3. Reaction:  The KuKlux Klan

Even before the Civil War a secret organization, the Knights of the Golden Circle, had been formed to advance Southern interests.  After the war there were various organizations—­Men of Justice, Home Guards, Pale Faces, White Brotherhood, White Boys, Council of Safety, etc., and, with headquarters at New Orleans, the thoroughly organized Knights of the White Camelia.  All of these had for their general aim the restoration of power to the white men of the South, which aim they endeavored to accomplish by regulating the conduct of the Negroes and their leaders in the Republican organization, the Union League, especially by playing upon the fears and superstitions of the Negroes.  In general, especially in the Southeast, everything else was surpassed or superseded by the KuKlux Klan, which originated in Tennessee in the fall of 1865 as an association of young men for amusement, but which soon developed into a union for the purpose of whipping, banishing, terrorizing, and murdering Negroes and Northern white men who encouraged them in the exercise of their political rights.  No Republican, no member of the Union League, and no G.A.R. man could become a member.  The costume of the Klan was especially designed to strike terror in the uneducated Negroes.  Loose-flowing sleeves, hoods in which were apertures for the eyes, nose, and mouth trimmed with red material, horns made of cotton-stuff standing out on the front and sides, high cardboard hats covered with white cloth decorated with stars or pictures of animals, long tongues of red flannel, were all used as occasion demanded.  The KuKlux Klan finally extended over the whole South and greatly increased its operations on the cessation of martial law in 1870.  As it worked generally at night, with its members in disguise, it was difficult for a grand jury to get evidence on which to frame a bill, and almost impossible to get a jury that would return a verdict for the state.  Repeated measures against the order were of little effect until an act of 1870 extended the jurisdiction of the United States courts to all KuKlux cases.  Even then for some time the organization continued active.

Naturally there were serious clashes before government was restored to the white South, especially as the KuKlux Klan grew bolder.  At Colfax, Grant Parish, Louisiana, in April, 1873, there was a pitched battle in which several white men and more than fifty Negroes were killed; and violence increased as the “red shirt” campaign of 1876 approached.

In connection with the events of this fateful year, and with reference to South Carolina, where the Negro seemed most solidly in power, we recall one episode, that of the Hamburg Massacre.  We desire to give this as fully as possible in all its incidents, because we know of nothing that better illustrates the temper of the times, and because a most important matter is regularly ignored or minimized by historians.[1]