USA > Mississippi > Pike County > Pike county. Mississippi, 1789-1876: pioneer families and Confederate soldiers, reconstruction and redemption > Part 20
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to the bottom, and who was one of the men included in the intended holocaust of vengeance, subsequently connected with the Louisiana State University, at Baton Rouge, in 1881, related this circumstance to the writer himself as a fact while a guest of his and his family in the suite of rooms occupied by them in the Jadot Hotel, in the city of Baton Rouge, and how his little daughter, Gracie, then only 9 years of age, went to see President Andrew Johnson, and, sitting upon his knees, begged that the life of her father be spared.
Colonel McCollough was captured at Richmond at the time of its evacuation by the Confederate forces and was conveyed to Wash- ington in a closed carriage, confined there in prison and was informed of the conspiracy above alluded to. But when General Grant gave it the black eye-a crime so revolting and perfidious as to cast an eternal stigma on his own name and honor, the conspirators retired and suppressed a record of their meeting and resolutions. All North- ern writers have carefully eluded any mention of it, if they knew of it. In later years some of them who have been disposed to be fair in speaking of President Davis' unjust imprisonment and treatment at Fortress Monroe, have hinted at it only, but in such terms as to indi- cate a knowledge of it.
CAPTURE OF DAVIS.
There were so many lies published in Northern papers immedi- ately after the war and persistently continued and believed by a large class of Northern people about Mr. Davis being captured in the disguise of a woman's apparel, and pictures of the same scattered everywhere, and even pretended to be believed by some to this day, that it would be proper to insert the facts here.
He had fled from Richmond upon the evacuation of Petersburg by General Lee's army, with his guard, with the purpose of joining Kirby Smith or Magruder west of the Mississippi river, and was in camp near Irvinsville, Ga., where he had joined his family. On the rainy morning of May 18, 1865, the President's guard had surrendered and what followed is here reproduced from an article written by Mr. T. C. DeLeon, in New Orleans Picayune.
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Through the dim pre-dawn a troop of Wilson's cavalry dashed into his camp by chance. His old instinct told him the truth and he whispered to his wife that they were regulars, and all was lost. Rapidly he told his plan, the troopers deployed and with leveled carbines. He would (with the old West Point trick) seize the foot of the nearest rider, hurl him from saddle and vault into it, flying for liberty or for quick death into the dense woods-thence, alone to the Mississippi. As he spoke, he grasped his pistol, creeping stealthily to the nearest horsemen's side. Already in the damp morning Mrs. Davis had thrown about his shoulders the light, sleeveless raglan from her own shoulders. While he spoke the last words, she threw about his neck the small, square shawl she wore.
But it was too late for the West Point trick, or for any escape, the destined object of attack wheeled his carbine and a dozen more centered on the one man, as locks clicked. With a scream, the wife threw herself between him and their muzzles, and the end had come.
But, in creeping up to the troopers in the dim light, the raglan and the shawl had both fallen from the husband's shoulders, yards away from the spot where he was seized.
As for the shawl, its "biography" is told by Mrs. Clem Clay Clop- ton, with all persiflage on dress subjects. In her book describing the trip of the prisoner to Fort Monroe, on the William P. Clyde, she tells that she and Mrs. Davis had two shawls so exactly alike that neither knew her own. One of these his wife had thrown about Mr. Davis' shoulders. She had picked it up when dropped unheeded by him. Both ladies had these shawls on the voyage to prison.
Mrs. Clay's diary was written while she was at sea, a guarded prisoner on a United States ship, and precluded from possibility of newspapers and the wild stories filling a superheated Northern press as to Mr. Davis' "disguise." She gives dates, facts and names. Her story has been in type for years. It is still uncontroverted.
When anchored off Fortress Monroe (the diary tells), two women were sent aboard the Clyde to search the persons of the female prison- ers for treasonable papers. Then Lieutenant Hudson, of the guard, demanded of Mrs. Davis her shawl as proof against her husband.
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She demurred; but, it being the only wrap she had, Mrs. Clay took her own duplicate shawl, folded it within Mrs. Davis' and gave them both to the officer. Later Mrs. Clay's shawl was returned, a maid of Mrs. Davis having identified hers, and that is the shawl formerly exhibited in Washington and recently "exhumed from a disused drawer in the War Department."
Few people noted its earlier exhibition along with the spurs, sleeveless raglan, etc. Nobody, North or South, cared a rush whether they had been refound or not. Time, the cure-all of ills, mental or moral, has passed the episode.
The war is ended. The union of states physically restored and the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution forced upon the South by Federal bayonets, through compulsion and fraud, stand as an insult and a curse to our people for which there will be no for- giveness until they are repealed.
CHAPTER VII.
The high price of cotton in 1865 and 1866 was a blessing to the people. Large quantities had been hidden away in nooks and cor- ners where the Yankees could not find it, or failed to do so, by those who were exempt from military service, and in the fall after the sur- render a small crop was gathered which brought the high price of fifty cents and over. This gave strength to the merchants who were thus enabled to help the farmers, struggling against the fretful con- ditions that prevailed. All the merchants in Summit, whose business houses had been swept away by the vandalism of Grierson's raiders, were rebuilding their stores, and those in Holmesville, Magnolia, Osyka and Tylertown endeavored to place themselves in condition to meet the necessities of their people. The demon of despotism was an ever haunting spector, and as time passed the evidences accumu- lated, showing the trend of the powers to subvert their cherished hopes. Every man who had been a soldier of the Confederacy was 16
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working to re-establish himself in the conditions had before the war, and all worked to rebuild their lost fortunes.
The evils which surrounded them at the beginning were meas- ured by the power of endurance given them under the train of events which gave to their past a halo of glory. All the elements which went to form the nucleus of a powerful endeavor were centered in their great hearts. The wails of the widow and the suffering of her children were heard and given attention.
When freedom vanished with the fall of the stars and bars, the giant monster that had crushed them had no terrors for them save the dastard attempt to supplant them with the recently liberated negro slaves. They had been deprived of their arms, but a way was provided to place themselves in a position to meet the worst.
In his admirable book on the "Ills of the South" Rev. Charles H. Otkin, of Pike County, has given in his first chapter a description of conditions prevailing at this time, 1865, so truthfully and with language so appropriate that I am pleased to be permitted to copy from it as follows:
"CHAPTER I, PAGE I."
"THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH IN 1865."
"Widespread desolation reigned in every portion of the South in 1865. The war of the States was ended. The South had staked all-lives and for- tunes-upon a principle, and lost. The four years' struggle, with its hopes and its fears, was behind them; defeat, with all its vast significance, was before. them. . The Southern soldiers returned to their homes. It is not too much to say that a large majority of the soldiers of the Confederate armies had homes. But these homes of comfort and plenty in 1861 were not those to which they returned after the surrender. A great change had swept over them. Four years' ruthless war had left indelible marks. Time, with its ravages, the mis- management of farms and plantations left largely in charge of the negroes, the vandalism of armies in the destruction of property, had made hideous alterations in the condition of the country. Dilapidated dwellings, fences out of repair and in many instances burned, sugar-houses and gin-houses damaged or in ruins, were seen everywhere. Farms once producing profitable crops were now grown up in broomsage. The chimneys of hundreds of comfortable dwellings furnished the only evidence that these places were once the abode of human habitation. Cattle and live stock of every description were largely diminished. Everywhere devastation met the eye.
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"The Southern farmers commenced life anew under many and disheartening disadvantages. Not a few were well advanced in years, and had large families. There was mourning throughout the Southland. Many husbands, fathers, and sons slept on distant battlefields, never to return. Thousands of widows were left penniless. The gloom was appalling, and the people were poor. Those that had something left were ill-prepared to help their poorer neighbors. Hun- dreds returned maimed in body. There was nothing to relieve these scenes of ruin, save the brave, resolute determination to commence the hard struggle for existence."
The order of Thaddeus Stephens had been executed. The procla- mation of Abraham Lincoln had been consummated at the cost of three billions of treasure to his government, a million of human lives of his own white race, and the widespread ruin of the fairest land on earth; the habitation of his countrymen, the descendants of those who had been the founders of the government he represented and devoted adherents to its principles. Four million negroes amanci- pated, valued at over two billion of dollars, without compensation · to the owners, thus carrying out the resolution of the American Anti- slavery Society held at Philadelphia, all done under the cry of "save the Union."
Mr. Otken further · says:
"Four million negroes were not only free, but were invested with civil rights. What a novel condition! What a tremendous experiment! "
At this stage a most novel condition was presented by the ex- negro slaves.
The sudden close of the war and the knowledge of emancipation struck the great mass of them with amazement. They were living with their families in comfortable homes, on the plantations of their masters, who had always provided for them. They had no knowl- edge of the responsibility which emancipation had cast upon their own shoulders. They had nothing on earth with which to begin life; not a mouthful of food, not a stitch of clothing, not a cent of money, not a shelter to protect them from the weather except that which came through the tender humanity of their former masters. The impulse was to leave their old homes and go somewhere else. Think of it! Four million ignorant slaves suddenly liberated and
الخرافة
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thus actuated and no provision made by the government to care for them. Were their old masters bound to do it? They were penni- less, too. But the negro men by the thousands scattered hither and thither, leaving their wives and helpless children at the old planta- tion quarters to be taken care of by "de white folks." The majority of slave owners who could manage to provide for them tried to keep them at home to finish their crops with such wages as the conditions justified. Those who could not provide for them had to let them go, and they could not undertake to take care of the women and children when the men were gone and the bulk of the farm work left undone. They flocked to the military camps in great droves, men and women, with complaints of inhuman treatment and stories of barbarity, and the Yankee officer, who was bred and born and brought up to the period of donning the brass button in the belief that the negro was a peer of himself, believed these stories, and this resulted in squads of cavalry and infantry being sent over the coun- try to investigate them, thus eternally harassing the white people and overturning their efforts to bring about a just equilibrium be- tween themselves and these ex-slaves. Thus fell upon the authori- ties a new problem. They had just disbanded a couple of million of soldiers, but it was about to incur the greater responsibility of giving subsistence to four millions of ex-slaves who, if they ever had a thought of the necessity of labor for support, it was blotted out when freedom was announced to them by their old masters, and the "year of jubelo" had dawned, which condition was not mentioned in the emancipation programme. The military were driven to the necessity of organizing a written contract system in order to force the negroes to remain on the plantations and relieve themselves of the burden. This system, while it was the best that could be done at the time, was fruitful of great vexation and trouble. All infringe- ments or violations of the contract must be referred to the military authorities.
The Southern white man and ex-Confederate soldier, in his man- agement of the negro as a slave, was content only with obedience to his orders and instructions; but the negroes, having been received
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with the right hand of fellowship and brotherly love by the epauleted fraternity and his conceit galvanized, in the course of a very few weeks began to show his contempt for the "boss," and hence sprung an endless stir and flurry and military investigation of violated con- tracts. Under this system the negroes were required to procure passes from their employers when they wished to go away from the plantations. This was adopted to put a stop to their indiscriminate roaming and desertion of their own families and to give relief to the authorities. The pass system was productive of much good, but it was also productive of much evil.
At the close of the war the country was infested with many bad characters who had no regard for law and order, nor for the rehabil- itation of the country. They were usually roaming characters, with no fixed abode, and whose means of support was a question to those who had borne the brunt of the struggle and had returned to their homes with their minds directed to the restoration of peaceful con- ditions and prosperity. The planters were not always strict about giving trusty negroes passes, and it occasionally happened when one should accidentally be met by the characters above alluded to it resulted in an inhuman flogging and sometimes a more severe pun- ishment. Then the military were resorted to for redress, every- body in the region held accountable and the reins tightened on all. Social intercourse between the negroes and the Federal soldiers, without regard to color, became a fixed reality and their camps on Sundays and other times were scenes of social intercourse. Mis- cegination was openly inculcated and practiced, and the negroes were taught by the Yankee soldiers, in 1865 and 1866 what, in three hundred years, they had never learned from Southern white people. This may truthfully be said to be the beginning of race troubles after emancipation. The negro men seeing and having a knowledge of the intimate relations between white Federal soldiers and officers with negro women and openly taught equality, led them to desire an equal opportunity with white women, but there was a barrier that stood between them and the white women, and they knew it. It was a gun and a Southern white man behind it. There was no stat-
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utory law that could be brought into play to prohibit intermarriage, nothing except the inflexible principle and will of the Southron. But miscegination was conceived and born through the instrumental- ity of the Federal army stationed in the South-in Mississippi-in Pike County, and through an influx of Northern carpetbag negro- phites who married negro women. There was one instance in Pike County where a white girl was persuaded to run away with a young negro man, which resulted in the parties being overtaken, the girl rescued and the negro escaped.
One can scarcely conceive how gradually, but how quickly, the situation dawned to excite che fears of the white people of the South in regard to dangers threatening their race. One who has lived through it and taken a part in the events and changes of the times can more fully, perhaps, appreciate the wide world calamity that stared them in the face then and which leads to a recital of circum- stances following in these pages.
There was a chivalric principle implanted in the bosoms of those who had given their services in the cause which had succumbed to overpowering numbers, and the love they bore for their women who had passed through the crucible with them was such that nothing must come between them to contaminate their blood or mar their existing relations. The Confederate soldier, with trained eye and experience, saw with deep concern the danger which threatened and was increasing in the intimate relations and intercourse of Federal. white soldiers and intermarriage of white men from the North with negro women and encouragement given to amalgamation of the races. The protection given the negroes, as they viewed it, by the soldiers, and the unmistakable partiality extended to them in all controversies between them and their late masters, made them in- solant and created a spirit of defiance, encouraged by the Federal troops which was soon followed by insults and crimes. In the towns and cities Yankee white soldiers thought nothing of walking arm in arm with negro women, and negroes would shove white women off the banquettes. There was no redress to be had. Complaint to the military authorities was contemptuously ignored; protection
ing anairs cut ta
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was thrown around the culprit; insolence encouraged and white men and women turned aside in favor of the negroes. Amid these gathering disturbances the great Southern heart swelled with deep mortification and indignation and lifted itself above the ashes of desolation, and the impending degradation and ruin that seemed about to engulf their Caucasian civilization.
When the armies were disbanded and the Confederate soldiers who had survived returned to their homes, relying on the generosity of their former enemies, as manifested by General Grant at Appomat- tox, they believed that with the restoration of peace, and left un- trammeled to the task of providing subsistence for their dependents and the rebuilding of their lost fortunes, the country would recover, in a measure, in a few years. But the vindictiveness of the Northern States was not yet abated, and the storm that arose over the unfor- tunate assassination of President Lincoln burst out with fury and revenge on the South as the conspirator and perpetrator of the crime. And hence United States soldiers were stationed everywhere in the South to overawe them and further crush their hopes. A company of negro troops were stationed at Holmesville, in Pike County. No white person was allowed to keep firearms of any description, and thus the people were forcibly reminded of the cold blooded answer of Abraham Lincoln when he was to issue his emancipation procla- mation in 1863, and Mr. Wm. H. Seward, his Secretary, who had lived in the South, expressed his great fear of the horrors that would ensue by the insurrection of the negroes who might rise and butcher the wives and children of the Confederates behind their armies:
"It is time for us to know whether these people are for or against us."
Where should they turn for hope? What herald would bring them the tidings? Everything gone, disarmed, manacled, and the despot's heel stamping out the last glimmer of freedom! It was a solemn hour; their wives and sisters and mothers and daughters and widows and orphans of their dead comrades in the peril. Thou- sands wished themselves back in the fields where the conflict had raged in the past with chances of success.
1
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"It is time for us to know whether these people are for or against us," echoed over the land. A cold blooded sentiment expressed by a man at the head of a government who looked Southward with the belief that four million negro slaves would rise up and with the maul and the axe and the dagger butcher four million helpless, defenseless white women and children of his own race, behind the Confederate armies, which would make his victory complete!
The answer was now given: "It is time for us to know, and we will see if these people are to rule over us and destroy our civiliza- tion."
A message came and gave to them a gleam of hope and with it came the mystic letters K. K. K.
It was an order of mysteries; one that carried determination and skillful planning by men who knew no fear in the face of despotic power. The issue was sprung. The fiat of self-preservation or death to the hilt or muzzle of the revolver. It was an order of mas- terful command, of obedience and discipline. It was the ego of duty.
It had for its object the salvation of the Caucasian race in the South, threatened with destruction, and the protection of its help- less women and children, the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers.
Upon the threshold of a great calamity this organization arose, out of the bowels of the earth, as it were, and formed into a solid phalanx of oath-bound determined men.
Who were they? Whence came they? The shades of the dead who have passed the Styx of Dante's infernal regions, where they were sent for their inhuman crimes could not tell, nor the ghosts of the villains who wronged our helpless and defenseless women. It rose, it flourished, it performed its mission and disappeared as mys- teriously as it came; this wonderful organization, The Ku Klux Klan.
The writer hopes that the readers of this volume will not consider him boastful nor egotistical when he tells them he was eminently familiar with the workings of the Ku Klux Klan. He does not have to draw on the imagination nor search the musty records of
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the past, nor cull from others what has been said of it. There lived a principle that swelled within the bosoms of every man who clung to and which was the motive power of this great order. It was the trying ordeals of the period which animated them to the verge of desperation. Around their homes and firesides there were those they loved, and the hand of barbarism, upheld by the conquering power of the United States Government, was raised to destroy the hopes of their country's future.
When the reader turns to the history of the South which glows with daring deeds, his soul will rise above the dastards who wrung freedom from its grasp. No people on earth who carry the prin- ciples of self-preservation within their bosoms will ever turn a deaf ear to a recital of the wrongs forced upon our beautiful South.
The organization of the Ku Klux Klan was so thoroughly sys- tematized that all its movements were in harmony. Its secrets were so well guarded that its leaders and members were unknown outside of the organization. Its objects were summarized as fol- lows:
"To the lovers of law and order, peace and justice, and to the shades of the venerated dead, Greeting:
"This is an Institution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy and Patriotism, embodying in its genius and principles all that is chivalric in conduct, noble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose; its peculiar object being, First, To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; . to relieve the injured and the oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers.
"Second, To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and all the laws passed in conformity thereto, and to protect the States and the people thereof from all invasion from any source whatever.
"Third, To aid and assist in the execution of all constitutional laws of the land."
Their places of meeting were called "Dens of the Klan," and pre- sided over by the Grand Cyclops, who was the presiding officer of the township or precinct.
The uniform or disguise for man and horse was made of a cheap domestic, weighing three or four pounds.
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The white robes for the men were made in the form of long, loose gowns or ulsters, with capes, the skirts reaching to the ground and hanging below the stirrups when mounted. The men wore red belts which supported two revolvers. On each man's breast there was a scarlet circle within which was a white cross. The same appeared on the horse's breast and on his robe at the flanks, the mystic letters K. K. K.
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