The Nation's Peril. / Twelve Years' Experience in the South. Then and Now. The Ku Klux Klan, a Complete Exposition of the Order: Its Purpose, Plans, Operations, Social and Political Significance; The Nation's Salvation.

by Anonymous

During the entire time of this whipping the three sons, two of them men grown, were completely naked, and when the mother and daughter sought to avert their heads from the shameful spectacle, they were ordered to turn them back again on pain of instant death, the command being enforced with pistols presented at their heads, by the hands of men whom they now felt assured would not hesitate to use them if ordered.

Having issued the edict for the family to leave the country or suffer death, the gallant defenders of the “white man’s government” and the protectors of the “white man’s race” departed.

For more than three weeks succeeding this visitation, the Furguson brothers were confined to their beds, and the mother and daughter nursed their wounds, and labored for their support with untiring energy. During these three weeks Susan Furguson had spread the news of the outrage to all parts of Chatham County, characterizing the attack upon them as brutal and savage—a crime that, if left unpunished by men, would surely be punished by the hand of the Lord. She applied to the Justices of the Peace for relief, stated that she recognized Dick Taylor, and George and Joseph Blaylock, citizens of the place, as being present on the night of the assault, and participating therein, and would make her affidavit to the facts, and support it with undeniable testimony.

She was everywhere laughed to scorn. The few who sympathized with her and her family, dared not give expression to their thoughts for fear of a similar fate. Chatham County was in the hands of the Ku Klux; a reign of terror had been inaugurated there; the mob had made laws for themselves, and justice was not to be had.

AN AGED WOMAN WHIPPED UPON HER NAKED PERSON.

On the fourth week after the visitation above recorded, and just when the Furguson brothers had about recovered from the effects of the brutal whipping, and were able to attend to their ordinary duties, the family were subjected to a second raid, far more revolting and indecent in its character than the first, and such as the sensitive mind naturally recoils from the contemplation of. The details are given here with a strict adherence to the truth, all the facts herein set forth having been personally verified to the writer by the sufferers themselves.

On the night of the 11th of December, 1870, Susan Furguson, and a young man named Eli Phillips, who had long known, and loved, and sympathized with her, were sitting before the fire in the room which had been the scene of the former outrage; the other members of the family, with the exception of John Furguson, had retired to bed.

Mrs. Furguson, the mother, was in very delicate health, caused by the shock produced by the visitation of the Klan four weeks previous, and the labor consequent upon nursing and caring for her sons. One of the brothers, Daniel, lay stricken with a fever that had prostrated him two days before, and was in an almost helpless condition.

About ten o’clock in the evening, the doors upon both sides of the house were broken in simultaneously, without previous warning, and a band of men, armed and disguised as before, and much larger in numbers, rushed into the room, uttering the most demoniac yells. A portion of the number proceeded directly to the bed where the mother was lying, terror-stricken and paralyzed from fear at their approach, and after first charging her with having exposed their former visit, dragged her from the bed and threw her violently to the floor. They then stood her up, and ordered her to remove her night dress and chemise. This she refused to do, pointing to her gray hairs and imploring mercy in the name of God, and for the sake of the mothers who had borne them.

Her appeals were made in vain. At the order of the Commander, the members commenced tearing off the only garments that concealed her nakedness, and this with the most shocking brutality. The daughter, maddened by the sight, rushed upon the assailants, but was anticipated by other members of the band, with whom she had a severe struggle, displacing the masks of four of them enough to enable her to recognize their faces.