Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama

by Walter L. Fleming

Nearly all of the carpet-bag and scalawag witnesses who testified on the Radical side before the Ku Klux Committee complained that the courts would not punish Ku Klux when they were arrested, and that juries would not indict them.[2022]

In 1872 a gang of men in eastern Alabama, the home of the Black Cavalry and the spurious Ku Klux Klan, burned a negro meeting-house where political meetings were held. They were arrested and tried under the Ku Klux Act. Four of them, R. G. Young, S. D. Young, R. S. Gray, and Neil Hawkins, were fined $5000 each and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary at Albany, New York. Ringold Young was fined $2000 and sent to prison for seven years. —— Blanks and —— Howard were each fined $100 and imprisoned for five years. The prisoners were taken from state officers by force, and during the trial there was much parade by a guard of United States troops. There was complaint that the evidence was insufficient, and the punishment disproportionate to the offence even if proven.[2023]

In the elections of 1872 and 1874 there were numerous arrests of Democrats by the deputy marshals, who often made their arrests before election day and paraded the prisoners about the country for the information of the voters. I have been unable to find record of any convictions.[2024]

Later Organizations

While the Ku Klux Klan was disbanded by order in 1869, it is not likely that the order of the White Camelia disbanded except when there was no longer any necessity for it. In one county it might disband; in another it might survive several years longer. It is said that its operations were by order suspended in counties when conditions improved.

The White Brotherhood was a later organization, but had only a limited extension over south Alabama. The most widely spread of the later organizations was the White League, which in some form seems to have spread over the entire state from 1872 to 1874. The close connection between southwestern Alabama and Louisiana accounts for the introduction of both the White Camelia and the White League. In 1875 Arthur Bingham, the ex-carpet-bag-treasurer of the state, stated that he had secured a copy of the constitution of the White League and had published it in the State Journal. Its members were sworn not to regard obligations taken in courts, and to clear one another by all means.[2025]

The White League in Barbour and Mobile, in 1874, declared that no employment should be given to negro Radicals and no business done with white Radicals, and in Sumter County they were said to have gone on raids like the Ku Klux of former days. Military organizations of whites were enrolled and applications made to the Radical Governor Lewis for arms. He rejected the services of these companies, but they remained in organization and drilled. The Confederate gray uniforms were worn. In Tuskegee arms were purchased for the company by private subscription. By 1874 the white people of the state had become thoroughly united in the White Man’s Party. There had been no compromises. The color and race line had been sharply drawn by the white counties, and the black counties later fell into line. The campaign of 1874 was the most serious of all. The whites intended to live no longer under Radical rule, and the whole state was practically a great Klan. There was but little violence, but there was a stern determination to defeat the Radicals at any cost; and if necessary, violence would have been used. At the inauguration of Governor Houston, in 1874, several of the gray-coated White League companies appeared from different parts of the state.[2026]

In several later elections the old Ku Klux methods were used, and there was much mysterious talk of “dark rainy nights and bloody moons.” The “Barbour County Fever” was prevalent for many years: young men and boys would serenade the Radicals of the community and mortify them in every possible way, and their families would refuse to recognize socially the families of carpet-baggers and scalawags. They would not sit by them in church. The children at school imitated their elders.[2027]

The Ku Klux method of regulating society was nothing new; it was as old as history; it had often been used before; it may be used again; when a people find themselves persecuted by aliens or by the law, they will find some means outside the law for protecting themselves; it is certain also that such experiences will result in a great weakening of respect for law and in a return to more primitive methods of justice.