Chaos of Reconstruction, Terror After the Civil War

What can we learn by reflecting on the severe difficulties the
Union Army Major Merrill faced when attempting to protect the
civil rights of newly freed slaves in the Confederate South?
We reflected on the story in the book, Bloody Shirt, Terror After
the Civil War, to answer a very personal question, How can so
many of my Christian friends seem to embrace the false
narratives of Fox News and Donald Trump, valuing cruelty over
compassion? What are so many white Christians so against what
they call WOKENESS, against the Black Lives Matter ethos, against
Civil Rights, against basic kindness?

One answer is in this book, it is not a history of the forest of Jim
Crow and Reconstruction, and we have many videos on this
broad topic, but rather it is a story of individual communities
where Southern citizens, including many white Christians, were
quick to support the violent terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan night
riders in the dark days following the Civil War.
Please, we welcome interesting questions in the comments. Let
us learn and reflect together!
Feel free to follow along in the PowerPoint script we uploaded to
SlideShare.

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Bloody Shirt: Terror After the Civil War
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SlideShare contains scripts for my YouTube
videos. Link is in the YouTube description.
© Copyright 2021

Where does phrase, Waving the Bloody Shirt,
originate? On one dark midnight the Ku Klux Klan
night-riders galloped to where Allen Huggins was
staying, they sought to bully and intimidate Huggins,
who was the school commissioner, so he would cease
and desist from educating the negro. They beat him
with a strap nearly a hundred times, kicked him, and
pointed their pistols at him and threatened to shoot
him.

Our author, Stephen Budiansky, writes that
“Huggins was whipped so ferociously that he
could barely walk for a week or two, so
ferociously that in a burning anger that overcame
any fear of his own death he traveled to
Washington to testify before Congress,” returning
with a “deputy marshal’s badge, determined to
arrest every man he could lay his hands on who
had been a part of the KKK murder and terror.”
His bloody shirt was waved on the floor of
Congress in a speech condemning the Ku Klux
Klan and their reign of terror, leading to
legislation enabling the US Army to finally put
down this terrorist movement.

Post-Civil War Posting of Major Merrill

We will focus on the career of Major Merrill, who
showed considerable bravery in his actions during
the Civil War, some of his exploits are told by our
author. Before his first post-Civil War task he was
incredulous of the stories told of the Ku Klux Klan and
other white terrorist groups.

Reenactment of Civil War siege of April 1862, Bridgeport, Alabama, 2010

Our author writes what Major Merrill told
his commanding officer: “The newspaper
stories were incredible: tales of shadowy
bands whipping and beating leading
Republicans in strange nighttime
ceremonies, of schoolhouses set ablaze,
Republican officeholders forced to resign
on threat of death, entire towns seized by a
thousand disguised men taking up position
in eerie silence and stringing up a dozen
Negroes who had dared to enlist in the
state militia.”
The chilling reply to Major Merrill was that
“when you get to South Carolina you will
find that the half has not been told you.”
Frames from the movie, Birth of a Nation

The militia commanded by Major Merrill arrived in
the neighboring town on Saturday night. The train to
their post in Yorkville, in York County in South
Carolina, was scheduled to depart on Sunday
morning, but the Sunday train never arrived. When
the train did arrive on Monday morning, the soldiers
were told the track had been damaged, delaying the
train for a day.

The steam engine "Firefly" on a trestle of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad., 1864

When they pulled into Yorkville later on
Monday, the “pretty tree-lined streets of
Yorkville were quiet. It was a town of
fifteen hundred people, a number of
elegant Georgian and Greek Revival
houses, several hotels, some palatial,”
“grocery stores, specialty shops, doctors’
and lawyers’ offices,” and “a row of
substantial church buildings, Presbyterian,
Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian, the last
boasting a square Gothic bell tower.”
There were many churches in the
peaceful town of Yorkville.

Later that day they learned that the day before there had been a disturbance, a
band of a hundred hooded men had set upon Rose’s Hotel, looking to hang Edward
Rose, the Republican owner. His hotel was ransacked, and Edward fled out the back
window, fleeing all the way to Canada.
A few days after their arrival, leading citizens of the town called on Major Merrill,
assuring him that they were opposed to this violence. But what didn’t make sense
was that the damage to the rails were not extensive, the rotted ties had not been
disturbed, only one rail had been leaned up against the tree, rails had not been
wrapped around any trees as was often done during the Civil War. Once the Sunday
disturbance was over, it took less than an hour to fix the tracks. The incident was
not mentioned in the paper. Major Merrill learned from an informer who conspired
to run Edward Rose out of town: the railroad men, the sheriff and deputies, the
newspaper editor, nearly every white in town.

These leading citizens met with Major Merrill, they
said they were opposed to violence. They pointed to
an editorial in the local Enquirer that denounced the
violence, doubted that the violence would recur, and
that any further violence would be surely put down
by the power of the Federal Government.

Who was to blame for this
outrage? The editorial pointed
fingers, saying that although the
violence was not justified, that
“the negro radical government of
this state is responsible for all the
evils that are upon us.” The
negroes had refused to vote with
the segregationist Democrats,
“instead the black vote was
massed against the white man.”

The retaliation on Sunday afternoon
was inevitable. “Threatened by the
bayonets of our former slaves,
insultingly and defiantly marching by
night and by day” “through the peaceful
country and in the thronged streets;
tormented to madness by a thousand
acts of injustice and tyranny; retaliation
must and has commenced. The guilty
perpetrators of crime and outrage have
been overtaken and scourged. It was
the result of their aggression.” In other
words, they were blaming the victim.

The editorial “Resolved, That the
existing negro government of
South Carolina is a reproach to
the civilization of the age; a stain
upon the manhood of an
intelligent and gallant people who
have so long and so patiently
endured and submitted to be
ruled by former slaves. We are
tired of it and will exert every
legitimate and constitutional
means to effect a change.”
Frames from
the move,
Birth of a
Nation, that
led to the
resurrection
of the KKK.

For about three weeks there was peace in the county,
and all the townspeople were friendly to Major
Merrill, but then the Ku Klux Klan showed up at a
plantation searching for a negro man, who fled, so
they severely beat his negro father instead for not
properly bringing up his son. Many negroes knew
who the guilty white men were, they were eager to
inform our major who they were, but they refused in
fear for their lives to testify in court.

Major Merrill says that he knew
that the “Ku Klux Klan is much
greater in numbers than is
commonly supposed, and that a
large number of the most
respectable people in the county
are more or less intimately
connected with it. The debauched
sentiment of the old slave-holding
communities sees no great offense
in whipping a negro for being a
radical. The old sentiment is rife,
where differences of opinion are
settled by killing the man who
dares to disagree with them.”
Hooded Klansmen catch Gus, portrayed in blackface by white
actor Walter Long in the movie, Birth of a Nation

Major Merrill got to work documenting crimes recently committed by the
KKK, including four hundred whippings, six murders, and several
schoolhouses and black churches that had been burned down. He had
solid proof against eight men, and circumstantial evidence against many
more. Everyone knew in this small town who had done these deeds,
everyone except for the whites who served on the coroner’s jury, who
were mystified.
Then the KKK night riders brazenly lynched Jim Williams, the negro
captain of the local state militia, they proclaimed that he was being
lynched for voting for the radical ticket. When his wife heard strangling
noises, she opened the door and begged them not to harm her husband,
they told her to shut the door and put her children to bed. Jim Williams
was found swinging from a pine tree.

"Visit of the Ku-Klux".
Drawn by Frank Bellew,
1872. Engraving
showing African
American family in a
humble home. Woman
is cooking at the
fireplace, man seated
alongside, and three
children. A masked
man from Ku Klux Klan
is aiming a rifle in
doorway; two more
masked figures also
peek in.

Major Merrill learned when the KKK was next planning to ride to
terrorize the blacks of the county. He asked the sheriff if he could
accompany his troops to catch these night riders in the act, so he
could arrest them. The sheriff agreed initially, but then the
sheriff’s feet went cold, he made excuses, and declined to
participate.
How could our brave Major Merrill combat this evil? He devised a
plan, he asked one of the town’s prominent lawyers, a former
Confederate colonel, to call a meeting of several dozen of the
town leaders to discuss what could be done, fully expecting that
several of them were also leaders in Ku Klux Klan themselves.

Our author recounts, “these leading
town leaders came to his office at eleven
o’clock on a Saturday morning, and the
major proceeded ever so politely to make
it clear that he knew everything they
were up to.” “He described in minute
detail the recent KKK raids, making it
clear that they could do nothing without
him learning of it, implying strongly that
there were informers in their own ranks,
and they could trust no one.”

He bluffed, saying he was expecting to hear from President Grant that he was
suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the town, authorizing him to put under
military arrest the guilty parties. Then he convinced them to place in the newspaper
a notice signed by several hundred leading citizens of the town denouncing the
violence and terror being spread by the Ku Klux Klan.
This neither shamed nor dissuaded the good citizens of Yorkville, South Carolina.
The violence continued, Major Merrill added to his evidence file, more beatings,
some threatened lynchings. Major Merrill telegraphed his superior for permission to
arrest the members of the KKK, he received no answer. Not only were all those who
worked on the railroad conspiring with the KKK, so also were the telegraph
operators, and the leaders of the KKK knew the contents of any telegrams sent and
received by our good major.

Major Merrill sent letters to his superiors in the army describing
his frustrating and futile attempts to safeguard basic civil rights,
due process under the law, and simple justice in York County, on
behalf of the freed slaves. These appeals and likely many others
went up the chain of the command.
The colored South Carolina Republican congressman
courageously visited York, Congress held hearings on the civil
rights abuses in York County and likely other localities as well.
One noteworthy witness was the bravest, most helpless, and
most sympathetic witness imaginable.

Our author recalls, “It was the testimony of
Elias Hill that cast a hush over the room,” his
life was “a latter-day story of Job. He was a
cripple, with shriveled legs no bigger than a
child’s, an arm drawn up and perpetually
frozen in rheumatic pain. He was carried into
the hearing room and setup up in a chair.”
“When he began to speak it was in a strong
and melodious voice, the voice of a preacher.”
“The crippled boy learned how to read and
write, became a schoolteacher to the other
children, and for ten years had been
preaching” in a Baptist Church. His family and
the colored people who lived nearby helped
care for him, helped him eat his meals, and
carried him everywhere he went.
Worse than Slavery (1874), by Thomas Nast

One midnight our shriveled little cripple was
bullied by the KKK night riders. “Where’s Elias?”
shouted the white-hooded men. Our author
relates, “a rough hand” “grabbed his withered arm
and threw him on the ground outside. The men
then pummeled him with their fists and a pistol
butt, jerked his painfully atrophied legs, ordered
him to pull up his shirt up and horsewhipped him
eight cuts on his hip, and finally put a leather strap
around his neck and said they were going to throw
him in the river and drown him.” They demanded
he renounce the Republican Party and halt his
preaching, but finally they relented, permitting his
sister-in-law to lay him on his bed, “giving her a
couple of parting lashes with a leather strap.” From The Birth of a Nation, 1915

This was excerpted from his testimony
before the committee. These were
some of his responses to the cross
examination:
Question: You do not feel very kindly
toward the white race?
Answer: I am afraid of them now.
Question: Frightened of them?
Answer: Yes,sir. I have, and show
goodwill, love, and affection toward
them, but I fear them.

The good citizens of Yorkville insisted they
would enforce their laws, so a grand jury was
called, and the judge informed the grand jury
that it was their duty to listen to the
testimony of Major Merrill. Our author tells
us, “the whole town was in on the joke, and
decided to help it along. Many prominent
citizens of Yorkville singed a petition to
President Grant declaring that no outrages
had occurred in their county for the past
month, although Merrill’s reports showed
that there had been at least ten incidents,
including one murder.”

The grand jury proceedings were compromised,
informers informed Major Merrill that a third of the
grand jury members and three trial justices belonged
to the KKK, and two grand jury members were
accessories to KKK murders. There were whisperings
that the grand jury would prove that the War
Department had been deceived by Major Merrill ,
but he called their bluff by providing evidence for
over a hundred violent crimes and murders.

The next month General Grant, under
the provisions of the recently passed
Enforcement Act, “ordered the Ku Klux
Klan to disperse within five days and
turn in all weapons, disguises, and
paraphernalia; the federal government
could suspend the writ of habeas corpus
and send the army to make arrests on
its own authority.” Shortly afterwards,
an additional infantry and two cavalry
divisions arrived in Yorkville to assist in
enforcing this law, and the habeas
corpus was suspended in nine counties
in South Carolina, including York County.

Our author tells us, “two
days later Major Merrill sent
squadrons of calvary
galloping across York County
to arrest eighty-two men,
almost simultaneously and
without incident. He made a
point of sending them in
broad daylight, arresting the
prisoners in town or at their
places of work; there would
be no midnight knocks on
doors, no accusations of
men being torn from their
families under cover of
darkness.”
Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina in 1870

Hundreds Confess, Most Are Pardoned

These prisoners overwhelmed the second and third
floors of the local jail, there was not enough room in
the cells even with most prisoners sleeping on the
floor, many were compelled to sleep in the corridors.

Our author writes, “The locals called
confession ‘puking.’” Another five hundred
men puked, turning themselves in, while
several hundred, including many
ringleaders, fled the county. Many men
who agreed to testify in court insisted on
being arrested so it would look like their
testimony was forced. Major Merrill hired
a stenographer who had difficulties
recording all the testimonies. So many
men turned themselves in that our major
had no choice but “take their confessions
and send them home on their own parole,
holding only those who confessed to the
most heinous crimes.”
Three KKK members arrested in Mississippi,
1871, for attempted murder of an entire family

Our author continues, “The prisoners were
transferred to Columbia, South Carolina, for trial in
United States Court.” “In Columbia, the prisoners
were out-and-out heroes. The ladies of the city
called regularly with sparkling conversation; the
reverend doctors and students of the theological
seminary came with words of solace,” which
meant that the white Christian clergy condoned Ku
Klux Klan terrorism; and a famous fire-eating
secessionist “came with a five-gallon keg of beer
and stirring oratory: “Well, gentlemen, we are all
in jail in South Carolina, the only difference is, you
are under shelter, and those of us who are on the
outside have to dodge the storm as best we can.”

When the trial commenced,
“most of the defendants
pleaded guilty; most of the
leaders had already fled.” The
Ku Klux Klan constitution was
read into evidence, “it swore its
members to secrecy on penalty
of death; swore them to oppose
the ‘radical party;’ swore them
to fight for the constitution ‘as
bequeathed to us in its purity
by the forefathers,” denying the
validity of the Reconstruction
Amendments guaranteeing
blacks freedom, due process
under the law, and the right to
vote.
Klansmen in robes with burning cross, 1958, North Carolina

Courtroom testimony was
graphic and compelling. Our
author writes, “colored
witnesses told of being
whipped and threatened for
having voted the Republican
ticket; ‘damn you, we’ll make a
Democrat of you tonight,’ his
assailants told one man as they
beat him. A colored woman
described her rape in such
graphic terms that the court
reporter noted that it was ‘of
too obscene a nature to permit
of publication.’”

When the guilty defendants lined up to receive
their sentencing, our author states that “Judge
Bond was indignant, but his options were
limited.” Judge Bond addressed them, "Some of
your comrades recite the circumstances of a
brutal, unprovoked murder done by themselves,
with as little apparent abhorrence as they would
relate the incidents of a picnic, and you
yourselves speak of the number of blows with a
hickory, which you inflicted at midnight upon the
lacerated, bleeding back of a defenseless
woman, without so much as a blush or a sign of
regret.” There were so many defendants that
most were either fined up to a hundred dollars
while some were sentenced for few months.

While the trial was proceeding, officials in
Washington were tiring of the intransigence of
the hundreds of defendants. They had other
priorities; most Northern whites were
prejudiced towards blacks. Our author notes,
“the army commanders were antsy to get the
calvary back to its business fighting the Indians
out West, to get out of the degrading business
of acting like so many police constables down
South. The United States courts couldn’t
possibly handle the hundreds of pending cases
anyway, not with one judge riding the circuit
and funds so short that the district attorney
couldn’t even hire a stenographer.”
A Sioux Chief, by Frederic Remington, 1901

This lack of enthusiasm led to many defendants being pardoned,
only serious cases like murder would be tried and/or sentenced.
Troop morale broke down in Yorkville after many soldiers were
sent West, eventually the rest of the troops were pulled out.
Major Merrill was given a year’s sick leave, then was sent to
Dakota for a few months, but then transferred “to Louisiana,
where a real war had broken out,” a war that was also being
fought by former Confederate General Longstreet, formerly Civil
War hero, but whose popularity had plummeted when he served
in the Federal Army battling the forces of white supremacy.

In our next video we will discuss the next
Reconstruction Era posting of Major Merrill, and how
he and the former Confederate General Longstreet
confronted the White Leaguers, another white
supremacist terrorist group similar to the KKK, in
Louisiana.

Man
representing
the Freedman's
Bureau stands
between armed
groups of
whites and
blacks, by
Alfred R Waud,
circa 1868
Conclusions

What did I realize when reading this remarkable story of the
career of Major Merrill? I was reminded by a Rotary talk I heard
by Stetson Kennedy, who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the
1950’s. He points out that in its heyday, when a large chunk of
the young males were members of the KKK, many joined to be
part of the group, it was a social outlet and a way to get away
from the nagging wife. This partially explains why on most of
these night rides, they usually beat and terrorized the blacks
they bullied, murders and lynchings only happened on
occasional midnight rides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stetson_Kennedy
http://stetsonkennedy.com/

We should also realize that many Northern whites were
prejudiced against blacks, and that the Reconstruction
Amendments protecting the civil rights of blacks were
emasculated by the Southern dominated Supreme Court
after the end of the Reconstruction Era, and that indeed,
the reason why Reconstruction Amendments were
ratified because the North compelled the Southern states
to ratify them as a condition for readmission into the
Union, ending their military rule under the United States
Army troops.

Emancipation
from Freedmen's
viewpoint,
illustration from
Harper's Weekly
1865

We have other videos discussing how broad swaths of white Southerners and
Christians wanted to deny that freed blacks were human beings worthy to associate
with white people. There are historical memories of white Christians attending
lynching festivals that are not only public, but have been publicized, and are
conveniently scheduled after Sunday morning church services. Many whites do not
want to hear that there were over ten thousand lynchings where mostly innocent
blacks were hanged and sometimes burned and their corpses hacked into pieces
and sold as souvenirs.
There was also widespread use of the peonage statutes, where innocent blacks
were arrested for vagrancy for standing on the street corners and were impressed
into involuntary labor under atrocious and sometimes fatal working condition,
which was really slavery under another name.
Plus, we have the general histories of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow
Redemptionist eras, by the renowned author and Civil Rights activist, WEB du Bois,
and also a summary of the Yale Lectures on Black History of these eras.

https://youtu.be/f5nPNnvDBCY https://youtu.be/JeRCM4PAqPk
https://youtu.be/sLDHs0AigvY https://youtu.be/2TCXcEpohaM

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Chaos of Reconstruction, Terror After the Civil War

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