There was no sympathy in the glaring eyes that peered with lustful and revengeful fires from behind the hideous masks of their tormentors; no sentiment of pity, no hope, no help. She was given but little time to decide. They fell upon her like hungry wolves famishing for their prey, tearing one garment off after another, she resisting with all the strength she could command, and entreating them to take her life, if they must, but to spare her this last indignity.
Neither her piteous appeals nor her stubborn resistance availed her, and she lay upon the hard floor at last, naked as when born into the world, ashamed, degraded, broken in spirit, and her maidenly feelings outraged beyond any power of description. Four of the defenders of the “white man’s race” seized her limbs and arms; stretched them to their fullest tension, and placing their knees thereon, held her brutally and forcibly to the floor. Her punishment was to be terrible.
The “executioners” were called, and five of the band came forward. “Number one!” shouted the leader, and a stalwart member of the Klan that had sworn to uphold the “white man’s government,” raising his knotted strap in the air, brought it down upon the naked person of the helpless girl with the terrible force of his muscular arm, cutting through the delicate white skin and causing the blood to spurt at every stroke. He administered thirty lashes, and was succeeded by “number two” and “number three,” until, as the witnesses state, one hundred and fifty lashes had been administered, and her shoulders, loins, and limbs, were literally cut into mince meat.
Her screams had ceased, and her unoffending body lay still and motionless long before the punishment had ended. There was something in her young heart far beyond the dread cruelty of this infliction, and she inwardly prayed to God for death, to end her mental and bodily suffering. Lying under this great mountain of sorrow and shame, she heeded not the rude and obscene observations of her tormentors; and the unconsciousness produced by the punishment, soon placed her beyond the power to listen to them.
Leaving her as one dead, and issuing the edict that if the family did not leave the country, it would be “death! DEATH! DEATH!” to all, the band departed.
Thousands of honest hearts of all shades of political opinions, upon perusing this truthful narration, will feel to wish that they could have been present with power at this time to have utterly destroyed this band of midnight raiders; but, let them remember the words of holy writ, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay”.... “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath: but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.”
It was an hour after the departure of the band, before any of the party exhibited evidences of life or animation. Henry Furguson, and the young man Phillips, were the first to come to a realizing consciousness of the awful scenes through which they had just passed. Wounded and bleeding as they were, they felt the necessity for immediate action. The mother and daughter still lay upon the floor, naked, lacerated and motionless. John Furguson had fainted from the loss of blood he had sustained, and was still unconscious, while Daniel was lying amid the debris of the bed, groaning in the agony of the fever, and the wounds upon his body.
Hastily gathering up the dresses of the women, and throwing them over their nude bodies, the young men lifted them tenderly to the bed, and gave them such attention as they felt able to bestow. The remaining members of the family were cared for as well as the circumstances permitted. Not a doctor could be had in the vicinity, who was not in sympathy with the Klan, and not a neighbor came to their assistance, although fully aware of their distressed condition. The neglect of the neighbors was in no way attributable to their indifference or their inhumanity. It was one of the legitimate results of the feeling of terror that then pervaded the community. A show of sympathy towards these unfortunates, they feared, would place them under the ban, and subject them to a visitation, and they dared not incur the risk.
In ten days another warning came to the Furgusons, that they must leave the country within twenty-four hours, or the penalty of death would surely be inflicted. They knew this warning must be heeded, and with broken hearts and crushed spirits, they crawled out into the woods, under cover of the darkness, and secreted themselves as they best could.
In an interview held with the writer, subsequent to this last outrage, Miss Furguson stated that the weather, at this time, was cold and disagreeable, sometimes frosting and sometimes raining; that they had to lie out without a shelter, and suffered with the cold and hunger, sometimes going twenty-four hours without food. Occasionally the neighbors gave them something to eat, and finally the unfortunate wanderers sold to them the right to what furniture they had left behind in the house, and thus procured something upon which to subsist.