The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-12

that was the key to the whole cam
 paign and because of the. fall of which Maximilian was captured and shot.
 It would not be complete unless there | was in 1t a description of the grea' ride of the Princess Sam Sam to the coast to send word to Louis Napoleon in France that Maximilian was cap tured and that he would be shot unless help was sent at once This pIays ride on horse back over lana avaiieo reached the coast there was no way
 she could get word to Louis Napo- leon.
 strange and remarkable woman n
 Montgomery, and she was in poverty She wept as she met the man who. like herself, had served in the army of Max, imiIian She was then in poverty, and while in Montgomery she was forced to pawn one of her diamond rings.
 A vivid chapter might describe Judgs Caffee's own escape when the ill-fatcd Mexican Empire crumbled and fell to pieces. Out of the falling ruins Judge Caffee escaped by riding pony more United States only to arrive at Gal
 weston. Tex, in the midst of a terrible
 epidemic of yellow fever
 | Served with Quantrell.
 chaptes ot to the the soldier of . Major Ouantreu with whom the Ala
 bamian served. Quantrell was in charge of Maximilian's Ordnance De | Subordinate He was strangely famil- 1 lar with this Major Quantrell who | with the coterie of Southerners met at
 the home of Mrs. Surratt and who wnen , President Lincoln was assassinated hed | to the four quarters of the earth, rear, | ing a death which some of them did | not escape Quantrell In Mexico was | familiar with the habits, customs ana personalities of these people and ne made accurate predictions to the young AIabamian of things that came to pass when Mrs. Surratt was placed on trial | in Washington. He was brother. so | he said to the famous guerilla whose name became terror in the West But the present story has naugnt 10 do with this vividly interesting story nor has 1t to do with the chapter of Judge Caffee's life that he spent in Chicago after his return from Mexico, when he engaged in newspaper work and mak- | ing no little name for himself as pungent and forceful writer, associated with such men.a as Whitelaw Reid, Story Patterson and others. Nor has 1t any | thing to do with the later chapter in | the life which would treat of the stormy and troublous days of Judge Caffee in | Lowndes County when the white people were coming into their own. and driv- l ing out negroes and carpet baggers. | The telling of all this is for another day. None better could be found | to do it than the man who ] was an actor in all these stirring scenes | and who has the ability, were he inclined | to write of the deeds in which he fig
 ured. It may be that some day he will | set them all down, these moving adven- 1 lures of flood and field, and the book will be as fine story of adventure as
 man or boy would care to read.
 But the present writing is to tell of 1 how the Ku Klux Klan came into be- | ing and to show that there was such l s,, TY,el nd iy | other Alabama towns in the months 1 immediately following the war. Simi- l lar clubs, but lacking the close and definite organization of the Alabama l bodies. sprung up in other Southern | towns. la
 These were later merged into the Ku Klux Klan, a name selected because of it's supposed resemblance to the sound made by the cooking of a gun. It was the Ku Klux Klan which raised the furor of excitement throughout the country, so much so that Congress was busy with its suppression, for several months to the exclusion of all other business. The Knights of the White Carnation, The Invisible Empires, the Invisible Circles and other organiza- | tions of the same nature were merged | to make the Klan, which made the name so famous. But in purpose and In operation methods these organiza- tions were the same While the name
 Ku Klux Klan may have first come into general use in Tennessee. for many months previous the Knights of the
 White Carnation had been an active
 and vigorous agent for white suprem- acy in Alabama. The organization, a
 few months after the war. was as closely and as compactly formed as
 was the Klan eighteen months after
 the war.
 Knights of White Carnation.
 The initial chapter of the Knights of the White Carnation was formed in Tus-
 kegee in 1865 Other chapters were
 throughout the South. The order ex-
 erted a widespread Influence and use full influence in the States where 1t ob
 tained a foothold. After the Knights of the White Carnation had been merg-
 ed into the Ku Klux Klan, General Ma
 than Bedford Forrest was made the head of the order with the ti.le of
 Grand Cyclop. In his testimony before
 the Congressional Committee General
 Forrest made mention of the Knights of the White Carnation as being one of the first units of the later order. Of the order of the White Carnation.
 Gen. Cullen A. Battle, a distinguished soldier and gentleman of Tuskegee,
 was made the first head with the same
  Grand Cyclops.
 Of this initial chapter in which Gen | eral Battle had his membership. Judge Caffee was member Tuskegee was | a that time in the hands of the Fed | eral soldiers. The negroes were in- solent. aggressive and dangerous in | their new found and unaccustomed power The Knights of the White Car nation were night riders who punished | ofenses against the whites suddenly and mysteriously.
 In December of 1865 Judge Caffee and ! a friend of his,' Dr.. Matt Rice were
 thrown into prison on the general charge of conspiracy" against the Government for such was the way the officials looked upon the operations of the Knights of the White Carnation and the Ku Klux Klan. These Tuskegee arrests so far as the records show formed the first action that the Fed eral Government took against the per petrators of the so-called "ku Klux outrages."
 Brought to trial Judge Caffee and
 Dr. Rice were defended by Gen Fred
 s. Ferguson and Judge David Clopton
 In the meanwhile the rooms of the pris- oners had been searched, their papers
 gone over and their arms taken But the prisoners were acquitted There was not sufficient evidence for a con- viction, even in such a court as the
 Federal soldiery had established And upon his acquittal and release
 Judge Caffee entered upon his Mexican
 adventure.
 The facts as recorded here are doubt
 less known to many of the older Ala
 l-