Taking these statements from official sources, showing the prevalence of this organization in every one of the late insurrectionary States and in Kentucky, it is difficult now, with the light that has recently been thrown upon its history, to realize that even its existence has been for so long a mooted question in the public mind.  Especially is this remarkable in view of the effects that are disclosed by some of this documentary evidence to have been produced by it.  That it was used as a means of intimidating and murdering negro voters during the presidential election of 1868, the testimony in the Louisiana and other contested-election cases already referred to clearly establishes.

     Taking the results in Louisiana alone as an instance, the
     purpose of the organization at that time, whatever it may
     have been at its origin, could hardly be doubted.

     A member of the committee which took that testimony thus
     sums it up: 

The testimony shows that over 2,000 persons were killed, wounded, and otherwise injured in that State within a few weeks prior to the presidential election; that half the State was overrun by violence; midnight raids, secret murders, and open riot kept the people in constant terror until the Republicans surrendered all claims, and then the election was carried by the Democracy.  The parish of Orleans contained 29,910 voters, 15,020 black.  In the spring of 1868 that parish gave 13,973 republican votes.  In the fall of 1868 it gave Grant 1,178, a falling off of 12,795 votes.  Riots prevailed for weeks, sweeping the city of New Orleans, and filling it with scenes of blood, and Ku-Klux notices were scattered through the city warning the colored men not to vote.  In Caddo there were 2,987 Republicans.  In the spring of 1868 they carried the parish.  In the fall they gave Grant one vote.  Here also there were bloody riots.

But the most remarkable case is that of St. Landry, a planting parish on the River Teche.  Here the Republicans had a registered majority of 1,071 votes.  In the spring of 1868 they carried the parish by 678.  In the fall they gave Grant no vote, not one; while the democrats cast 4,787, the full vote of the parish, for Seymour and Blair.

Here occurred one of the bloodiest riots on record, in which the Ku-Klux killed and wounded over two hundred Republicans, hunting and chasing them for two days and nights through fields and swamps.  Thirteen captives were taken from the jail and shot.  A pile of twenty-five dead bodies was found half buried in the woods.  Having conquered the Republicans, killed and driven off the white leaders, the Ku-Klux captured the masses, marked them with badges of red flannel, enrolled them in clubs, led them to the polls, made them vote the Democratic ticket, and then gave them certificates of the fact.

It is not my purpose to weary the reader with tedious