actually turned state's evidence against their fellow costume terrorists.
Which certainly made it look like the others would see

(54:48):
some kind of actual justice. However, just a few days
before the trial was set to begin, another group of
costume clansmen freed the fiver who were going to stand
trial while killing the three who had flipped on them. Now,
the authorities, seeing as how of they knew the identities
of the five who had escaped, were actually able to
recapture three of them, who they then actually managed to
convict and sentenced to jail, which was an exceedingly rare occurrence.

(55:11):
Of course, though these three would only serve a portion
of their sentence, as another group of costumed idiot terrorists
would ultimately break them free again. The federal troops were
also limited assistance to the people being terrorized by the
clan because it could only stay for so long as
While maybe their presence in an area was enough to
halt the clan's activities for a while, once they left,

(55:31):
things would typically just return to the way they had
been before, if none worse, as the Klan will look
to punish those African Americans or white Republicans who they
blame for bringing these Yankee troops down upon them. Meanwhile,
Governor Spith's hesitancy or unwillingness to even try to go
the extra mile in any way to respond to the
Klan's depredations gave all the impression that he didn't really

(55:52):
care about the people who were being terrorized. This unwillingness
to treat an emergency situation like an emergency situation only
served to embald in his enemies all the while of
pressing the people he was supposedly representing. Indeed, Smith was
so out of touch to that at one point he
would declare, quote, there is neither war nor rebellion in Alabama. Then,

(56:13):
after being repeatedly told how grand Juries were actively refusing
to indict klansmen who were known to be guilty of
numerous terroristic crimes, the governor responded that he could not
think so poorly of the people of the region and
believed they would do such a thing. Now, this is
not to say that no one stood up to the clan. Indeed,
some took matters into their own hands, like, for example,

(56:34):
Isaac M. Berry and Judge Charlton, who came together in
eighteen sixty nine to form an anti clan group, which
under his Burry leadership. This group would run about openly
not bothering with disguises unlike their foes, as they visited
known klansmen in their homes to warn them that going forward,
they would be advised to stay at home at night,
a tactic which successfully intimidated the clansmen in question. The

(56:57):
only problem was this was a small scale effort and
thus was not enough to comb at the statewide and
beyond chaos that the Klan was responsible for. Eventually, though,
Governor Smith, after continued and repeated urgings, finally began the
process of organizing militia companies so as to combat the Klan.
Yet in doing so, he made it clear to all
who would listen that he in no way could declare

(57:19):
martial law, thereby making sure everyone knew that the malicious
power would be limited in scope. Meanwhile, the process of
organizing these official forces while so slow that some just
ended up forming their own anti ku Klux vigilante bands.
One such group would call themselves the massy Backs, and
they would spend months involved in guerrilla style fighting with
the Klan. Unfortunately, though, their efforts would ultimately prove fruitless,

(57:43):
which is somewhat surprising given that the Mossy Backs had
the support of a former Confederate sheriff who actually arrested
multiple clan members, with three of them turning state's evidence
against the others, meaning that it seemed like the authorities
for once actually had the upper hand. Yet when it
came time for their trial, it turned now that no
one was actually willing to testify. They were either too
intimidated by the Klan or otherwise were unwilling to health

(58:06):
the Unionists and Republicans. As you see, even when the
Conservatives saw the clan as being too violent and out
of control, they still resented the Unionists and radical Republicans
too much to actually assist them. In the end, then
Governor Smith's in activity would cost him when he came
up for re election in eighteen seventy, as a widespread,
long lasting intimidation campaign had seemingly carried the day for

(58:27):
the Conservative Democrats. Indeed, while hundreds up to maybe thousands
of African Americans voted Democrat due to the campaign of
fear and harassment, the greater Bodhismith's candidacy was the fact
that many more did not vote at all for that
very same reason. Indeed, it was so apparent that had
there actually been fair and free election. Smith woul A
won reelection, he refused to step down as a result.

(58:50):
For a span of like three weeks, Alabama had two governors.
The States courts, however, would predictably side with Smith's opponent,
and so he eventually was forced to step down. He
wasn't alone in this either, as Mississippi moderate Republican Governor
James L. Alcorn also fell into a similar trap, as
he too had long neglected the clan and the threat
they represented. Then when he did look to do something

(59:13):
about the clan's terroristic violence, he did things like tax
bully knives and pistols, while also making it illegal to
carry concealed weapons. The governor would also raise the amount
of money that he could offer as a reward for
the capture of criminals, while also making a point of
removing some sheriffs who he believed weren't doing their jobs.
He even went so far as to threaten to call
out the militia, a tactic, as we saw, had been

(59:35):
successful in some cases. The thing was, though, these efforts
would be undermined by the fact that Governor Alcorn had
attempted to Plagunis with the Conservatives by doing things like
opponents so called moderate Democrats to positions of power in
many counties, while elsewhere he favored the moderates in his
own party over the so called radicals and African Americans. Additionally,
Alcorn also sided with the conservatives and trying to downplay

(59:58):
the extent of the threat that the Klan represented so
as to not offend them. The governor, then, by leaving
so many who fell victim to the Klan's depredations out
to dry, and by undermining himself by opponing moderates and
political enemies, will lack the support he needed for more
robust efforts to combat the Klan, at which point he
then blamed the radicals for his failings, saying it was

(01:00:18):
their fault for not supporting his efforts, all the while
ignoring the fact that he had spent a significant amount
of time pretending that the Clan did not even exist
in Mississippi. As a result, yet another state fell thanks
in part to the Klan's efforts. The Klan's favorite targets

(01:00:50):
for their terror campaign, where of course African Americans, Republicans,
especially radicals, and men who had served in the Union Army.
Klan members in Kentucky, for example, especially target Union Army veterans.
One way in which they did so was by building
gallows near the homes of Union men as a warning
that if they did not flee the region, that would
be their fate, and in ded it wasn't uncommon for

(01:01:10):
the clan to murder them. One Union veteran in Simpson County, Kentucky,
for example, would be killn after being shot multiple times
by the klansmen who had called him out of his
home at night, with this gang of murderers, thugs also
seriously wounding his wife when she came rushing to his aid.
The Klan also often made a point of targeting those
who taught at Freeman schools and even schools in general.

(01:01:30):
In Tusca, loose of the home of the University of Alabama,
for example, one Marlon Randolph and his publication The Independent
Monitor would wage war against the university, which had recently
been reorganized by the Republican state government. Now, just so
are clear on just what type of person Rylon was,
he would declare that quote saved was a godsend for
the Negro race. Negroes as bondsmen, were happier, more sleek

(01:01:53):
and greasy looking and better clothes than they are now.
We never hear the ringing horse, last of picking a banjo,
th beating of tambourines, and knocking a feet against punch
and flaws. They're from their markto sansushi existence instead thereof,
they may be heard to grumble on squads collected in
fence corners, and may be seen with ash if faces,
grim countenances, and squad appearances generally, which is to say

(01:02:17):
that this person who disapproved of the newly reorganized university
also believed that African Americans had it better as slaves.
As a result, both the faculty and the students would
be regularly harassed due to the writings of the Monitor,
as Randolph considered the faculty to either be carpetbaggers or
scalawags simplyfore working there. Specifically, Randolf photograph the university's new president,

(01:02:38):
as the paper, among other things, featured an illustration of
the president embracing a gorilla who inidentified as being both
a prospective student as well as the son of a
black legislator, basically just making sure to check off all
the racest boxes there. Members of the faculty in general
were also harassed by the paper and as a result
ostracized by the rest of the town. Meanwhile, students at

(01:02:59):
the school also i receive threatening messages. For example, one
such message red quote David Smith, you have received one
notice from us, and this shall be our last. You
nor no other damned son of a damned radical trader,
shall stay at our university. Leave here in less than
ten days, for in that time we will visit the place,
and it will not be well for you to be

(01:03:19):
found out there. The state is ours, and so shall
our university be. While another student received a mess of
that red quote Charles Moncelle, you had better get back
to where you came from. We don't want any damned
yank in our colleges. In less than ten days, we
will come to see if you obey all warning. If not,
look out for hell for damn you, We will show

(01:03:40):
you that you shall not stay. You nor no one
else in that college. This is your first notice. Let
it be your last. This harassment campaign would prove to
be successful, as after reopening its stores in eighteen sixty nine,
the school was forced to shut down again in eighteen
seventy one as its student body fell from thirty to none,

(01:04:00):
which was the result of both the Klan's efforts of
harassment and just the state wide conservative boycott of the
institution and Alabama University wasn't the only instance of the
clan targeting educational institutions in the South. Now, Mississippi had
borne when us to the normal state of clan activity
like the nighttime raids and the threatening of anyone who
voted Republican with some kind of violence. For example, in

(01:04:22):
Tippa County, the clan had gathered seventy African Americans working
on a single plantation so they could announce it if
they learned of anyone voting Republican in the upcoming election,
they would quote like the last one of them. Well.
Elsewhere they didn't even bother with threats, as African Americans
would be whipped until they promised to vote Democrat, which
was actually not the worst case scenario, as sometimes Black

(01:04:44):
Republicans were just killed outright, like Jack Dupree, the president
of a Negro Republican club, who was taken into the
woods where he was being and disemboweled. Mississippi, though, was
doubably also the home of one of the most concerted
attacks on education by the Klan as schooling had become
a of a bone of contention for the group and
for conservatives in general, as the way they saw in

(01:05:04):
people whose only purpose in life was working in the
cotton fields did not need education. Even beyond that, though,
there was just this general level of opposition to the
idea of public education, meaning they weren't just against educating
black people, but white people as well. As you see
the radical Republicans and their reconstruction efforts and brought with
him the idea of public education, as they not only

(01:05:27):
wanted to educate the newly freed African Americans, but Southern
whites as well. Of course, though public goods cost money,
which conservatives are inherently against, regardless of how beneficial they
might be. Now, someone claim that their opposition was because
they were afraid that these schools might someday desegregate, which
you know, is racist and stupid. But the thing was,

(01:05:47):
no one was even seriously suggesting such a thing at
the time. So it does seem that, as much as
anything else, he cord, their opposition was not wanting to
spend money on a public good. As a result, conservative
Democrats in Mississippi from the very beginning spoke out quite
loudly against this whole public education idea. Now, while some
white schools would suffer due to this campaign, the thing

(01:06:08):
that such people hate more than anything else is he
thought that someone who was different from themselves might benefit
from such a program. As such, the freedmen schools were
the main target. Now, to be clear, when we're talking
about the cost of this program, we're not actually talking
about a huge Huygen expenses. Indeed, most of the black
schools either used pre existing churches as their classrooms or

(01:06:30):
were otherwise built by the African Americans themselves at their
own expense. This, howevery, did not stop the racists and
their agents, the Clan, for mailing against these institutions and
how much they supposedly cosed. So their answer to this
allegedly expensive public school and project was to tear and
burn down these school buildings in question, with Winston County
alone seeing eleven schools destroyed in eighteen seventy one, while

(01:06:52):
Monroe County saw on twenty six closed and its superintendent
whipped by the clan. Indeed, teachers, both black and white,
were prime targets for clan visitation. Now, among the Klan's
greatest enemies in this campaign was one Robert Flournoy. Flornoy,
you see, came from an aristocratic, concertive Georgia family, but
he did not seem to share his family's leanings. Indeed,
he had opposed a session. However, when it happened anyway,

(01:07:15):
Robert briefly helped to organize a company of men, which
he then led to Virginia to join the fighting there. This, however,
would not last long, as he soon resigned, likely because
he very much did not believe in the cause. Indeed,
pretty much as soon as the war was over, Robert
joined the Republican Party and took a job as the
editor of a newspaper called Equal Rights, which advocated for

(01:07:35):
just that. Flornoy then did not just support the reconstruction
efforts in the idea of public education for both blacks
and whites, but he very much preferred the idea of
integrated schools, a widely radical idea for the time, as
Sachi did not demand them, and when he became the
superintendent of Pontata County, he established fifty two white and
twelve black schools, with the disparity being the result there

(01:07:57):
simply being so many more whites and blacks in the king. Yet,
despite this system seemingly benefiting whites more than blacks in
the county, the clan still started targeting Floor Noy's teachers,
which was not something he was about to allow to
happen without at least saying something. Robert then started publishing
a series of articles to cry in the clan and
their actions. Now, as you might expect, the Klan did

(01:08:18):
not like that someone was speaking out against them, and
so they came for Floor Noy, something which Robert learned
ahead of time when some of his friends overheard the
costume geniuses asking for directions to his home one night.
Upon hearing this, Robert's friends rushed over to his house
and awakened him around midnight, at which point Floor Noy
and his companions started making their own way around town,

(01:08:39):
rounding up about eight additional friends, including a judge and
a deputy sheriff, were all prepared to stand by his
side to take on the clan. Yet before they could
get any more allies, they happened to run right into
the clan. When they did, Floor Nois strode forward, unarmed
as he demanded that the thirty clansmen surrender. Now, the
costume Goon's, understandably arrogant given their superior numbers, refused. The

(01:09:01):
thing was when one of the klansmen then fired a shot.
Robert's companions responded by opening fire themselves, and they kept
shooting him toll. The clansmen, despite their superior numbers, fled,
leaving behind one of their own morally wounded as they did,
with this individual ultimately confessing before dying from his wounds
that he and the others had fully intended to kill Flornoy. Now,

(01:09:22):
you would think that eight or so men standing up
to thirty costume murderous cowards would be seen as brave
and heroic individuals. However, because most of the local white
power structure was sympathetic to the Klan, Flornoy and his
friends were met with disapproval, in fact, as if to
proof who was really in charge in that area. Just
a few months after that incident, the county would elect
a new sheriff, with the new chief, Loafser, not only

(01:09:45):
being the local grand Cyclops but also the same man
who had led the raid against Flornoy that fateful night. Meanwhile,
another aspect of this campaign against public education was a
concerted effort to turn public schools into private ones for exams. Example,
one teacher in Aberdeen was ordered to close the school
and distance himself from the school board, with the Klan

(01:10:06):
for their promising that if he did this, they would
help him collect tuition should he reopen a school as
a private institution, with similar scenes playing out all across
Mississippi that being set. As time went on, this particular
tactic seems to have led to a degree of backlash,
as there would be growing support for the public school
system now. This anti education crusade was a part of
the clan's larger attempts to control African Americans, with the

(01:10:29):
ultimate goal more or less being the return of the
way things used to be, or as close as possible.
Given these circumstances, which men controlling all aspects of African
Americans lives, including their work. For example, Friedman all across
the South risk being assaulted by the Clan if they
dared to change employers, while a Clan group in Knoxabee County, Mississippi,
were essentially contracted to whip all the African Americans working

(01:10:51):
on a particular plantation for being lazy, while elsewhere one
man would be being by a group of klansmen, which
included the man who employed him, for the offense of
not getting the stove wood in the kitchen. There would
also be efforts in various parts of Mississippi to drive
off African Americans who rented or especially owned land, so
as to keep them from becoming economically independent. Basically, they're

(01:11:13):
trying to keep black people in a state of near
enslavement to the white landowners. Meanwhile, there were also efforts
by the clan to drive off black men from working
for the Gulf and Ohio Railroad, both to keep them
from becoming economically independent and because a likely one of
those jobs for themselves. Sometimes, though, the clan could take
things too far and shoot themselves in the foot, like
for example, Clan members in Alabama would belatedly realize that

(01:11:36):
chasing off most of the African Americans in a given
area resulted in labor shortages, so they were then compelled
to raid across state lines to try and kidnap back
some of the people they had turned into refugees, while
said refugees armed and prepared to defend themselves against such raids.
Of course, though such defiance, which included the African Americans
holding a parade of sorts with fife and drum to

(01:11:57):
signal their determination to resist such kidnapping was seen by
white conservatives as a signal of black insurrection their greatest fear.
The Clan then was more than just a tool for
the conservatives to use to try and regain control over
the former Confederate States, as was also a group dedicated
to control the newly liberated African Americans in the name
of making things as much like the so called good

(01:12:18):
old days as possible. I mean, they even did things
like beating any African American who failed to take off
their hat in the presence of a white man, or
for being too outspoken about their rights. The Clan then
were agents of regression and repression, and thus had the
support of more than a few of their white neighbors.
That being said, the Clan was not all powerful. We
will then see next time how the first version of

(01:12:40):
the Clan was kind of defeated, but also the reasons
why the defeat was anything but complete and why in
many ways the Clan was ultimately successful. However, the final
chapter in the tale, the first version of the Klan
will have to for now remain a story for another time.
Thank you for listening to Distorted History. If you would

(01:13:02):
like to help out, please rate and review the podcasts
and tell your friends if you think they'll be interested.
If you would like ad free in early episodes, I
set up such a feed over at patreon dot com
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(01:13:24):
post sources on koffee and Twitter, though, as it's just
a convenient place to go to access that information regardless.
Once again, thank you for listening and until next time,

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