It is my belief that the Ku Klux Klan has been a good deal maligned. Many of its members were men of high type. I have been told, for instance, that one southern gentleman who has since been in the cabinet of a President of the United States, was active in the Ku Klux. I withhold his name because the purposes of the Ku Klux Klan, and the urgent need which called it into being, are not yet fully understood in the North, and for the further reason that depredations committed by other bodies were frequently charged to the Ku Klux, giving it a bad name. So far as I can discover the Ku Klux endeavored to avoid violence where it could be avoided. Its aim seems to have been to frighten negroes and bad whites into behaving themselves or going away; though sometimes, of course, bad characters had to be killed. It must be remembered that the ballot was denied former Confederate soldiers for quite a period after the War, that they were not allowed to possess firearms, and that, at the same time, negro troops were quartered in the South. In many parts of the South the government and the courts were in the hands of third-rate Northerners (carpet-baggers) who had come down to dominate the defeated section, and who used the Scalawags (disloyal southern whites) and negroes for their own purposes. Obviously this was outrageous, and equally obviously, a proud people, even though defeated, could not endure it. The service performed by the Ku Klux Klan seems to have been comparable with that rendered by the Vigilantes of early western days. Something had to be done and the Klan did it.
In 1869 General Forrest ordered the Klan to disband, which it did; but owing to the fact that it was a secret organization, and that disguises had been used, it was an easy matter for mobs, not actually associated with the Ku Klux, to assume its costume and commit outrages in its name.
In writing of Raleigh I referred to the post-bellum activities of the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah. Captain Dabney M. Scales, a distinguished citizen of Memphis, was on the Shenandoah. Born in Orange County, Virginia, in 1842, Captain Scales was appointed to the Naval Academy by L. Q. C. Lamar. He was a classmate of Captain Clark, later of the Oregon. When the war broke out, young Scales was in his second year at the Academy, but like most of the other southern cadets he resigned and offered his services to the South. When commissioned he was the youngest naval officer in the Confederate service. Eight months after the War was over, the Shenandoah was still cruising in the South Seas, looking for Federal merchantmen. In January 1866, somewhere south of Australia, she overhauled the British bark Baracouta, taking her for a Yankee man-o'-war flying the British flag as a ruse. Young Scales was sent in command of a boarding party, and was informed by the skipper of the Baracouta that the Civil War had terminated months and months ago. The Shenandoah then made for Liverpool. In the meantime a Federal court had ruled that her officers were guilty of piracy—a hanging offense. Naturally, they did not dare return to the United States. Young Scales went to Mexico and remained there two years before coming home. When the Spanish War came, Captain Scales volunteered and was made navigating officer of a naval vessel. At the time of our visit he was a practising lawyer in Memphis, and was in command of Company A of the Uniform Confederate Veterans, a body of old heroes who go out every now and then and win the first prize for the best drilled organization operating Hardee's tactics.
Another distinguished citizen of Memphis who has lively recollections of the Civil War, is the Right Reverend Thomas F. Gailor, Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee. Bishop Gailor, who succeeded the famous Bishop Quintard, is my ideal of everything an Episcopal bishop—or I might even say a Church of England bishop—ought to be. The Episcopal Church seems to me to have about it more "style" than most other churches, and an Episcopal bishop ought not to look the ascetic. He ought to be well filled out, well dressed, well fed. He ought to have a distinguished appearance, a ruddy complexion, a good voice, and a lot of what we call "humanness"—including humor. All these qualities Bishop Gailor has.
In the bishop's study, in Memphis, hangs the sword of his father, Major Frank M. Gailor, who commanded the 33rd Mississippi Regiment. Major Gailor was killed while giving a drink of water to a wounded brother officer, and that officer, though dying, directed a soldier to take the Major's sword and see that it reached Mrs. Gailor, in Memphis, within the Union lines. A young woman, a Confederate spy, took the sword, and wearing it next her body, brought it through to Mrs. Gailor. Somehow or other it became known that the widow had her husband's sword, and as the possession of arms was prohibited to citizens, a corporal and guard were sent to the house to search for it. They found it between the mattresses of Mrs. Gailor's bed, and confiscated it. Mrs. Gailor then went with another lady to see General Washburn. Her friend started a long harangue upon the injustice which had been done, but Mrs. Gailor, seeing that the General was becoming impatient, broke in saying: "General, soldiers came to my house and took away my dead husband's sword. I can't use it, nor can my little son. I want it back. You would want your boy to have your sword, wouldn't you?"
"Of course I would!" cried Washburn. "Thank God for a woman who can say what she has to say, and be done with it!"
The sword was returned.
In the Spring of 1863, when Bishop Gailor was a child of about seven years, he accompanied his mother on a journey by wagon from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi. The only other member of the party was a lady who had driven in the same wagon from Jackson to Kentucky, to get the body of her brother, a Confederate soldier who had been killed there. The coffin containing the remains was carried in the wagon. When it was known in Memphis that Mrs. Gailor was going through the lines, a great many people came to her with letters which they wished to send to friends. Mrs. Gailor sewed many of the letters into the clothing of the little boy. ("I remember it well," said the bishop. "I felt like a mummy.") Also one of Forrest's spies came with important papers, asking if she would undertake to deliver them. Only by very clever manipulation did Mrs. Gailor get the papers through, for everything was carefully searched. After they had passed out of the northern lines they met one of Forrest's pickets. Mrs. Gailor told him that she had papers for the general, and before long Forrest rode up with his staff and received them. Then the two women and the little boy, with their tragic burden in the wagon, drove along on their two-hundred mile journey. And later, when Jackson was bombarded, they were there.
Before the war Major Gailor had been editor of the Memphis "Avalanche," a paper which was suppressed when the Union troops took the town. After the War the "Avalanche" was started up again, and had a stormy time of it, because it criticized a Carpet-bag judge who had come to Memphis. In 1889 the "Avalanche" was consolidated with the "Appeal," another famous ante-bellum journal, surviving to-day in the "Commercial-Appeal," a strong newspaper, edited by one of the ablest journalists in the South, Mr. C. P. J. Mooney.