(Daughter of Governor Miller)
From a portrait by Osgood, photographed by Reckling & Sons
Notices left as warnings on doors or pinned to town-pumps or trees bore cross-bones and skull in red ink, and such inscriptions as:
K K K
The Raven Croaked
and we are come to Look on the Moon.
The Lion Tracks the Jackal
the Bear the Wolf
Our Shrouds are Bloody
But the Midnight is Black.
The Serpent and Scorpion are Ready.
Some Shall Weep and Some Shall Pray.
Meet at Skull
For Feast of the Wolf and
Dance of the Muffled Skeletons.
The Death Watch is Set
The Last Hour Cometh.
The Moon is Full.
Burst your cerements asunder
Meet at the Den of the Glow-Worm
The Guilty Shall be Punished.
I have felt defrauded of my rights because I never saw a Ku Klux; my native Virginia seems not to have had any. I have seen them abundantly, however, through the eyes of others. One of my cousins went, during K. K. days, to be bridesmaid to a Georgia cousin. One night, as she and the bride-elect sat on the piazza, there appeared in the circular driveway a white apparition of unearthly height, on a charger in white trappings. Behind came another and another, the horses moving without sound; they passed in silent review before the girls, each spectre saluting. With cold chills running down her spine, Sue asked, “What are they?” Her companion laughed. “Haven’t you been saying you wanted to see the Ku Klux?” News enough next morning! A white man had been found tied to a tree, and over his head, pinned to the bark, a notice written in his blood, warning him to leave the county at once unless he desired to be carried out by a pathway to—a grave with headstone neatly drawn and showing epitaph with date of death, completed the sentence. He had been flogged and a scratch on his breast showed whence red ink had been drawn. As soon as untied, he left for parts unknown.
Neighbourhood darkeys had eyes big as saucers. Many quarters had been visited. Sable uncles and aunties shook their heads, muttering: “Jedgment Day ’bout tuh come. Gab’el gwi blow his ho’n an’ sinners better be a-moanin’ an’ a-prayin’. Yes, my Lawd!” And: “’Tain’t jes one Death a-ridin’ on a pale horse! it’s tens uv thousan’s uv ’em is ridin’ now. Sinner, you better go pray!” A few who had been making themselves seriously obnoxious observed terrified silence and improved demeanour. An expert chicken-thief had received a special notice in which skulls and cross-bones and chicken-heads and toes were tastefully intermixed. Others were remembered in art designs of the “All-Seeing Eye,” reminder that they were being watched.
The white man was a receiver of stolen goods and instigator of barn-burnings; had been tried for some one of his offenses and committed to the penitentiary, only to be pardoned out by the State Executive. In a North Carolina case of which I heard, a negro firebug who could not be brought to justice through law, though the burning of two barns and a full stable were traced to him, disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up after a night in which all the darkeys around smelled brimstone and saw fiery-eyed and long-tailed devils at large. People were hard put to it for protection against fire-fiends.
In a South Carolina newspaper a notice appeared from a man who gave warning that he would take vengeance into his own hands if incendiaries fired his property again.
The Ku Klux ruled its members with iron rod. Mr. M., of the order in Tazewell, N. C., was building a cabin on his place for a negro who had come under ban because of evil influence over other negroes; word had been passed that he was to be crowded out. A message reached Mr. M.: “Do not let this negro come on your place. K. K. K.”, with due skull and cross-bones accompaniment. To close friends of the order Mr. M. said: “My rights shall not be abridged by the Klan.” The cabin was finished on Saturday. Sunday he asked a visitor: “Let’s take a stroll in the woods and a look at Henry’s cabin.” When they came to where the cabin had stood, Mr. M. exclaimed: “Why, what does this mean? Lo and behold, the cabin and everything is torn down and the logs scattered every which-a-way!” “And what’s this?” his friend asked, pointing to three new-made graves with pine head-boards, inscribed respectively in epitaph to Mr. M., Henry, and Henry’s wife, Mr. M.’s death dated the ensuing Sabbath. On a tiny hillock was a small gallows with grapevine attachment. As one of the order, Mr. M. knew enough to make him ill at ease. Friends begged him to leave the country for a time, and he went. “This may look like tyranny,” said my informant, “but Mr. M. ought to have heeded the first message. The order could only do effective work through unfailing execution of sentence.”
Between a young lady and the son of a house in which she was a guest, a tender passion arose. He had mysterious absences lasting half or all night, after which his horse would be found in the stables, lathered with foam. The family rallied him on his devotion to a fair demoiselle in an adjoining county. Though under cold treatment from the guest, he gave no other explanation until one day he conducted her and his sister into his room, locked the door, swore them to secrecy, drew from its hiding-place up the chimney a Ku Klux outfit and asked them to make duplicates for a new Klan he was forming. The lovers came to understanding; the girl reproached him: “Why did you not tell me before?” “I did not know if you could keep a secret. I have a public duty to perform; the liberty of my men can be imperiled by a careless word.”