Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-11-20

of the presence Of this great body of armed
men in the little village. When Capt. Jim
Williams was hung in this county, three
Kans were ordered to commit the murder.
They met at the rendezvous in an cold pine
field" and when they were assembled, DIR.
Bratton of this village appeared with orders
from the Grand Chief to take command No
one but himself and the Chiefs knew what
was to be done, or where they were to go.
He marched the party to Williams and when
the poor victim was taken from the arms of
his shrieking wife, ordered the men to hang
him, and produced the rope brought along for
the purpose. Williams was an honest, intelli-
gent, hard-working negro, who was murder
ed because he had been Captain of militia
company. Bratton was ''highly respecta-
Bile" practicing physician in Yorkvile. He
fed the country as soon as the Presidents
proclamation was issued. When the negro
militiamen were massacred at Chester last
spring, 500 men were brought together to do
the work, and it is estimated that as many
as 1000 more were on the road, the
orders having been sent to all the Klans in
radius of forty miles. Special trains on the
railroad brought bodies of armed men from
Charlotte, in North Carolina, and Winsboro
in the county south of Chester. And all this
was because eighty negro militia had dared to
march through the town and camp in grove
near by. They had hurt nobody, but alarmed
for their lives by the harrassing of the Ku-
Klux they had assembled to insure, as they
thought their own safety. The result of the
attack on them was one white man wounded
in the leg, and sixteen blacks killed.
l gave in a despatch from Columbia the
signs of the ku-klux, as told me by the pris-
oners brought there from Spartanburg Coun-
ty, and have already given copy of the
constitution and bylaws of the Order in Polk
County in a. previous letter. The counter
sign was, 81 say" spoken with peculiar in
tonation. The party hailed, if brother ku-
klux, answered, you say what?' to which the
other replied. Nothing" The distress word
was, "Avalanche !" which is a corruption of
the word Ambulance that was common in the
rebel army. The DISCUSSES were not uniform,
each khan choosing for itself in the way of
colors. The general regulations required
that the disguise should consist of long
gown coming high up on the neck and reach
ing to the heels, with sleeves, hood cover
ing the entire head, and mask. The horses
were covered with white cloth. The dis
guise was perfect, for no part of the wearer
or his ordinary dress could be seen. Even
his neck-tie was concealed and his trousers
down to his boots and his horse was un-
recognizable. The ku.klux after time be-
came careless about their dress, and often
without masks-and it was through this Gaze
lessness that many were recognized. Their
places of rendezvous. were fields, woods,
crossroads, mills, and especially churches,
where they would pass around word of raid
at the Sunday evening service, and start out
after they had received the benediction to
maltreat or murder some of Gods poor. Re-
ligion had no effect toward making these vii
lains merciful. On one occasion four men
who helped to kill negro on Friday went to
the communion table and partook of the sac
rament on the next Sunday, the minister
knowing that they had been concerned in the
| murder.
The murders were generally by a large
force-as the confessing ku-klux express it
by "a right smart drove of men," Sixty men
killed negro named Roundtree in the north
orn part of the county, two or three klans
coming from North Carolina to help. In the
case where four men killed negro by orders
it was thought safe to impicate the whole
khan, and the chief summoned them all, led
them to the place where the body was hung
for three days, and had it sunk in Broad riv-
er. Whites as well as blacks were the vic
tins of raids--one man for talking of the ku-
klux indiscreetly, another for teaching ne
gro school, and others because they were
Odd radicals" The bakers dozen of
white republicans in the county were natural
ly jubilant at the turning of the tables on
their cowardly enemies. They say that no
such terrorism existed for them even during
the war as for the republicans during the
past year. One of these men, "Big Bill Will
son" he is called, after having been Graded"
two or three times, had to leave to save his
life. He came back not long ago, and pub
lished card in the village paper, saying he
had not returned to prosecute the ku-klux,
but to live in peace until he couldget his fam
lily away. Before he was ready to move the
arrests commenced. The other day "Big
Bill" rode by the COMMANDMENTS house, and
seeing a crowd of ku-klux in the yard who
had come to confess, when he got near them
he sang:
"'The year of jubilee has come,
Return ye rdnsomed sinners home,'
And Amt going to movep
To the colored people, this instant and
thorough crushing of the ku-klux villainy is
relief long prayed for and departed of. No
one can imagine the sutferings these poor
creatures have endured in the past year-the
terrible anxiety, the constant fear of scourg-
ing and murder, the sleeping in the woods
during the cold winter nights and in the rains
of spring, and the actual torture that hun
dreds endured, whose flesh was so horribly
mangled by the blows of their brutal assail-
ants that they will never fully recover. 81
tell you, sah, negro said to me to-day, eve
was nightly broken up. Hundreds of us
didn't dare to sleep in our houses for five
months. We jes about guy it up, and done
thought there was no help for us. We was
allus IN do sda of fha Norf but ~ ,,oa,oJ