THE KU KLUX KLAN AND BLACK LABOR
1. TESTIMONY TAKEN BY THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN THE LATE INSURRECTIONARY STATES
Spartanburgh, South Carolina
July 6, 1871
CHARLOTTE FOWLER (colored) sworn and examined:
By the Chairman: Where do you live?
A. On Mr. Moore’s premises.
Q. Do you know in what township?
A. No, sir; my son does.
Q. Is it in this county?
A. No, sir; I did live in Spartanburgh County with my husband, before the old man was killed; but now I live with my son.
Q. How long ago is it since your husband was killed?
A. It was the first of May.
Q. What was his name?
A. Wallace Fowler.
Q. Tell how he was killed.
A. The night he was killed—I was taken sick on Wednesday morning, and I laid on my bed Wednesday and Thursday. I didn’t eat a mouthful; I couldn’t do it; so he went out working on his farm. We still had a little grandchild living with me—my daughter’s child. He had two little children living with him on the farm, but still that little child staid with me. He kept coming backward and forward to the house to see how I got on and what he could do for me. I never ate nothing until Thursday night. When he came home he cooked something for me to eat, and said: ‘Old woman, if you don’t eat something you will die.’ Says I: ‘I can’t eat.’ Says he: ‘Then I will eat, and feed the little baby.’ That is the grandchild he meant. I says: ‘You take that little child and sleep in the bed; I think I have got the fever, and I don’t want you to get it.’ He said, ‘No, I don’t want to get the fever, for I have got too much to do.’ He got up and pulled off his clothes, and got in bed. He came and called to the grandchild, Tody—she is Sophia—and he says: ‘Tody, when you are ready to come to bed, come, and grandmother will open your frock, and you can go to bed.’ So he laid there for about a half an hour, and then I heard the dogs. I was only by myself now, for the children was all abed. Then I got up and went into my room to my bed. I reckon I did not lay in bed a half an hour before I heard somebody by the door; it was not one person, but two—ram! ram! ram! at the door. Immediately I was going to call him to open the door; but he heard it as quick as lightning, and he said to them: ‘Gentlemen, do not break the door down! I will open the door’; and just as he said that they said: ‘God damn you, I have got you now.’ I was awake and I started and got out of bed, and fell down on the floor. I was very much scared. The little child followed its grandfather to the door—you know in the night it is hard to direct a child. When he said, ‘God damn you, I have got you now,’ and he said, ‘Don’t you run,’ and just then I heard the report of a pistol, and they shot him down; and this little child ran back to me before I could get out, and says, ‘Oh, grandma, they have killed my poor grandpappy.’ He was such an old gentleman that I thought they just shot over him to scare him; but sure enough, as quick as I got to the door, I raised my right hand and said, ‘Gentlemen, you have killed a poor, innocent man.’ My poor old man! Says he, ‘Shut up.’ I never saw but two of them, for, by that time, the others had vanished.
Q. How did you know there were any others there?
A. The little boy that was there when they shot his grandpappy ran into the house; he was there, and when they started I heard the horses’ feet going from the gate. I was then a–hallooing and screaming. After they shot the old man, they came back in the house—’Chup! Chup! Chup! Make a light.’ I said, ‘I am not able to make up a light; I have been sick two days.” I called to the little girl, “Is there any light there?” She says, “No.” But the mantel was there, where I could reach it, where they put the splinters, and I said, “Light that splinter;” and she lit the splinter. He said, “Hand it here;” and she handed it to him; and then he says, “March before me, march before me.” That was done in the middle of my room. He says, “Hand me up your arms”—that is, the guns. Says I, “There isn’t any here, sir.” Says he, “Hand me up that pistol.” I says, “There is none here; the old man had none in slavery, and had none in all his freedom, and everybody on the settlement knows it.” When he told me about the light he put that pistol up to my face—so—and says, “If you don’t come here I will get you light out of this.” He did that when I was a poor woman by myself.
Q. What else?
A. I didn’t know that anybody had anything against the old man; everybody liked him but one man, and that was Mr. Thompson. Somewhere along summer before last he had planted some watermelons in his patch; and he kept losing his watermelons, and one day he said he would go and lay, and see who took them; and sure enough he caught two little white boys; one was Mr. Thompson’s boy and the other was Mr. Millwood’s boy; both were white boys; they had cut up a whole lot of the melons. Jerry Lee lives on the same place with us; that is Mrs. Jones’s place; and he comes and says to the old man, “Wally, do you know who took your watermelons?” Wally says, “It is more than I dare to do, to lay a thing on man without I saw with my own eyes.” Jerry Lee says, “It is nobody eating your watermelons but Mr. Henley.” Then Wally says, “No, I can’t put a thing on a man without I saw him do it, and I have got the one that was eating my melons.” “Who is it, Wally?” said he. “Well,” says Wally, “I have promised not to tell it.” Says he, “I have melons too, and if you do not tell who took yours, they will come round and eat all our watermelons.” Says Wally, “I cannot tell you who the other boy is, but one boy is Mr. Thompson’s son.”
Q. Is that the reason you thought that Thompson did not like him?
A. Mr. Thompson is the only one in the whole settlement that has had anything against him. You may search the whole settlement over. Jerry Lee went right on to Mr. Thompson’s—that is, to old Mr. John Thompson’s house. It was only half an hour; and Jerry Lee didn’t tell it as he ought to. You see it was Mr. John Thompson’s brother. And Mr. Thompson came immediately as soon as Mr. Lee told his father about the watermelons, and he says, “Halloo.” I went to the window. He says, “Where is Wally?” Says I, “He went over to Mr. Jones’s; over to the big house.” He started on, and met the old man in the road; and he said, “Come along.” I listened to them just as they got up to the gate.
Q. What were they talking about?
A. They were not talking a word until they got to Mr. Lee; when Mr. Thompson carried the old man to Mr. Lee. Then Mr. Thompson fetched on so about the watermelons. Says the old man, “Who told you that I said that you took my melons? Did not I know a boy from a man? Tell me who said I took—your watermelons.” Says he, “There is the man.” Says Wally to Mr. Lee, “Did I tell you so?” Says Mr. Lee, “I understood you so.” And then says Mr. Thompson, “Yes, and God damn you, if you had said I had stolen your watermelons you would not make tracks out of this yard.” That was out of Jerry Lee’s yard. I ran to the fence and said “Wally, come out of that yard; and if you don’t I will call Mr. Jones. If you had threatened Mr. Thompson, as Mr. Thompson has threatened your life, he would have you in Spartanburgh jail before sundown.”
Q. How long was that before the old man was killed?
A. The watermelons were took this summer a year ago, and nobody but him and Mr. Thompson had anything against him.
Q. Do you mean by this that Thompson had anything to do with the killing of the old man?
A. I am going to tell you my opinion about it. I didn’t see Mr. Thompson’s face, for he had a mask on; but he was built so. He lives close to us, and I saw him every day and Sunday.
Q. Did these men have masks on?
A. Only the one that shot him.
A. It was all around the eyes. It was black; and the other part was white and red; and he had horns on his head. He came in the house after he killed the old man and told me about the light, and I made the little girl make a light; he took the light from her and looked over the old man. Another man came out of the gate, and looked down on the old man and dropped a chip of fire on him, and burnt through his shirt—burnt his breast. They had shot him in the head, and every time he breathed his brains would come out.
Q. Do you mean to say that you believe his being killed was caused by the quarrel about the watermelons?
A. I can tell you my belief. There is a parcel of men who were on the plantation working Mr. Jones’s land, and my old man was one of them that tend ed Mr. Jones’s land. Mr. Jones had had a whole parcel of poor white folks on the land, and he turned them off, and put all these blacks on the premises that they had from Mr. Jones, and I don’t know what it could be, but for that and the watermelons. That was the cause why my old man is dead, and I am left alone. (Weeping.)
Q. Is that all you can tell about it?
A. Yes, sir. That is all that I can tell. I don’t want to tell anything more than I know; I don’t want to tell a lie on anybody.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. Was the old man dead when the fire was thrown on him?
A. He did not die until Friday between 1 and 2 o’clock; but he couldn’t speak a word. He was just bleeding, and his brains and blood came out over his eyes.
Q. Where was he when he was shot?
A. Right by the door. They shot him and never asked a question.
Q. Did you come near him before they left?
A. I never went to the door. I hallooed and screamed where I was standing for some people.
Q. Did you see him by the light where you stood?
A. It was dim moonshine. He lay out there as if he was lying on the bed; his head as white as cotton.
Q. Was he farming or doing anything else?
A. He was the coachman of old Mrs. Shoemaker. His young mistress came up to see about it, and cried about him.
Q. What other business did he do?
A. Nothing but farming. Everytime Mr. Jones wanted anything from this town, he sent him and another old gentleman that lived there. They killed him, and they whipped another nearly to death; and they shot another in the head, but the ball was so much spent that it did not kill him, and the doctor got the ball out.
Q. Was that the same night?
A. Yes, sir. One of them was shot, and the doctor got the ball out; and the other got away. The watermelons and that farming work caused this. That gentleman intended to clean them out off of the plantation. I just tell you the whole truth; I do not want to put a finger on anybody; but they have ruined me. But his name is published to the whole United States. If you ever get a newspaper and read of Wallace Fowler, that is my husband.
Q. That all happened in Spartanburgh County. Do you not know what township it was?
A. I don’t know what they call Spartanburgh Township; my son James can tell you.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Was he there?
A. No, sir.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. How old was your husband?
A. I do not know exactly; but he was an old man, with a head as white as that sheet of paper that that gentleman is writing on. But he was a smart man for his age.
A. I expect he was over seventy.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. You say you are now living on Mr. Moore’s farm?
A. With my son, James Fowler.
Q. Where is that?
A. On Tiger Creek.
Q. Is it near where your husband was killed?
A. He was killed three miles from Glen Springs.
Q. In the other direction?
A. Yes, sir; on Mr. Jones’s premises.
Q. How long did you and Wallace live there?
A. I could not tell; it was so many years. You see he had belonged to the Olins; and then Joe Olin sold his land to Mr. Jones. I cannot tell you how long it has been.
Q. Did you live there before the war?
A. O, yes, sir; many and many a year.
Q. And you never knew what township you lived in?
A. No. I never knew the name after they altered the townships and districts and counties. I don’t know.
Q. Do you know what county it was?
A. I know the district.
Q. What was the district?
A. Spartanburgh.
Q. Was your husband as old as seventy-five years?
A. Yes, sir; I reckon he was.
Q. How much older than that?
A. I cannot tell; he was older than I am. You see we poor black folks had no learning. Old Mrs. Olin had my age and she is dead and gone.
Q. Have you any idea of your age?
A. No, sir.
Q. Are you thirty?
A. I reckon I am more than that; I have children, grown children.
Q. Have you grandchildren?
A. Yes, sir; great–grandchildren.
Q. And you do not know whether you are thirty years of age?
A. No, sir.
Q. How old is your oldest great–grandchild?
A. About six or eight years old. That is the oldest one of all; it is my daughter’s daughter’s child.
Q. You say you were sick that night?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Still you were able to sit up at the door?
A. Yes, sir, after the old man got me supper, because there was nobody to cook for me but him.
Q. Your husband was working and living in town?
A. Yes, sir; he was living just as spry as he could be.
Q. What was he doing—working in town?
A. No, sir, not in town; he was working at home.
Q. What do you mean by going backward and forward to see him?
A. He came out of the field to see me.
Q. Was he at home every night with you?
A. Yes, sir; and he came in during the day–time.
Q. You sat up about half an hour after Wallace went to bed?
A. Yes, sir; I then heard the dogs bark, and I went and peeped out of the door to the back of the plantation, and the dogs made a dreadful noise. That is the time that they were after the other blacks. They went around there at that time of night.
Q. How do you know that?
A. Because I know the black dog that Mr. Jones had, if anybody is about the land, would be barking.
Q. Did you hear any shooting? Could you not hear a man as far as a dog?
A. But the boys, when I was talking about the dog, said that was the very time when they were after them.
A. Yes, sir; the old man was the last one they came after.
Q. You say that when you were sitting up and heard the dogs barking, was the time when they were after the other black people?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you think so then?
A. I thought so after they killed the old man. That was the time they were after the other ones.
Q. Did you hear a gun or pistol?
A. The boys said they shot at them, but I never heard the gun, as I told the boys the next morning.
Q. Who did this man who shot Wallace tell to march before him?
A. I was the one; he told me to march before him.
Q. Where did he mean to march to?
A. He had shot him at the door, and he came in asked me about guns and pistols, to see if I had any in my house. I told him we did not have any such a thing; that Wally did not have as much powder as he could pick up on a pin’s point.
Q. What is old Mr. Thomson’s name?68
A. John Thomson—the same as his son.
Q. Where does he live?
A. Close by me.
Q. Is he a white man or a colored man?
A. He is white—a young man.
Q. I understood you to state that Thomson complained about his watermelons being stolen?
Q. My husband had lost watermelons.
Q. Did he complain?
A. No, sir; but he laid out to see who was eating his melons, and he came upon those two boys. There were only two.
Q. How many men did you see?
A. I saw only one man with a mask.
Which one shot Wallace?
A. The man with the mask.
Q. From the time they first knocked at the door until they shot was a very short time?
A. Yes, sir; but a very few minutes.
Q. Nothing was said but “God damn you.”
A. Nothing; but they grabbed him, and said, “God damn you; I have got you now;” and said, “Don’t you run;” and took him out, and then I heard the crack.
Q. Did you know the man who had the mask?
A. No, sir; one came in the gate; he was a long, slim man, and looked down on the old man lying outside of the door. I saw him and the man with the mask.
Q. Did you know the man with the mask?
A. I just know the build of the man, and was just such a built man as Thomson, but I never saw his face.
Q. Was he about the size of Thomson?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is Thomson tall or short?
A. He is a short man, and this man was a little short man, but I did not see his face.
Q. Are you not mistaken about fire having been thrown upon the breast of Wallace?
A. I have got the shirt.
Q. Are you sure that cannot be mistaken?
A. I am not mistaken.
Q. Was there not some examination of Wallace by the neighbors afterward?
A. It was no examination; but Dr. Jones came there and saw the blister and burn where they threw the fire on him.
Q. Did any other white persons see him before he was buried?
A. About Saturday two weeks they went and took him up.
Q. Are you sure it was two weeks?
A. I think it was two weeks, but I was not there.
Q. Then you do not know what the persons who took him up know?
A. No, sir; but the burned place was there.
Q. You do not know what the people who took up Wallace’s body know?
A. No, sir. I had him dressed and all.
Q. Who was this Mr. Jones?
A. He came from the North.
Q. How long ago?
A. He had been in this country a good many years.
Q. Before the war?
A. Yes, sir; many years.
Q. He had had a good many white persons on his farm, and had turned them off?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When?
A. New Year’s day last.
Q. And Wallace was killed this last May afterward?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How many white tenants had Mr. Jones on his farm when he turned them off?
A. He had Mr. Millwood, and Mr. Lee, and Mr. Lee again, and Mr. Henley—sir.
Q. Where are all those white tenants?
A. They left the plantation and scattered right down below us, not far from here.
Q. It is your opinion, as given in answer to the question of the chairman, What was the cause of these men killing Wallace? that it was either the difficulty growing out of the watermelons, or the fact that these white men were turned off and black men put on that farm?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. It was one or the other?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Which is the most probable?
A. I will tell you which I think stronger than the other. These men and Mr. Thomson are all kin.
Q. Were all four of these white men his kin?
A. Yes, sir; to Mr. Thomson. Mrs. Thomson’s mother is Mrs. Millwood’s aunt, and they are all kin.
Q. Is Mr. Thomson a respectable man in that county?
A. They all said down there that he was a might mischievous man.
Q. Does he tend Dr. Jones’s plantation?
A. No, sir; Mr. Foster’s plantation.
Q. Where is he now?
A. I don’t know. He ran off before I left for some conduct he had done; but his children and wife are there; that is, the old man has run off.
Q. That is since the death of Wallace?
A. The old man was gone before Wallace was killed.
Q. Young John Thomson is there yet?
A. Yes, sir. Young John Thomson and Frank Thomson and Aaron Thomson and Eliphaz Thomson, all his sons, are there with the old lady.
Q. Was this man who was masked a Thomson?
A. I do not know who he was. I tell you the Lord’s truth from heaven; I do not know who he was, I am not going to tell more than I know. I do not want to bring trouble on anybody in this world, because I do not want to have anybody hurt for me. My old man is gone, but I do not want to take anything from anybody, or do anything to anybody.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. How long was it before the old man was buried?
A. He died Friday, between 1 and 2 o’clock, and they buried him Saturday, between 1 and 2 o’clock.
Q. Did the coroner’s jury come to look at him?
A. No, sir. Mr. Jones wrote for them, too. It was a week after they buried him.
Q. What neighbors came to see him?
A. Not one.
A. Only old man Vander Lee’s son came with Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones was looking at him, and he came in.
Q. Then Mr. Jones was really the only white man who came to see him?
A. Yes, sir.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Did Lee come in and see him?
A. He came by the gate, and Mr. Jones told him the accident, and he jumped off and came in.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. What are these men called that go about masked in that way?
A. I don’t know; they call them Ku–Klux.
Q. How long have they been going about in that neighborhood?
A. I don’t know how long; they have been going a long time, but they never pestered the plantation until that night. I have heard of Ku–Klux, but they never pestered Mr. Jones before.
Q. Did your old man belong to any party?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What party?
A. The radicals.
Q. How long had he belonged to them?
A. Ever since they started the voting.
Q. Was he a pretty strong radical?
A. Yes, sir; a pretty strong radical.
Q. Did he work for that party?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did he do?
A. He held up for it, and said he never would turn against the United States for anybody, as the democrats wanted him to.
Q. Did he talk to the other colored people about it?
A. No, sir; he never said nothing much. He was a man that never said much but just what he was going to do. He never traveled anywhere to visit people only when they had a meeting; then he would go there to the radical meetings, but would come back home again.
Q. Did he make speeches at those meetings?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did they make him president of their meetings?
A. I don’t know about that.
Q. Did you ever go with him?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did they ever make him president or vice–president, or put him upon the platform?
A. No, sir. Several, I heard, went there and did, but he never undertook such a thing. He would go to hear what the best of them had to say, but he never did anything.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Are the colored people afraid of these people that go masked?
A. Yes, sir; they are as ‘fraid as death of them. There is now a whole procession of people that have left their houses and are lying out. You see the old man was so old, and he did no harm to anybody; he didn’t believe anybody would trouble him.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. Did he vote at the last election?
A. Yes, sir.
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 7, 1871
GEORGE W. GARNER sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Do you live in this county?
A. Yes, sir.
A. I live east of this place—about seven miles from here.
Q. In what township?
A. Pacolet Township.
Q. What business do you follow?
A. Farming.
Q. How long have you lived in this county?
A. I have been living in this county since January last a year ago.
Q. Where did you come from?
A. From Union County, in this State.
Q. Are you a native of this State?
A. Yes, sir. I was born and raised in Union County.
Q. Have you suffered any violence at the hands of any person in this county?
A. From persons in this county or some others, I have.
Q. Go on and tell in what manner it was inflicted upon you, and when it was.
A. I had two attacks; the first was on the 4th of March last, on Saturday night; the second was on that night two weeks, which would make it the 18th of March.
Q. Go on and tell what occurred each time.
A. On the 4th of March there came a body of men to my house. They were all around my house before I knew they were there, and were hallooing and beating and thumping the house. I was nearly asleep, and as quick as I awoke I jumped up. They told me to open the door. I told them I would do so. They told me to strike a light before I opened the door. I lighted a lamp and set it on a desk by the side of the house. I opened the door. These men were standing in front of the door with pistols drawn. They were knocking at the other door also. I said, “Gentlemen, somebody is knocking at the other door; let me open it.” They let me turn around and open it. There were five men there. While I was opening that door more men came through the other door and into the room where I was. To the best of my mind, there were twelve men in all in my house. My wife thinks there were more, but I did not see them. They asked me to take a walk. I told them I would. I asked them to let me put on my clothes and shoes. They told me to put on my shoes, but not my clothes. They took me out and tied my hands together and hit me a few strokes and sent me back to the house.
Q. What was said?
A. They told me I must be a good citizen to the county. I asked them if I had not been. They said they reckoned as good as any. I told them if I lacked anything, it was from not knowing what a citizen should be. I thought I had done my duty. They said I should quit my damned radical way of doing, and should no longer vote a republican ticket, and if I did they would come back and kill me. . . .
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 7, 1871
Alfred Richardson (Colored) sworn and examined:
Q. You say he was killed?
A. Yes, sir; I think they shot seven balls into him.
Q. Was that done by a body of men in disguise?
A. Yes, sir; a body of disguised men.
Q. What was that done for?
A. This black man was keeping a blacksmith shop. He had done work for a man named Kemp. I was not acquainted with Kemp, though I had seen him. Kemp had been having his work done there for about a year or two, and had never paid the black man. The black man complained to the man he was renting the shop from about Kemp’s account. He said, “Kemp don’t pay me, it looks like he won’t pay me. I am getting tired of working for him. Now he has brought a buggy here for me to fix, and I am not going to work for him any more until he pays me.” This white man said to him, “I would not work for him any more; put the buggy outside the door and work for somebody else that you can get your money from.” Dannons laid the buggy aside, and would not fix it. Kemp came up after awhile and asked why he had not fixed it. Dannons said he did not care about working any more for him until they settled up. Then Kemp took the buggy—the wheels had been taken off—he took the carriage apart and set it on an anvil, and said, “Don’t you move this off until you take off to work on it.”
Q. He put the wagon on the anvil so that Dannons could not work on it?
A. Yes, sir; and told him that he should not move it unless he was going to fix it. Dannons then went to the man he was renting the shop from, and asked him what he must do. The man told him, “You take the buggy and set it aside and go on with your work.”
Q. Was the man who owned the shop a white man?
A. Yes, sir; Dannons took the buggy off the anvil and set it down. Kemp came along and asked why he had moved that buggy from there without he was going to fix it. Dannons told him he wanted the anvil to go to work and he took the buggy off. Kemp said, “God damn you, I will kill you.” He went off and said no more to him. In a night or two about fifteen or twenty men came down there and hallooed to Dannons to come to the door.
Q. Were they in disguise?
A. Yes, sir; they came and told him to come to the door. He told them to hold on until he got his pants on. They told him “Never mind about your pants, come to the door.” He came to the door and saw these men all standing in the yard disguised. He turned his back on them and ran into the house. As he turned back they shot him right in the back of the head. I think the first struck him. He fell. They ran in and shot some five or six more shots into him; and then they all went away. That was the last of them that night. . . .
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 8, 1871
JACKSON SURRATT (colored) sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Do you live in this county?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Where?
A. About a mile north of Cowpens Battle Ground, on Mr. Bob Scrugg’s land.
Q. What do you do there?
A. Farm.
Q. On rented land or land of your own?
A. I am just working with another man on land.
Q. How long have you lived there?
A. I commenced last Christmas a year ago.
Q. Were you raised in this county?
A. Yes, sir; I was raised below—down below Cowpens Furnace, near sunrise course from there.
Q. Have you been visited at any time by the Ku–Klux?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When?
A. About two months ago, on a Sunday night, and the Saturday following.
Q. Go on and tell us all about it. Take the first time and tell us what they said and did.
A. I waked up in my bed, and I heard somebody running against the door. There was two. I hallooed, “Wait, and I will open it.” They stopped. When I got up they had bursted a piece off, but it was not open. I opened it wide, and one said, “Have you ever went radical? I told them I had. The other hallooed, “Blindfold him;” and he jerked me out of the door and blindfolded me; and they said “Take a walk with me,” and they took me off about fifty yards. I could tell the next day how far it was. They told me to get down on my knees. I got down. He said, “Did you vote radical? I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, What made you do it? I said, “Because I was with the white people when I voted that way.” They said, “Did you think the white people was right?” I told them I had no other source to cling to. I did not go by myself. I thought it was as right as anybody. He says, “Did the radical party promise to kill all us democrats?” I said, “They never told me that.” He said, “If you tell me a lie we will murder you right here.” I said, “I will tell you the truth.” They said, “Didn’t they say they would kill us?” “No,” says I. Says he, “Are you lying? You are damn good now; but didn’t you get up and vote before breakfast?” I says, “I did, in order to not lose much time. It was near my home, and I was busy cutting grass, and I didn’t want to lose time.” Says he, “You slipped off and went.” “No, I didn’t,” says I, “I went along slow.” “What made you vote radical?” Says I, “I did’nt know any better.” Says he, “Do you think you will know any better?” I said, “I will do the best I know how.” They said, “Damn you, that is not the best. You have been talked to, to go democrat, and, damn you, you didn’t do it, and we will show you to-night.” Then they said for me to pray for them. I prayed. They said then, “Just hit him a lick apiece;” and they hit me a lick apiece, and all the time they had me blindfolded, and they made me run to the house, and I had just time to look where the house was before I ran. The house seemed strange to me. I got in. They stood awhile, and I peeped through the crack. They called my lady out to look at them, and deviled us a while, and they went off.
Q. Deviled you—what is that?
A. They blackguarded us, and I could not swear to any man of them, for they were disguised. It looked like paper stuck up beside the head, and it run up to a sharp point on the top, and they had their coats on and under their breeches to make them look big—bulging out.
Q. How many were there?
A. They said they all hit a lick apiece, and they gave me fourteen licks; and after they let me run to the house I heard others off whistling. I could not tell how many there was in all.
Q. That was on Sunday night?
A. Yes, sir; Sunday night the first time.
Q. Did they come again?
A. Yes, sir; on the next Saturday night they come. They inquired then for my son. I told them I hadn’t any one there at home big enough to do anything. They said, “We want that one that stays here—your wife’s son.” I said he was hired off at Judge Edwards’ and didn’t come home. The first time they asked for him. When they came again, I had a clock and it struck one, and I laid there, and the first thing I heard the yard was full of horses, and they were rearing and cursing, “Open the door, or we will kill the last one of you.” They started off with me, and they run in the house and cursed and tore and jerked my daughter out, and jerked my wife and my wife’s son out of bed, and the first thing I knew they were bringing them all out. There was a man in there cursing and wanted a light. They took us about seventy yards and made me let down the fence, and made me and my wife jump two logs together. They made us lie down about three steps apart, and they began to cut switches. They made us all lie down—my wife and all. They had us nearly naked. It was getting warm weather. I was in my shirttail. They cut switches, and they hit my wife’s son a lick, and asked him what he was doing. He told them he did not know what he was doing. They asked one his number, and he said No. 10, and then they hit me ten, and then they called out eight. The man had cut a switch, and he came to my head and he looked at me, and then he stepped off the horsemen, and they all stepped up and looked, and then one hallooed, “Ride up,” to the horsemen, as I was lying there. I said to myself, “I believe if I lie here they will put me and all my folks through, so that I can’t do any good,” and I said, “If my Old Master is for me, he will strike for me to-night and save me, and I must do my best;” and I rose on all fours and jumped and ran about fifty yards and stumped my foot, but I raised up and ran on and took right through the woods, and ran until I run over a log, and I found they were not after me, and sort of stopped, and though I would take roundings on them, for fear they would catch me; and I ran back about a quarter of a mile into the swamp, and that was the last I saw of them.
Q. What did they do with your wife?
A. They said they had not made good hands in the farm. They said that to my wife and daughter.
Q. Is your wife here, and your daughter?
A. My wife is; my wife’s son went off on Friday. He was afraid they would get after him again. He was a young man, and the person he was living with dismissed him, and he told me he would go off and try to make something. It has been last Tuesday a week since I have seen him.
Q. Had you any quarrels in the neighborhood?
A. No, sir; I do not think anybody had anything against me. Everybody spoke well of me. I thought it was all right. All they had against me was voting the radical ticket.
Q. Do you know any of these men who were there the last time?
A. I could not tell for my life who were there.
Q. You say this was about two months ago?
A. Yes, sir:
Q. Have you been living there since then?
A. Yes, sir; part of the time in the woods and at home. I laid about five nights in my house since, on rainy nights when I thought no person could stand it to travel, but at other times I have staid outside in the woods.
Q. Why?
A. For fear these men would come again. I did not know but they were coming, or at what time they would come.
Q. Did you take your family out with you?
A. I had to leave them in the house. My wife had a young baby, and my daughter has not been well enough to go out since they beat her. My wife has the baby.
Q. Had she that young child when she was taken out?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How old was it then?
A. It is nine months old now, and you can count from that.
Q. It was seven months old?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was it taken out that night?
A. No, sir; the child was in its mother’s arms, and as she come out she put in the bed and it screamed. I was powerfully uneasy about my baby, and could not keep still for it, and the men still cursed. There were some other little children there, and they crawled to it.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. What sort of whistling did you hear?
A. It sounded like a man whistling out of a key, or something hollow.
Q. Was there more than one such sound?
A. It seemed to me there was one sound like that, but it was in different courses.
Q. In different parts of the woods?
A. Yes, sir; it seemed so to me, but I was scared so I couldn’t tell hardly any more than I know they were whistling.
Q. How many men were there the last night?
A. I can’t tell, but there was not as many as the first night.
Q. What do you mean by saying if your “old master” was for you he would be with you?
A. I thought Providence was for me, and I put confidence in him to carry me through.
Q. Were you a slave?
A. No, sir; I am not. I was before I was free.
Q. Before the war?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How old are you?
A. I am going on forty.
Q. Were you raised in that neighborhood?
A. No, sir.
Q. Where were you raised?
A. Some nine or ten miles below.
Q. In the same county?
A. It is divided now. It is in Limestone Township now.
Q. But is it in Spartanburgh county?
A. Yes, sir.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. When was it that this conversation about being a radical occurred between you and the members of that Klan?
A. I can’t recollect exactly who now, but ‘most any of the democrats would get after me about it; almost any of them who saw me would get after me about being in the radical party. They do not believe in it.
Q. You mean democrats that were not there that night?
A. I do not know; I can’t tell. They must have been, I reckon. I don’t know who they were.
Q. You say that democrats have frequently talked to you about being a radical?
A. They said so.
Q. Who said so?
A. Them Ku–Klux.
Q. What did they say?
A. They said the radicals had said they were going to kill the democrats.
Q. I ask when that took place between you and the Ku–Klux, as you call them?
A. About two months ago.
Q. But at what point of the night did that conversation take place? Where was it?
A. At my home.
Q. Was it when they first got to the door or afterward?
A. It was before they blindfolded me the first time. Before I opened the door they called me; “Damn your old soul, didn’t you go radical?” One says “Blindfold him;” and one jerks me right out of the door, and they blindfolded me; and he says, “Take a walk with us;” and I went. He said, “Get down on your knees.” I got down. He says, “What made you go radical?” I says, “I did not know any better. I went with the white folks, and am still with the white folks, and don’t know any better.” He said, “Will you do better?” I said, “I do not know any better.” He says, “What made you go radical?” I said, “I didn’t know any better;” I was with the white folks—”
Q. Hold on. I did not ask you to go over the whole thing again; I asked you when that occurred.
A. It was the first night.
Q. What made you start to go over the whole thing again?
A. I thought you wanted to know it.
Q. You have been going over that kind of song for some time, have you not?
A. Telling it?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. Yes, sir; I have.
Q. How long have you told it?
A. I do not know.
Q. A good many times?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. To whom?
A. I have told you.
Q. To whom else?
A. To Mr. Tench Blackwell; I told him.
Q. Have a number of people come to you to know about it?
A. Not a great many.
Q. How many?
A. I do not remember of any white persons coming.
Q. None at all?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you talked with no white persons going through the country?
A. Going through the country they have asked me if the Ku–Klux had whipped me. I said, “Yes, they whipped me.”
Q. Did you tell them all about it?
A. I told them they whipped me about the republican party.
Q. Have you talked with anybody within a day or two about it?
A. I don’t remember.
Q. Could you recollect if you had?
A. I believe it was about four days that I was talking to some white men about it. One was Mr. Edwards. I went there to see my sons.
Q. Where is that?
A. Above Cowpens three or four miles.
Q. How long have you been waiting on this committee?
A. I came here Wednesday.
Q. You have been here from that day waiting?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you talked with anybody about it since you have been here?
A. I do not recollect of telling them about this.
Q. Have none of these people about town here been to see you about this?
A. Not to examine me.
Q. You say that?
A. I do not remember of their having been to me to examine me.
Q. Have you been down in the yard back here?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Has Rev. Mr. Cummings been to see you?
A. No, sir. I saw Mr. Poinier.
Q. What did he say?
A. He told me to hold on; my time would come to be examined.
Q. Did he go over there to see you in the yard?
A. Yes, sir; and another gentleman; I do not remember his name.
Q. Was it Mr. Fleming:
A. I don’t know Mr. Fleming. I think Mr. Poinier was about all.
Q. Was it Mr. Camp?
A. I believe I know him, too.
Q. Was it Mr. Wallace?
A. I don’t believe I talked with him about it.
Q. What did Mr. Poinier tell you about it?
A. He told me he wanted me to give evidence about being whipped.
Q. Could you not tell that without his telling you?
A. I could not tell it without being cited by somebody.
Q. Did he tell you what your evidence was to be?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did he not tell you you must tell about that radical matter?
A. I don’t recollect about it.
Q. Why can you not recollect? It has only been a day or two ago. Did he not tell you that he wanted you to tell what these men said about radicals?
A. I do not remember of his telling me that.
Q. Do you recollect that he did not?
A. I don’t believe Mr. Poinier told me so.
Q. How long was he with you?
A. He never staid with me any time.
Q. Did he come on purpose to see You?
A. He was just passing through, and I told him I wanted my time to come off; that my wife was with me.
Q. Did he stop the other colored people?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he talk all around among them?
A. No, sir; not particularly; only one or another would go to him for satisfaction.
Q. Nobody paid you anything for coming here?
A. No, sir.
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 8, 1871.
JANE SURRATT (colored) sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Are you the wife of that man, Jackson Surratt, who has just testified?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. We have had from your husband the story of the Ku–Klux coming to your house and taking you out, and of his running away from them; will you begin at the point where he left off, and give us what occurred after that?
A. I will, as well as I can.
Q. Perhaps you had better begin at the house. Be as brief as you can.
A. They came to my house and took me out and whipped me. They asked, did I work; I told them I did; they said I didn’t; I said I did, as far as I was able; I was not able to do hard work; and they just whipped me on.
Q. How many of them came to your house?
A. I was so frightened I don’t know; I don’t recollect how many, but I think there was six or seven, if I am not mistaken; but I was so frightened that I don’t remember.
Q. Did they take out anybody else but you?
A. Yes, sir; my husband and daughter and my son, and whipped them all at the same time. They didn’t whip him then; they had whipped him before; he got away; but they whipped the balance of us.
Q. How much did they whip you?
A. I don’t know, but I think that they gave me near forty lashes, or quite forty.
Q. On what part of your person?
A. They whipped me from my ankles clear up to about here, above my waist. They made us all lay down.
Q. Were you whipped hard?
A. Yes, sir; they whipped us with things bigger than my thumb.
Q. With what?
A. Switches and sticks, I call them.
Q. Did it hurt you?
A. Yes, sir; Sunday and Monday I couldn’t hold my child on my lap to suckle it; I had to lay it on the bed and stand by it. I had no way to rest except on the flat of my belly. I couldn’t rest.
Q. What did they do to your son and daughter?
A. They whipped them. They whipped my son miserably bad; they whipped my daughter very bad; she has not been able to do much since; I don’t believe she will ever get over it.
Q. Did they say why they whipped you, except that you did not work?
A. That was all. They told her she didn’t make a good hand last spring. He was hired out, and they told him he didn’t make a good hand; he was at Judge Edwards’s.
Q. Who was “he?”
A. My son. They said he didn’t make a good hand. They told the man about it. He told the man he was working for about it, and he asked him about it. He had heard that he was whipped for it, and he said, “I never said so.” They said my daughter never made a good hand. You see it was my husband and my daughter put in the crop with the man where we staid.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. You say there were six or seven at the house. Were there more where you were whipped?
A. One held the horses. I saw the crowd that first came, but I didn’t know how many there was, I was so frightened.
Q. Did you know any of the men?
A. To tell the truth, I don’t say that I know any one at all; I was so frightened when they came up. They made such a lamentation coming up that it frightened me so that I cannot say who any one was.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Who made the lamentation?
A. They and their horses. I was asleep, and the first thing I knew they burst the door open and took my husband out, and then came back and took me. I had my baby on my arm, and they like to have pulled it out of the bed.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. You did not know any of these men?
A. No, sir; I don’t know, to say I knew any one.
Q. Have you been sleeping at home since then?
A. Yes, sir; I staid at home. I was afraid about it, but being my little children were there, I couldn’t take them about, and I had to bear it. My husband has not slept at home. I have slept the best that I have rested in two months since I have been here in town.
Q. What effect have these whippings of the colored people had upon the colored people in your part of the country? Do they feel safe at home?
A. I can’t tell you; I don’t know what they mean by it.
Q. Do you know whether the colored people feel safe or not? Have you talked about it with them?
A. No; I don’t know whether they do or not; I know I don’t.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Have there been any white people to your house since then to talk with you about the abuse these men gave you?
A. There has been nobody only the men we work with; I believe he came in the morning. We were to go out to work and didn’t go, and he hallooed to come out there to work, and my husband hallooed, “There is nobody here able to work to-day.” We could hear him talking about it with my husband, but I was so bad off that I didn’t pay much attention.
Q. Has nobody come to you on purpose to talk with you about it?
A. Not that I know of.
Q. Have you been in town two or three days?
A. Yes, sir; since Wednesday.
Q. Have not white persons in town been talking with you about it?
A. No, sir.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. Did the man for whom your husband worked try to find out who did it?
A. Not as I know of; if he did I never knew it.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Do you believe anybody can find out?
A. He said he was not a friend of killing, but he was a friend of Ku-Klucking.
Q. Who was he?
A. Dennis Scruggs. He called that killing, we were whipped so bad.
Q. Is Dennis Scruggs the man on whose farm you lived?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When he came down there did he seem satisfied because you were whipped?
A. He didn’t say much, only he said that—that he wasn’t a friend to killing.
Q. But he was friend to the Ku–Klux?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Why did he say that he was a friend to “Ku–Kluxing?”
A. I don’t know; I supposed it came into his mind then because I was beat so.
Q. Do you know what you are saying now, Jane?
A. Yes, sir; I know.
Q. How far does he live from you?
A. I can’t exactly tell you; we just live in sight.
Q. You live now on his farm?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you had any difficulty with him?
A. They are farming together; that is all.
Q. Is it over?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you had any dispute with him?
A. No, sir.
Q. Has your husband?
A. None; only he has been sort o’ angry about getting out o’ work, but it was little or nothing.
Q. You say Scruggs was angry about getting out of work?
A. No, sir; about getting out to work.
Q. Was he complaining of your husband?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he work for him?
A. They both worked together; him and my daughter has gone in, and he is to find the horse for them, and he is to get such a part when it is made.
Q. You mean that your husband is?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. He does the work and Scruggs finds the horse?
A. Yes sir; and Mr. Scruggs puts himself in too. My husband finds himself and his daughter, and sometimes I work a little.
Q. Does Scruggs live with you?
A. He is a white man that lives on his land.
Q. There is a daughter in your house; that is your husband’s daughter and not yours?
A. No, sir; it is his and mine too; but I say his. I just said his daughter.
Q. Had Scruggs and your husband a dispute?
A. They didn’t have nothing worth attention.
Q. Then is your husband’s time out on the farm?
A. I don’t know. We will not get done now in two weeks, I expect.
Q. Then will the time be out?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then he will have to move away?
A. That’s what the Ku–Klux told him; he must move from there.
Q. What are the relations between you and Scruggs?
A. He never said.
Q. Has he not told you that you would have to leave when your time was out?
A. No, sir.
Q. You say the time will be out in two weeks?
A. Then we will be done work if it is not wet weather.
Q. Does your husband expect to stay another season?
A. He did talk like moving.
Q. Was that because he had some trouble with Scruggs?
A. No, sir; he said he believed that he would go to the mountains, where he believed that he could get good land.
Q. This land of Scruggs’ is not good?
A. A portion of it is tolerable, and some is sorry. He has cleared up his ground this year.
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 8, 1871
BARNET RUSSELL sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Do you live in the county?
A. In this county? yes, sir.
Q. In what part of it?
A. I live on Pacolet, about fourteen miles from here.
Q. How long have you lived there?
A. Well, sir, I have lived there, I have been about there—not at the same place, but about the county—for two or three years. I do not know how long.
Q. What business have you been engaged in?
A. I have been farming, sir; and first one thing and another. I have been working for my brother some in the crop. I was married hardly three months ago, and I have been living at my father–in–law’s ever since I was married.
Q. Have you been distilling any during that time?
A. No, sir; I have not.
Q. Were you engaged at a distillery at any time?
A. No, sir; I have been plowing ever since cropping time just as hard as I could link it, till yesterday, when they came after me.
Q. Have you a brother there that is engaged in distilling?
A. No, sir; not as I know of.
Q. You do not know of any distilling by you or your brother?
A. If he has done any distilling it is more than I know. I do not say that he has not; if he has it is more than I know.
Q. Have you ever been at any place where there was any distilling done that you know your brother had anything to do with?
A. I have not been at any place where there was stilling going on at the time.
Q. Has there been distilling in the neighborhood?
A. If there has been it is more than I know. I have not been about my brother, near his house, but two or three times since I have been married. I have not been about there, but at home at work ever since crop time, making the crop with my father–in–law, Mr. Edmund Cooley.
Q. Do you know anything of the operations of these persons they call Ku–Klux in that country?
A. No, sir; I do not know any more about a Ku–Kluck no more than a man in the moon about a Ku–Kluck.
Q. Do you know anything about a secret society or organization that is called by any other name up there than the Ku–Klux?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you know anything of a society called the White Brotherhood?
A. No, sir.
Q. Or of a society called the Invisible Empire?
A. No, sir.
Q. Or the Invisible Circle?
A. No, sir.
Q. Or the Constitutional Union Guards?
A. No, sir; I don’t know nothing of no such thing at all. I don’t know anything about it.
Q. Have you ever taken an oath of any kind in a secret society or organization of any name?
A. No, sir.
Q. None whatever?
A. No, sir; I have not.
Q. Let me read you an oath, and I will ask you after I have read it what you know about it.
A. Well, sir.
Q. “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Invisible Circle; that I will defend our families, our children, and brethren; that I will assist a brother in distress to the best of my ability; and that I will never reveal the secrets of this order, or anything in regard to it that may come to my knowledge; and if I do, may I meet a traitor’s doom, which is death! death! death! So help me, God, and so punish me, my brethren.”
Have you ever heard an oath of that kind before?
A. I have not, upon my word and honor.
Q. Have you ever taken an oath of that kind?
A. I have not.
Q. Have you ever heard an oath of that kind administered to anybody?
A. I have not. I have not heard no such.
Q. You know nothing about the signs of this order?
A. I know not a thing about it, under the sun; not a thing.
Q. Have there been any persons in that region whipped or taken out by the Ku–Klux?
A. I have heard of it being about the country. I have heard it talked about a good many times, but I never saw a Ku–Klux in my life. I have heard of them whipping about, but never saw them to know anything about them more than you do. If you know anything at all you know more than I do. I know nothing about them. I have heard a great deal of talk about them, but as for knowing anything, I don’t know it.
Q. You never saw a raid of the Ku–Klux?
A. No, sir. I have heard of them raiding around several times, but I don’t know anything about it.
Q. Are you not under arrest at present for being with a party of these Ku–Klux? . . .
Q. Did you use any of Mr. Cooley’s horses that night at all?
A. No, sir.
Q. Were they all in the stable?
A. They were, as far as I know; I never went to the stable to see.
Q. You heard nothing of any disturbance in the neighborhood that night?
A. Not that night.
Q. You heard none going on?
A. No, sir; I didn’t know anything about anything going on.
Q. You heard nothing about Isham being whipped at all until you heard it afterward?
A. No, sir.
Q. Remember we are not prosecuting anybody; what is said is not to be given to a jury, or to arrest anybody; but our purpose is generally to see who is guilty. Can you tell us who was the first man that told you about Isham McCrary being whipped?
A. No, sir; I told you I couldn’t.
Q. You do not remember?
A. No, sir.
Q. You cannot mind whether it was a white man or a black man?
A. I don’t mind whether it was a white man I heard first talk about it, or that it was a black man.
Q. Have you any idea which it was?
A. No, sir; I don’t remember. I never tried to recollect anything about it. If I had tried I might have recollected it.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. Have you a gun?
A. No, sir.
Q. A pistol?
A. No, sir.
Q. Have you any kind of arms?
A. No, sir.
Q. I do not mean now, but at home?
A. No, sir; I do not have any use for arms at all, sir. My business is to work and try to make a living. I am married now, and have not a thing under the sun. I am there at my father–in–law’s, and have nothing. I am at work there and board there. I have never had nothing, even to a horse or a house. I am a poor boy and have always been so. I have had to raise myself. My father and mother are both dead.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Are you not, Russell, a very light boy for your age, slightly made? Stand up and let us see how big you are?
A. I am a very light man, sir; I am a small man.
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 8, 1871
ISHAM MCCRARY (colored) sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Where do you live?
A. Up the other side of Pacolet, not far from McMullen’s mill; about a mile from it.
Q. How long have you lived there?
A. I have lived on the same land I am on now, but not in the same house, for three years.
Q. Were you born in that neighborhood?
A. No, sir; I was born and raised in Greenville.
Q. In this State?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What were you doing?
A. I was living up there—farming.
Q. Have you rented land?
A. Yes, sir; I was on rented land.
Q. Whose land?
A. John McMullen’s land.
Q. Did the Ku–Klux come to visit you at any time?
A. Yes, sir; they came on me in March; but I do not know what day it was. I had been working down on the railroad, and just before I got done I went home, about the 15th of March. Pay–day was the 15th; anyway, I went home a little before I got done here. It was Saturday night. They picked the time for me to come home.
Q. Go on and tell how they whipped you.
A. When they came in they broke down one of the doors, and they broke the hinge off the other one, and four came in the doors at once. It was about 2o’clock at night, as nigh as I can tell you; and then they came in and shot twice over my head, and said they were going to kill me; that that was what they came for; and then they gathered me, and I asked them to let me put on my breeches. I did not have my breeches buttoned up; I was out of bed. After they got hold of me, I told them I wanted to get my hat if they were going to take me off; it was handy, and I reached and got it. Then they asked me out. After they shot over my head twice when they asked me out, they told me now to say my prayers, that they were going to kill me. They asked for my arms too. I told them I had no arms. Then they asked me out of the door. I went out. They told me to get down and say my prayers; that they were going to kill me. My wife came out of the door, hallooing to them, and she slipped and fell, and they sort of hallooed. She was about to take her bed; you understand that. Then they commenced whipping me, calling the names by numbers. There were eight of them, as nigh as I could make out, and eight of them whipped me as they called the names. I got to understand the way they called; they called the number that they gave. They gave me twenty–five lashes apiece; four did, and the first whipped me gave me three lashes after they were done whipping me, to make me take the hickories they had whipped me with down to show them to my friends. All of them whipped me around, and they all done give me the same number. Some give me less; four give me twenty-five apiece, and then the others the way they numbered, as nigh as I could understand it. Two give me the same number, twenty-five apiece; four of them gave me twenty-five apiece, and the first one gave me three licks after he was done whipping me to make me take the stubs that he was whipping me with and show them.
Q. Did they say anything to you?
A. Yes, sir; they asked me who I voted for; and said if I told a lie they would shoot me right off. I told them I would not lie; I voted for Mr. Scott. “What did you vote for Scott for?” said he. I told them I did not know how to turn; and if I should tell them another way they would not know but what I was the other way; they would not know whether I turned or not; that I didn’t know how to turn. They said, “Scott has turned, and what is the reason you cannot turn?” They said, “How do you like that?” I told them I did not like any such way as that; let a man be what he was; I would not know how to turn any other way; that is what I told them. They dragged me out, as I told you before, and whipped me, after they done whipped me they told me to take the stubs.
Q. Was this before or after they whipped you that this conversation took place?
A. It was before they whipped me that they asked me these questions.
Q. Did they say anything more?
A. They just asked to pray; I don’t think there is anything else. I am mighty scattering in telling it.
Q. How many were there of them?
A. There were eight or nine; I cannot say exactly.
Q. How were they dressed?
A. They had just a common—I thought it was cloth, and I reckon it was; anyhow it was white; some white and some black, and bound around with black; and you could see this far around; you could see back of the eyes. The disguise was so that you could see the disguise over the mouth and eyes.
Q. Could you see the face or the eyes?
A. I could see the eyes and part of the face.
Q. How were they dressed below that?
A. Some of them had on—it looked like night-gowns; and this Mr. Russell had his coat turned wrong side out.
Q. What Russell?
A. Barney Russell.
Q. Did you know him?
A. Yes, sir. I knew him by his motion and by his gait, and his beard around here; it just happened so. I was not thinking about anybody; but you see one of my children was made to hold the light and stand right up there, and two or three, I won’t say which, but some of them were at the light.
Q. What effect had that holding of the light?
A. That was how I came to see him and know him.
Q. Did you say here he was one of those men?
A. Yes, sir; he was one of the men. When my wife fell down, the next morning she could not walk, and it was pretty nigh two weeks before she could walk; she could not walk across the house. The reason she come out that night was she was afraid they were going to kill me with whipping, and she would bear part of the whipping of me.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Was your wife sick too?
A. No, sir; not then; she was pretty nigh coming to bed. She just got so she could walk about two weeks after she got down.
Q. How did these men come to your house, on foot or on horseback?
A. They came up to the house on foot; but just a piece over the branch—between there and the river I reckon it was about three hundred yards, and may be five hundred yards—they hitched their horses.
Q. Did you see the horses there?
A. I did not see them. I saw the tracks where they came there.
Q. How far is your house from Mr. Cooley’s there in the neighborhood?
A. I reckon it is about a mile or a little over; I do not reckon it is more than a mile to go the nighest way, but to go around it is a little over.
Q. Had you any quarrel with anybody to account for this visit to you?
A. No, sir; I never had. I did not know that anybody had anything against me in any way, and that is why I was not afraid of them. I had heard they were coming on me for near about two months before that, but I did not know what for.
Q. Had that made you afraid?
A. It never made me so afraid as not to stay; but I came there on the railroad, and as I would go home they would tell me of it; that the citizens told them they were coming there on such a night, and I laid out some two or three nights, I think, when I went back; I laid out so my wife could rest. I hadn’t done nothing, and was not guilty of nothing.
Q. After the whipping did you continue to sleep in your house?
A. Yes, sir; I slept in there until I came off the railroad. I was not quite done at the railroad. I did not have my month out; I was aiming to make a crop anyhow, but they told me when they got done whipping me, that they did not want me to leave that place. I said I did not want to leave neither. I did not expect to leave, because I had done so much work there to get my farm that I hated to leave it. I had about fifteen acres. I have two years on the place; that is the reason I wanted to stay on the place—to get some benefit of it if I could.
Q. Have you told all about this occurrence that you know?
A. No, sir; there is some more men that were there that I knew.
Q. Who were they?
A. Miles Mason; I knew him; I would not have taken notice of him, but when they went to start—I had staid on his land one year, and been working with him backwards and forwards with him, and staid with him off and on—and when he went to start he spoke this word; [whispering] “Tell Isham when he comes to a white man’s house to pull off his hat.” He whispered that—that when I came to a white man’s house for me to always recollect to put it at the door. Then I happened to recollect him, and was surprised at him being there, when him and me always talked so kind; but he was after me several times last summer to plow for him, and I told him I could not do it. That was all I could see that he could have anything against me.
Q. Did you know anybody else?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who?
A. William Bush; they call him Billy Bush, but is the same in a common way. Me and him both lived right together; there was not a mile between us; on the same man’s land. He married old uncle Bob McMullen’s daughter, and we worked the same land together for three years. I knew him, and the way he was fixed, and knew his winter coat that he had over him, and his disguise was not fixed but so I could see his hair right here behind the ears, so that it was kind of turned up; the disguise was turned up behind his ear, so that I could see his hair; and his nose was out—he has got a pretty long nose, for a slim-faced man, but he has a pretty big body; and I knew him well enough by that and by his talk; I knew him by his talk if I had not seen anything.
Q. You have now given Mason, and Russell, and Bush; who else did you know?
A. I knew another.
Q. Give his name.
A. Mr. Gilbert; Berry Gilbert.
Q. Did you make oath against these men here?
A. I made an oath a while ago against these two; I come to the truth, I allowed.
Q. Were you sworn before Mr. Poinier about this business?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How long ago was that?
A. It was Thursday or Wednesday; it was the first day I come; that was Wednesday.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
What day or night in March was this?
A. It was on Saturday night; but to say exactly the night I can’t; I can’t read, and I never paid any attention to what day in the month it was.
Q. Cannot you tell the day of the month without being able to read?
A. Yes, sir, when I take notice of it; but I was in so much trouble I did not know what I could do; it looked like I could not live. I was in a heap more trouble afterwards than before, just studying.
Q. Do not you know what time it was by having your mind under your command before they came there?
A. No, sir; but as nigh as I can tell, it was about the 1st of March.
Q. For what purpose did you use the 15th of March awhile ago?
A. You see, I had to come down back to the railroad and stay until the 15th; I did not have my month out, and I told them I had to go back to the railroad, because I did not have my money for it to begin my crop.
Q. What has that got to do with fixing the time when these men called to see you that night?
A. They asked me if I was going back to the railroad.
Q. Who asked you?
A. These Ku-Klux. I told them yes, I was going back, and I had to work until the 15th of March to get my money.
Q. How came it that you did not tell before that those Ku-Klux asked you whether you were going to work at the railroad again?
A. I did speak about the railroad.
Q. You did not speak about the Ku–Klux asking you about it?
A. They asked me about that.
Q. Why did not you tell that they said that to you awhile ago?
A. It slipped my mind.
Q. When they asked you whether you were going back to the railroad, what did you tell them?
A. I told them I owed Mr. McMullen some; and I wanted to raise the money to pay him.
Q. What has that to do with the 15th of March?
A. I had something like two or three days to stay to get my month out, and then I had to work a little longer to stay until the 15th of March—I think it was only three days.
Q. How many days had you to work, after the Ku–Klux came, before the 15th of March when you got your pay?
A. I think it was four days.
Q. That would make the Ku–Klux visit about the 10th or 11th of March?
A. Yes, sir; I reckon so.
Q. Is that the day instead of the 1st of March?
A. I tell you it was some time in March. Coming to study about it, I reckoned it was about the 1st of March.
Q. I know you stated it was some time in March, and afterwards said it was the 1st of March; are you now satisfied it was at least so far as the 10th or 11th?
A. I think it was about the 1st of March; it was the 1st or 11th of March, as nigh as I can tell.
Q. Do you say you think it was the 1st or 11th of March?
A. It might have been about the 1st of March, but I cannot exactly tell how many days.
Q. You do say you had to work about four days after the Ku-Klux came before the 15th, when you were to have your pay?
A. Yes, sir; I think they came Saturday, and I worked that many days, and three days over, I think.
Q. Did you work until the 18th?
A. No, sir; until the 15th. It was on Saturday, in March.
Q. Did not you say your time expired on the 15th?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Why did you work three days over?
A. I did not get the money, because the money had not come, and I worked three days and then I went home.
Q. Is not your mind so much confused about the expiration of the time on the railroad that you cannot fix the time by that at all? How can you fix it by that fact?
A. By its being so many days between that time and the 15th. I think it was about the 1st of March. That is the way I think it.
Q. Why do you think it was the 1st of March?
A. The way I went and came. I think it must have been the 1st of March, because I worked down here on the railroad so many days, and it was wet weather all the time, and I might have missed some days, and it was Saturday night in March. I know it was no piece in March, for March had not begun hardly.
Q. You say your time was up in March, on the 15th?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You say you worked four days after they visited you?
A. Yes, sir. I worked my time out, and some days I did not work on account of the rain.
Q. What effect does that have?
A. I am telling how many days I worked before I went home.
Q. How does that explain the time the Ku-Klux came?
A. That is the way I tried to get the exact time. It was about the 1st of March. I said on the 1st of March, because I knew it was not long in March.
Q. You know it was on a Saturday night?
A. Yes, sir; I know that.
Q. And you know it was the 1st of March?
A. I believe it was the 1st of March.
Q. How many men came to your house?
A. Eight or nine. I said there was eight men, but I never counted them.
Q. Had you heard they were going to visit you before that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How did you hear that?
A. From this Free Tobe McMullen; he is called Free Tobe; he had been free all his life–time. Every time he would meet me when I came up he would tell me what the Ku–Klux said they were going to do to me.
Q. What did he tell you that they were going to do?
A. He said they were going to raise me before many days.
Q. Was he a black man?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he say he belonged to them?
A. No, sir; he did not say he belonged to them, but he said what night they were coming.
Q. Coming to you?
A. No, sir; he didn’t say; he said they were going out such a night.
Q. How did he know?
A. I do not know.
Q. Did you ask him?
A. I asked him who said so; he said a man told him, but it won’t do to talk.
Q. How often did he warn you that the Ku–Klux were going to be after you?
Q. Did he seem to be in earnest about it?
A. Yes, sir; he said that they said they were coming to raise me. I asked him what they were going to raise me for. He said he did not know; he said he could not tell what it was, but they were going to do it, so they said. I asked him who said so. He did not say he heard them talking about it, but he said “some men that live not far from you is going to do it.”
Q. But he said it would not do to talk about it?
A. He said it is close times now, and it will not do to talk about it.
Q. He said he knew they were going to call on you?
A. Yes, sir; he said he heard they were coming, but he did not say he knew it.
Q. He did not tell you who told him?
A. No, sir; he said that it would not do to talk.
Q. Are there other colored men in the neighborhood?
A. Yes, sir; there is another one.
Q. More than one?
A. There is one right close to the cabin.
Q. Are they within a mile or two of where you live?
A. Not on that side of the river.
Q. On any side of the river?
A. Yes, sir; there are several.
Q. You say four of these men gave you twenty–five lashes apiece?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you count them?
A. You see the first man whipped me, and called the numbers, and then I counted; one counted them, and then another counted them.
Q. Do you mean that one of the Ku–Klux counted them?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did he count them out loud?
A. Yes, sir; he said, “That is twenty–five, stop.”
Q. And then he called another?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And so four gave you twenty-five apiece?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Making how many altogether? That made one hundred lashes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did two others give you twenty-five cuts apiece?
A. No, sir, just four; and then the others they gave me—they whipped me so that, with the others, it made a hundred and fifty.
Q. Right there, after describing their whipping you, you started off without a question being asked after you had replied that there were eight or nine of them, which was the last question asked, and you said this man Russell had his coat turned wrong-side out. Nobody asked you about Mr. Russell?
A. No, sir.
Q. But you stated right out that Russell had his coat wrong–side out, and you said you knew him by his coat and his beard?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Had he a black beard?
A. No, sir; a dark beard.
Q. A long beard?
A. No, sir.
Q. A heavy beard?
A. No, sir.
Q. A dark beard?
A. Sort of dark and fine, as if he never had shaved hardly; he is just like one that has never been shaved hardly. I could see his beard was almost, you might say—well, it was his beard, as nigh as I could see.
Q. What was there in the coat being turned wrong–side out, that you could tell it?
A. The lining of his coat, and the make of his coat, and his size.
Q. Had you ever seen that coat wrong–side out before?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Where?
A. I did not see it all turned wrong–side out, but I have seen the lining along here; because I was about him so often.
Q. What kind of lining was it?
A. It was store–cloth; black and white. I cannot tell exactly the stripe.
Q. You do not remember the stripe?
A. Yes, sir, I recollect it, but I cannot explain it.
Q. What color was it?
A. It was a black stripe and then red.
Q. You have seen a good many coats like that, have you not?
A. Yes, sir; but nobody right close around here had any just like it. I knew him by his features.
Q. What was peculiar about this coat?
A. Nothing more than the lining.
Q. You have seen many other coats lined that way?
A. I have seen lots of coats lined that way since.
Q. You never saw one before like his?
A. I never noticed it before.
Q. You never noticed a coat just like that before that night?
A. Not with that lining. You see, I had seen that lining before, and that made me think of it.
Q. Where had you seen it? On him?
A. I had seen it on him.
Q. Was that the first coat with that kind of lining you had ever seen?
A. I reckon I had seen others like it.
Q. But you say all you have seen like it were since you saw that coat?
A. He got it out of the store, and I have not seen many like it, because I had not been out much, and had not seen anything like it there.
Q. Do you say it is remarkable that a white young man, twenty-one years of age, should get a coat out of a store?
A. It was not got out of a store, it was a store lining. It was homemade jeans.
Q. Is it anything remarkable that a young fellow should buy a piece of goods like that out of a store?
A. No, sir; I do not suppose so.
Q. You say it was a jeans coat?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Are you sure of that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What color?
A. Dark; not black, not right black.
Q. Is that the only jeans coat in this country?
A. O, no, sir.
Q. It was not because it was jeans coat that you thought it was Russell?
A. No, sir. It was because I saw enough of his face.
Q. How much of his face?
A. I could see some around here and here, [the eyes,] and his beard.
Q. Was the top of his head covered?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was the mask over his eyes and mouth?
A. I could see a little under the back part of the jaw.
Q. Did not you in describing his hair a while ago say his hair was turned up behind?
A. That was another gentleman.
Q. How were the masks fastened on?
A. It looked like it was tied on.
Q. Was it tied under the chin?
A. It was tied some way or another under the chin, and there were holes for his nose and everything.
Q. Did his nose come outside of the mask?
A. It was so everybody could see it.
Q. You saw there was a hole for his eyes and another for his nose?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How was that?
A. It was cut to come across in this way.
Q. Was there a slit for his nose to come out?
A. It was cut so that he could have air through it. It was not tied. It came out over his mouth, and by his holding the light I came to notice.
Q. At what particular time was it that you noticed this particular head so as to know it was Russell’s head and face?
A. I was not thinking about it then to know who it was, but I just happened to know it right then, and I says that’s Russell.
Q. You said so?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who to?
A. Just as soon as they quit whipping me I said that was Russell.
Q. Who did you say so to?
A. To my wife and children.
Q. You did not say anything to the Ku–Klux about it?
A. No, sir; it was after they left.
Q. At what point in the proceedings did you discover that this man was Russell?
A. It was when they were talking to me; asking me questions.
Q. Russell did not ask you any questions?
A. No, sir; Russell did not talk to me.
Q. How far from you was Russell standing?
A. He came out when they called the number.
Q. Was Russell one of the four that whipped you?
A. There was more than four that whipped me.
Q. How many more?
A. As near as I can tell it was eight, and there was one that never came up. That is, I do not think so. I think there was nine of them. I know eight whipped me.
Q. Did you keep the count so accurately as to know that eight men whipped you?
A. You see when they gave me this hundred lashes—
Q. This, then, made four?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How many did the other four give you?
A. They whipped me in a manner that caused me to take notice of their counting.
Q. They were counting the number of licks, were they not?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. They were not counting the number of men?
A. No, sir.
Q. How came you to notice that eight out of the nine whipped you?
A. Because it was just one hundred and fifty; the way I counted it.
Q. How many did the other four give you apiece?
A. I cannot say exactly; but two of them whipped me to make twenty-five.
Q. How did you ascertain that?
A. By the way they counted. You see one whipped me on until it got about half. You see there is a difference in the two whippings; one gave me a little more than the others, a lick more anyhow, it made twenty-five for the two. Then the other two gave me about the same. The way they called it over, I just averaged it myself. I said that is about fifty for the whole four.
Q. To which of the two divisions of four men each did Russell belong?
A. The last one.
Q. He gave you twelve or thirteen strokes?
A. Yes, sir; somewhere there.
Q. He was not among those who gave you twenty-five apiece?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you look up to see him; how did you know him; in what position were you?
A. I was just standing up, and they were facing me; and they would just go behind me; and every time they called the number they would go around.
Q. Were you blindfolded?
A. No, sir; I was not blindfolded.
Q. They all stood right before you, and as some man called out the particular man to whip you he stepped behind?
A. Yes, sir; the one that was whipping. They stood far enough so that I could see all around both sides, and there was a narrow place in my yard, and some of them held their guns pointed towards me if I would run.
Q. How long after they commenced did they bring the light?
A. They brought the light before they whipped me.
Q. Do you say the light was brought before the whipping began?
A. Yes, sir, that was fetched up just as soon as they got in the house.
Q. How long before the whipping commenced was the light brought?
A. There were one or two got the light from one of my children.
Q. They had the light in the house, had they not?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did they take the light when they led you off?
A. Yes, sir; they made one of my children stand and hold the light. It was not further from the door than that door is from me, [three or four yards.]
Q. Was it a dark night?
A. Yes, sir, not very. It was dark, for they had a light. I am sort of bothered in talking, but I want to be straight, if I can.
Q. Do you know that you are swearing here positively that one of those men that night was Barnet Russell?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You swear to that positively?
A. Yes, sir, positively; he was one of them.
Q. Are you just as positive in regard to Mason?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Are you just as sure in regard to Billy Bush?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. No mistake about it.
A. No, sir, no mistake about it. I do not feel it betwixt me and my heart. I know if I swear a wrong thing it will be against me in the coming day. What I swear here I want to swear right.
Q. Then it is between you and your soul, rather than your heart.
A. It is between me and God. God is the manager of it.
Q. You have no hesitation in saying that three of these men were Russell Mason, and Billy Bush.
A. There were four of them I knew.
Q. And Berry Gilbert; are you positive in regard to him also?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were you sure of it that night?
A. Yes, sir. I was sure of it that night.
Q. Particularly sure of this young man Russell?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you wake up in your senses next morning?
A. I never went to sleep. I could not sleep for the whipping.
Q. Where did you go the next day?
A. I went over to the mill.
Q. Champion’s mill?
A. No, sir. Bob McMullen’s mill.
Q. Is he a white man?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you tell him about this transaction?
A. No, sir; I never told him, but I told a black man that was there; I never saw him.
Q. When did you tell a white man about it?
A. I never told a white man about it at all; that is about knowing these men.
Q. But about the whipping?
A. I told any white man that asked me.
Q. Did a good many ask you?
A. They did not ask me that day, but in days or weeks afterward.
Q. Was there not more than one white man in this county who knew it a few days afterward?
A. On Monday I came down to the railroad, and no white men had asked me.
Q. When did it become known through the country that you had been whipped by the Ku–Klux?
A. I do not know how soon it was known, but I never told nobody; no white man, that I recollect; not before Monday.
Q. But when was it known by white men and black men that you had been whipped by these marauders; was it not within a few days afterward?
A. O, yes, sir.
Q. Everybody knew it?
A. I do not know whether everybody knew it, but I did not keep it a secret at all; if anybody asked me I told it, but I did not tell anybody that did not ask me.
Q. When did you tell anybody that you knew Russell that night?
A. I told my wife so the next morning.
Q. Who else?
A. That is all I did tell.
Q. Why did you not tell others?
A. Because I heard that if any one told anybody on the Ku-Klux, that they knew any of them, they would kill them right off; and I would not tell anybody.
Q. When did you tell anybody?
A. I never told anybody in that settlement.
Q. What other settlement?
A. I did not tell it anywhere then that I knew them; hardly anybody knew it; I do not know as anybody knew it, until I explained here the other day.
Q. When?
A. Wednesday.
Q. How came you to tell it then, if you were afraid to tell it before that?
A. Because I was afraid of its getting out; if I said it was such men I would be killed.
Q. Were you brought up a few days ago; you say you told somebody a few days ago?
A. I told that I was whipped.
Q. You said you told the next Monday that you were whipped.
A. Yes, sir; I told anybody that asked me, that I was whipped.
Q. But I am asking about your telling as to your knowing any of these particular men; you say you were afraid to tell that you knew any one, fearing that they would kill you.
A. I say I would not tell anybody that I knew them, for fear they would betray me.
Q. Did I understand you correctly as saying that you told somebody a few days ago?
A. I said, “until a few days;” not who it was. I did not tell that.
Q. Who did you tell?
A. Mr. Poinier.
Q. How did you happen to meet him?
A. He called me up to give it in.
Q. In where?
A. To give in what was done to me.
Q. To give it in where?
A. Down here. Down in the room.
Q. Whose room?
A. In the post office.
Q. How did he know anything about it?
A. Somebody put it in here.
Q. Put what in?
A. Put my name there, that I had been whipped.
Q. You know that everybody knew you had been whipped about the 1st of March.
A. Yes, sir; but I did not report it to any body about my being whipped.
Q. You did the next Monday morning; and everybody knew you had been whipped.
A. I never reported anybody to put it down for me but Ben Jackson. He is the one that put it down. He got here before I did, and did it.
Q. Did what?
A. Told men here that I was whipped.
Q. That was nothing new; did he tell who whipped you?
A. No, sir.
Q. How do you know?
A. Because he did not know, I reckon.
Q. Up to that time nobody except your wife knew who had whipped you?
A. I never told anybody I knew who did it except my wife.
Q. How did Jackson know?
A. He only knew to say I was whipped.
Q. When did you tell anybody who whipped you?
A. I never told it until here, beside my family.
Q. You say a few days ago you told somebody who had whipped you?
A. But not before.
Q. But then you did. Whom did you tell a few days ago the names of these four or five men that you recognized?
A. I did not tell anybody.
Q. Is this the first time you have told anybody in the world, except your wife, the names of these four or five men?
A. I never told no white folks, so that they would get them. I have told some that I thought were my friends about it; but they will keep it.
Q. Told them what?
A. Told them I knew who whipped me.
Q. I thought you said a while ago that you never had told a human being except your wife who these men were?
A. I was speaking about white men; I wanted to keep it secret from white men.
Q. I was speaking about white men and black men. You have said repeatedly that you never told it to any man until within a few days.
A. It has not been long since I did tell them.
Q. Who were these friends that you told that you thought would keep it?
A. Uncle Harry Lipscomb. I told him about it.
Q. When did you tell him; directly after it occurred?
A. No, sir.
Q. How long afterward?
A. It was two months, or a month, or more—over a month.
Q. You think it was about a month after it occurred before you told Lipscomb? Was that the first time that you saw Lipscomb after the Ku-Klux had visited you?
A. Yes, sir; the first time I ever got acquainted with him.
Q. How did you know he was such a good friend?
A. He said he had been whipped, too.
Q. You then told him about a month after you were whipped who four or five of the men were who whipped you?
A. He told me he was whipped; but I never would tell until I told him.
Q. Who else did you tell beside Lipscomb?
A. There is nobody I know of I told. To tell the truth, I told him, finally, who whipped me. I think he was all the man I told.
Q. When did you first get the thought in your head that you would prosecute those men for being here that night?
A. I was not thinking about prosecuting them.
Q. When did it first enter your mind to prosecute these four or five men for being in that band of Ku-Klux that night who whipped you?
A. I did not think about prosecuting them at all.
Q. Who did?
A. I did not think it was right.
Q. It would have been very right for you to have prosecuted them the first moment you had the chance.
A. This here was the only chance I got here.
Q. That never entered your mind; whose mind did it first enter into?
A. I have thought it was right that they should be, but I did not see any ground that it could be done, and I thought it would go away like a heap of other things have gone, and nothing would be said about it.
Q. When did you first hear that they would be prosecuted?
A. I heard it talked about a little, but I can’t say exactly when.
Q. How long ago?
A. I cannot tell exactly how long since I heard it.
Q. When were you first sent for to come to town to swear to it?
A. Tuesday.
Q. Who came for you?
A. The Yankees came. The Yankees came to our house.
Q. Who are the Yankees?
A. We call them Yankees.
Q. Who are they?
A. These men out here. They came up to the still–house there, and sent Uncle Harry Lipscomb to tell me to come to Spartanburgh.
Q. Who are the Yankees?
A. I mean them men out here in camp.
Q. Do you mean the soldiers?
A. Yes, sir; we always call them that way.
Q. Do you know who sent the soldiers?
A. No, sir; I thought some men had sent them.
Q. Tell me why it was, that although this outrage was committed upon you about the 1st of March, and you knew the names of four or five of those who did it, and had told several persons, still the prosecution has been postponed until this particular time, when this congressional committee is to visit Spartanburgh; can you explain why this thing has been allowed to lie since the 1st of March?
A. I thought it had to lie, because my life would be taken if I had told.
Q. I am not asking why you did nothing; but do you know why this thing was postponed until now?
A. No, sir, I don’t know; unless it was because the men that are doing the business now did not get into the light of it until this time.
Q. Whom did you go to see when you came to town—when these Yankees left word that you must come to town?
A. I came to see whoever was holding the committee.
Q. What committee?
A. This here.
Q. The committee at this table?
A. I thought it would be likely a court.
Q. Then you seem to have understood that the word the Yankees left with Lipscomb was for you to come before this committee and swear here?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. But you have not sworn somewhere else, before you came here?
A. They called me in there; but I didn’t know but what that was the place.
Q. You say “there.” [Pointing out of the window.] Where do you mean?
A. I mean the post office down there.
Q. Where is Mr. Poinier’s office?
A. I don’t know where it is.
Q. I want to distinguish between the time when you came here to swear against these young men, and the time you came here to swear before us as a committee. When did you come to make oath in order to have these young men arrested?
A. It was Wednesday.
Q. Are you sure it was Wednesday?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who told you to come then for that purpose?
A. Uncle Harry Lipscomb told me it was necessary to come. They had sent him; and they said they were going to take me right on then.
Q. Did you understand that Lipscomb, having received word from the Yankees, left word for you to come to swear before Mr. Poinier, and before us also?
A. I do not know who it was. Tuesday they came.
Q. You have been here since?
A. Yes, sir.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. What did Uncle Harry Lipbscomb tell you?
A. He just told me we all had got to come down to town that had been abused by the Ku–Klux, to explain ourselves.
Q. Was anything said about how much money you would get for it?
A. No, sir; I never heard about that.
Q. Was there something said to you about two dollars a day and mileage?
A. I do not know as Uncle Harry said a word about it to me. Before we got down here I heard that they got two dollars a day here; and I heard a dollar and a half; and I heard two dollars and a half.
Q. Was it talked pretty generally among the colored people out there that all colored people who came here and swore would get two dollars a day and mileage?
A. No, sir.
Q. You have come here and have not been back since; did you swear before anybody else before you swore here, since you have been here?
A. I did not hold up my hand to swear; he wanted to know who I knew, and asked could I swear; I told him this, I could swear.
Q. What was done then?
A. I said that these were the men.
Q. Who asked you that question?
A. Mr. Poinier.
Q. He asked you whether you could come before us and swear that those were the men?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you said “yes?”
A. I told him I could.
Q. How many men did he name that you could swear to?
A. Four.
Q. I still cannot get at what I want, which, I suppose, is a fact. How often have you sworn in town here? Were you not sworn before somebody else before you were sworn here to–day?
A. On this here?
Q. Yes; about this Ku–Klux visit to you; have you not sworn that these four or five persons were among the men that abused you on that night?
A. No, sir; not as I can recollect.
Q. Then how were these men arrested?
A. I just said what I told you. I did not have the Bible, but I told them I could swear to them.
Q. Did they write down anything you said?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you sign it?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you make a mark to it?
A. No, sir.
Q. But they had paper and were writing?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And wrote it down?
A. I think Mr. Poinier wrote it down.
Q. Was he writing on paper partly printed and partly white?
A. I do not know whether he was or not, exactly. I never noticed.
Q. Did he read to you what he wrote?
A. No, sir; he never read it out after I stated it.
Q. Did he ask you whether you were willing to swear to what was written down, and what you were telling him?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you told him you could?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. But you did not swear?
A. That is all I did, to say swear; I said I could do it.
Q. Did they make you hold up your hand and swear?
A. I do not remember now of holding up my hand.
Q. Did not they make you hold up your hand and put the question, “whether you would swear by Almighty God that what you were saying was true?
A. I do not think they did.
Q. You did not kiss the book?
A. No, sir.
Q. You did make a statement which Mr. Poinier set down in writing?
Q. What did he say he was going to do with it?
A. He did not say what.
Q. Did not they talk to you about sending for these young men?
A. He did not say when he was going to send.
Q. Did he say he was going to send?
A. He said they were going to have them taken up. He did not say when he was going to send.
Q. How came you to know Miles Mason?
A. I knew him right well.
Q. How?
A. I knew him; you see I catched his voice so good; and I looked at him when he started off.
Q. Had he a strange voice that you could tell it?
A. It is not so strange but I have heard him talk so much that I caught it when he said, “tell him to pull off his hat.”
Q. Then he was just whispering to you?
A. He was right close to me.
Q. The way in which you tried to represent it to Senator Scott a while ago, was that he whispered, “If you come to a white man’s house to take off your hat.” You repeated it, whispering the words yourself. Was that the way?
A. No, sir.
Q. What did you whisper it for?
A. I couldn’t think. He just told me to come to a white man’s house; or told him, “Tell him, when he comes to a white man’s house, to take off his hat.”
Q. Did you not make a motion to show how Mason told you these words; put your head up as if to another, and whisper?
A. No, sir. It was to the other man, that did the talking, that he did that.
Q. To what other man?
A. That one who was talking. That was the one Mason talked to.
Q. Who said to you, “Take off your hat when you come into a white man’s house?”
A. No, sir; he did not say it to me; he said it to a man; I didn’t know that man.
Q. He whispered to him?
A. Yes, sir; I just catched his voice.
Q. How could you tell his voice in a whisper?
A. I was so I could hear it to catch it.
Q. Did he do it in about the way in which you did when you were answering Senator Scott?
A. He did to the white man.
Q. Did he do it as you did it a while ago?
A. That is the way; he motioned to the other man.
Q. You say you knew his voice when he spoke the words?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, the way in which he said these words was in a whisper, was it not?
A. He talked low; I called whispering—that is, talking low.
Q. Did he do it just as you attempted to do it a while ago in describing it?
A. He just turned his head close to him.
Q. Did he do it in the way in which you attempted to show it a while ago?
A. The way I was trying to do; just talking low.
Q. Was that the way he did?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. In that kind of a whisper you recognized the voice of Miles Mason?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How did you know Billy Bush?
A. I knew him by the way I saw part of his hair and his face, and I knew his talk and his movement—that is, in his motions.
Q. You are satisfied you knew him?
A. I knew him just the same as my brother.
Q. You saw his hair behind his ears where his disguise was turned up?
A. It was at the side his hair was out.
A. Pretty nigh black hair.
Q. You think it was Billy Bush because it was black hair?
A. It was by the shape of his face.
Q. Had not he a mask and disguise on?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What sort of one?
A. A white one.
Q. All over his face?
A. No, sir.
Q. How much of his face?
A. Part of it showed along his eyes and all the holes.
Q. Was it tied under his chin?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And over his forehead?
A. I don’t remember of its being tied.
Q. Did you see any part of his face except through the holes for the eyes and mouth?
A. No, sir; only back here I saw his hair.
Q. Is that all of his face that you saw?
A. I saw his face betwixt the holes and his mouth.
Q. What particular expression was on the face where the holes were that you could tell him? Had he a wart just at that hole?
A. No, sir; he hadn’t a wart.
Q. What made you think it was Billy Bush?
A. I could see enough by the light to satisfy me it was him. I was satisfied it was Billy Bush.
Q. How did you know Berry Gilbert?
A. He sort of grinned, and let his mouth open pretty nigh across him. He is a tall slim fellow. He tried to alter his voice, but he could not do it enough but what anybody could tell it, and by that I knew him; but I was not thinking about noticing to know these men.
Q. You have no doubt that these five men were there.
A. Yes, sir; I have no doubt about it. I would be willing to be put to death on it, knowing it was them men.
Q. Why did not you complain against them directly after the 1st of March?
A. I was afraid to do it.
Q. Why are you not afraid now? Do you think these men have got any better? Are they not as much ruffians as then?
A. I knew I couldn’t get any protection then.
Q. Who will protect you now?
A. It looks like here was the place; they told me to come here.
Q. Who promised to protect you if you would swear to this?
A. I allowed that these men would protect me.
Q. Who promised to protect you?
A. The Government.
Q. The Government cannot promise; some person may promise for it. Who did it? Who made the promise that if you would come and swear—
A. I took my oath to hold by the United States.
Q. When did you take an oath to support the United States?
A. To support it and the radical principles in any difficulty or anything; to be just and true to it; and this is what I was trying to do; and I thought that there was a chance for it now, for me to explain myself with these gentlemen.
Q. You have come here to–day to swear, and charge these men with this crime, because you had sworn, some long time ago, that you would support the radical cause. Is that it?
A. Yes, sir. I was aiming to stand up to them, and I thought if the other radical men could not stand up to me I could not stand myself. If I did not come to them that they would not protect me.
Q. Is it because you took this oath to protect radical men and measures that you come here to–day to swear that these are the men?
A. No, sir; it was because I thought may be there was a chance for me to get what was justice, what was right.
Q. You did not think of that before?
A. Yes, sir; but I did not know of any way to get into it or have anything done.
Q. Did not you know you could have these men arrested on the 1st of March if you came in and swore to it?
A. No, sir.
Q. Why not?
A. I did not know it.
Q. How do you know it now?
A. I thought it was better now because they had their backers, and there was such confusion in the country that I thought I had better keep still.
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 10, 1871
TENCH BLACKWELL sworn and examined.
By the Chairman:
Q. Where do you live?
A. I live near Cowpens’ battle ground, in this county.
Q. What is your business?
A. My occupation is farming.
Q. How long have you lived there?
A. I have lived there or near there for fifteen or sixteen years.
Q. Are you a native of this State?
A. I am a native of North Carolina. I was born right on the line.
Q. Were you a manager of elections at the last general election?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Go on and state if there were armed men appeared at the time of your holding that election; and if so, what they said?
A. There was an armed party appeared there. I was very busy. There were two or three election–boxes thrown together—at least there were one or two others where they did not hold the election. I was very busy, and there are some things that I don’t recollect. There was an armed party came up to the box. . . .
A. No, sir; they said that they wanted to whip me because I voted the radical ticket.
Q. What did they whip your wife and children for?
A. Just because they could, I reckon.
Q. Did they whip your child because you voted the radical ticket?
A. Yes, sir; my little girl, nine years old. They told me that after I got back.
Q. Did they whip her much?
A. Three lashes. They give my son four, and my wife a few licks.
Q. Your wife told you that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did she say it was for?
A. They said, “Get up and let us whip you.” They whipped them in the yard. One came into the yard after they were through and said, “I didn’t whip none yet;” and he hit them all a lick apiece again.
Q. How many were there with you?
A. Three.
Q. How many were at the house?
A. Six. There were three carried me off.
Q. Did they say why it required six to stay at the house to whip the children, and only three for you?
A. No, sir; I don’t know what they said. Three run me off, and six staid behind.
Q. You say there were nine, and they gave you twelve licks apiece?
A. That was their law.
Q. Why do you say it was their law?
A. They said it was their law.
Q. Did they threaten you afterward?
A. They told me if I did not leave in ten days they would come back and kill me.
Q. You did not leave?
Q. Where?
A. Two miles and a half.
Q. They could still reach you quite as easily, could they not?
A. It looks like they could; but they told me to leave that place, and I did.
Q. Did you know any of these men?
A. No, sir; none of them.
Q. Were they completely disguised?
A. I did not know them no more than I do you or your name.
Q. Do you know whether they were white or black?
A. No, sir; because they run me in an old field. After they did what they wanted to at the house, then they all came out and whipped me.
Q. Who did you tell about this?
A. When, before now?
Q. Yes.
A. I never told any one, only that the Ku–Klux came.
Q. You have told people, then, before this time that the Ku–Klux had visited you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How soon did you do that?
A. I told that next morning.
Q. To whom?
A. I forget who, but I told them the Ku–Klux had been on me. I had been laying out for about three months, and it looked like it was no use to lay out; they caught me anyhow.
Q. How laying out?
A. To keep them from whipping me.
Q. Sleeping out of your house?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What made you do that?
A. They were so strong in there that I was afraid of them. They whipped all around there.
Q. Have you slept out of your house since?
A. No, sir.
Q. You are not so afraid of them now as before?
A. I am afraid of them yet; but they never pestered me since.
Q. Did you tell anybody that they whipped you and your wife and children; you say you told that the Ku–Klux had visited you?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you tell them that they had whipped you?
A. Yes, sir; that they had whipped us all. Some asked how many; I told how many there was in the family.
Q. And you did not know any of them?
A. Not one of them.
Spartanburgh, South Carolina, July 10, 1871
HARRIET HERNANDES (colored) sworn and examined.
By the Chairman:
Q. How old are you?
A. Going on thirty–four years.
Q. Where do you live?
A. Down toward Cowpens’ Furnace, about nineteen miles from here.
Q. Are you married or single?
A. Married.
Q. Did the Ku–Klux come to your house at any time?
A. Yes, sir; twice.
Q. Go on and tell us about the first time; when was it?
A. The first time was after last Christmas. When they came I was in bed. They hallooed, “Hallo!” I got up and opened the door; they came in; they asked who lived there; I told them Charley Hernandes. “Where is he” they said. Says I, “I don’t know, without he is at the Cowpens; he was beating ore there.” Says he, “Have you any pistol here?” Says I, “No, sir.” Says he, “Have you any gun?” Says I, “No, sir.” He took on, and, says he, “Your husband is in here somewhere, and damn him, if I see him I will kill him.” I says, “Lord o’ mercy, don’t shoot in there; I will hold a light under there, and you can look.” I held a light, and they looked. They told me to go to bed; I went to bed. Two months after that they came again.
Q. How many men were there at that first visit?
A. Eight.
Q. How were they dressed?
A. All kinds of form; but the first ones that came would not look me in the face, but just turned their backs to me, for they knew I would know them.
Q. Had they disguises?
A. Yes; horns and things over their faces; but still, that did not hinder me from knowing them if these things were off.
Q. Did you know any of them?
A. I did not know any of the first ones, to say truthful, but the last ones I did know.
Q. Had the first ones arms—guns or pistols?
A. Yes, sir; they had their guns and pistols. They came with a long gun, and told me they were going to shoot my damned brains out if I did not tell where my husband was.
Q. What time of night was it?
A. Away between midnight and day.
Q. How long had your husband lived there?
A. We have been living there three years now.
Q. Is he a mechanic or laboring man?
A. He is a laboring man.
Q. He was working at the furnace?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Go on to the second time; you say it was two months afterward?
A. Yes; just exactly two months; two months last Saturday night when they were at our house.
By Mr. Van Trump:
Q. Two months from now?
A. Two months from Saturday night last. They came in; I was lying in bed. Says he, “Come out here, sir; come out here, sir!” They took me out of bed; they would not let me get out, but they took me up in their arms and toted me out—me and my daughter Lucy. He struck me on the forehead with a pistol, and here is the scar above my eye now. Says he, “Damn you, fall!” I fell. Says he, “Damn you, get up!” I got up. Says he, “Damn you, get over this fence!” and he kicked me over when I went to get over; and then he went on to a brush pile, and they laid us right down there, both together. They laid us down twenty yards apart, I reckon. They had dragged and beat us along. They struck me right on the top of my head, and I thought they had killed me; and I said, “Lord o’ mercy, don’t, don’t kill my child!” He gave me a lick on the head, and it liked to have killed me; I saw stars. He threw my arm over my head so I could not do anything with it for three weeks, and there are great knots on my wrist now.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. What did they say this was for?
A. They said, “You can tell your husband that when we see him we are going to kill him.” They tried to talk outlandish.
Q. Did they say why they wanted to kill him?
A. They said, “He voted the radical ticket, didn’t he?” I said “Yes,” that very way.
Q. At what time did they say that to you?
A. That was this last time.
Q. Had your husband any guns or pistols about his house?
A. He did not have any there at all. If he had, I reckon they would have got them.
Q. How old is your daughter?
A. She is fifteen.
Q. Is that the one they whipped?
Q. Is this all you know about it?
A. I know the people that came.
Q. Who are they?
A. One was Tom Davis, and there was Bruce Martin and his two sons. There are only four I knew. There were only six that came that last night.
Q. When did your husband get back home?
A. He went back yesterday.
Q. When did he get back home after this whipping? He was not at home, was he?
A. He was lying out; he couldn’t stay at home, bless your soul!
Q. Did you tell him about this?
A. O, yes.
Q. What caused him to lie out?
A. They kept threatening him. They said if they saw him anywhere about they would shoot him down at first sight.
Q. Had he been here as a witness?
A. No, sir. They never saw him, but they told us what to tell him.
Q. When you said, in reply to my question, that he went home yesterday; had he come up here as a witness?
A. No, sir; he came here with me.
Q. Had he been afraid for any length of time?
A. He has been afraid ever since last October. He has been lying out. He has not laid in the house ten nights since October.
Q. Is that the situation of the colored people down there to any extent?
A. That is the way they all have to do—men and women both.
Q. What are they afraid of?
A. Of being killed or whipped to death.
Q. What has made them afraid?
A. Because men that voted radical tickets they took the spite out on the women when they could get at them.
Q. How many colored people have been whipped in that neighborhood?
A. It is all of them, mighty near. I could not name them all.
Q. Name those you remember.
A. Ben Phillips and his wife and daughter; Sam Foster; and Moses Eaves, they killed him—I could not begin to tell—Ann Bonner and her daughter, Manza Surratt and his wife and whole family, even the least child in the family they took it out of bed and whipped it. They told them if they did that they would remember it.
By Mr. Van Trump:
Q. How do you know that?
A. They told the black people that was whipped.
Q. You know it by the people who were whipped telling you of it?
A. Yes, sir.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. You have seen those people that were whipped?
A. Yes, sir; and I have seen the marks on them, too.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. How do colored people feel in your neighbothood?
A. They have no satisfaction to live like humans, no how. It appears to me like all summer I have been working and it is impossible for to enjoy it.
Q. What do they do?
A. They just shoot down as they come to them, or knock them down.
Q. What do the colored people do for their safety?
A. They lie out all night.
Q. Is that generally the case?
A. Yes, sir; some families down there say they don’t think they can get tamed to the house in five years.
Q. Does this fear extend to women and children and whole families?
A. Yes, sir; they just whipped all. I do not know how bad they did serve some of them. They did them scandalous; that is the truth—they did then scandalous.
Q. You may say they just shoot down and whip all through there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Tell us how many they have shot down in your neighborhood.
A. I cannot exactly tell you; I have heard so much.
Q. Heard of so many being killed?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How many?
A. Some five or six, that I know of.
Q. Up there around Cowpens?
A. Yes, sir; and the other side of that, down the river.
Q. How far off?
A. Not more than ten miles down.
Q. Can you name any one that was shot down?
A. Charity Phillips was shot down and whipped bad. As for any more I cannot tell to be certain; it was done only as I heard it. I will not tell no lie about it.
Q. You say all the colored people up there are sleeping out?
A. In general. They are mighty near the last family sleeps out.
Q. That is the case with almost all of them?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What do you mean by the last of the families?
A. All.
Q. All in that neighborhood?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How wide a stretch of country around about do you speak of?
A. It is mighty near six miles.
Q. How many colored people live in that space?
A. I cannot tell you, to tell the truth, how many live there.
Q. Do you know how many colored votes are in that township?
A. There are five or six on Cowpens Hill, right around me.
Q. But in the whole Cowpens country?
A. Lord o’ mercy, I can’t tell.
Q. Have any colored people moved away from there?
A. Yes, sir; about two months ago Moses Eaves and his family, and Sam Foster and his family moved away.
Q. Where to?
A. To Tennessee. They said if they did not leave they would kill them.
Q. How many do you say there were when these men first came?
A. Eight came in the house.
Q. What they seemed to be after and asking for were pistols and guns?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. They said nothing else?
A. Yes, sir; they asked for my husband. I told them, “At the furnace, I reckon.”
Q. They seemed to be after him, too?
A. Yes, sir; as well as guns; and he says “You tell him when we get him here that I will kill him for certain.” They talked outlandish. They would not turn their faces to let me see them. One said, “You look like you were scared.” I says, “I am scared;” and one rubbed his pistol in my face.
Q. Were those that came the second time the same as those that came the first time?
A. No, sir.
Q. How do you know?
A. I knew they were not.
Q. How do you know?
A. Because those that came the last time lived right at us in about a mile and a half, or worked right in that neighborhood; and ever since we have been there nigh them they can’t face me, can’t look at me.
Q. But how do you know that these six were not part of those who came the first time?
A. People say the others came from below, and these came from right above us.
Q. How did the people know they came from below?
A. They had been after them so much, and these here wanted me to work for them a good while, and I could not work for them then.
Q. You say the first one would not let you look at their faces?
A. No, sir.
Q. So you could not tell who they were?
A. No, sir.
Q. Then they might have been the same as the second ones?
A. No, sir; I do not think so.
Q. Is that only because the people said they were from below?
A. No, sir; I could not say they were the first one at all; not any of them.
Q. What is your belief?
A. They were not the same men at all.
Q. You say one of the last six was Tom Davis?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was he disguised?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What had he on?
A. His horns and a long blue coat. He was the one that told them to lay us down, and then just jumped right on the top of my head.
Q. Could you see his face?
A. Not all of it. I had just seen him the day before.
Q. Had you never seen him before?
A. Yes, sir; I knew him all the time.
Q. Why should seeing him the day before make you know him better than seeing him generally.
A. I see him passing about generally.
Q. Could you see him that evening?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How could you see his face under the disguise?
A. I knew it was him; I could hear him catch himself in talking.
Q. Did not you say he talked outlandish?
A. Yes, sir; but they would catch themselves in talking.
Q. Did they all talk?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Every one?
A. No, sir; one held the horses.
Q. Only five acted?
A. Yes, sir; only five whipped us.
Q. Had they six horses?
A. Yes, sir; they took my little gal and one of the horses tails struck her, for she was nigh the horses.
Q. Were the horses disguised?
A. No, sir.
Q. It was a pretty bold fellow that came that way?
A. Yes, sir; that was one of Martin’s sons.
Q. Which one?
A. I don’t know; both were along.
Q. What are their names?
A. Romeo and Tine.
Q. Which one was it?
A. I think it was Romeo.
Q. Why?
A. He was so brickety.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. Fidgety—somebody that wants to get into business and don’t know how.
Q. That you call brickety?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. He got into business that night?
A. Yes, sir; and I did not like it much.
Q. Why was he brickety?
A. Because he jumped on top of me and beat me.
Q. That is the reason you knew it was Romeo?
A. Yes, sir; and I have seen them so often since, and I know their talk.
Q. Were they not all brickety?
A. I think they were all brickety.
Q. What other reason have you to think that was Romeo that took your child to the horse?
A. Because I knew it was not any person else.
Q. Then if you are correct it must have been him.
A. I knew it was not any person else; and the truth is the prettiest thing any person can come up here with.
Q. I am glad you are attached to the truth; but what was the reason why you thought it was Romeo?
A. Because that family wanted me to work for them and I could not work for them; I was working for another man.
Q. How long was that time when they wanted you to work before this whipping?
A. Not more than a month.
Q. Before the last visit?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What took place that you could not work?
A. My husband rented some land and I had to come home.
Q. Did they get mad?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What did they say?
A. They said they were going to have me Ku-Kluxed.
Q. What did they say?
A. They told me right there, bless me.
Q. Bless you?
A. I say bless you.
Q. I say bless you; they told you they were going to have the Ku–Klux on him?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who was present?
A. Only old Missus Williams, and she said, “Harriet, you’ll be Ku–Kluxed for that.”
Q. Who is she?
A. She is a white woman. It was her son I was to work for. He wanted me to work for him.
Q. What is his name?
A. Augustus Williams.
Q. I thought it was the Martins you had the trouble with?
A. They were the ones that whipped me. I thought it was Mr. Williams that held the horses.
Q. You said the Martins wanted you to work for them and you could not?
A. Yes, sir, all the family; they were all kin.
Q. And when you could not work for them they said they would have you Ku–Kluxed?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who said that, Bruce Martin?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was Mrs. Williams there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. She heard them say that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. They were bold enough to say before you and Mrs. Williams that you would be Ku–Kluxed?
A. Yes, sir, that I would be Ku–Kluxed.
Q. That is the reason you think old Martin and his two sons were there?
A. Yes, sir, and I knew they were there.
Q. Is that the only reason why you think they were there?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You considered that it was them for the reason that they had said they would Ku–Klux you because you could not work for them.
A. That is why I know it was, for—
Q. That is why you think it was them that did it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Not because you saw them that night and knew that they were the Martins?
A. No, sir; I saw them that night and knew that they were the Martins.
Q. But you knew them because they had threatened you? If they had not threatened you you would not have known they were there?
A. Yes, sir; I would have known they were there to–night.
Q. But you would not have known it was these particular people if they had not threatened you?
A. No, sir; the man came and bruised me in my arm, taking me out of bed, and I saw his face then.
Q. Did not he have a disguise tied over his face?
A. No, sir, he could not have it over; it was too short; and there were two horns, and in their devilment at my house they broke off one of their horns, and I kept it about three weeks, until one day I got mad with it and throwed it in the fire.
Q. Why did not you keep it and bring it here.
A. Everybody said they would not do anything with this.
Q. You think the Martins did this for the reason that they were so mad because you would not work for them, that they Ku–Kluxed you?
A. Yes, sir; they got so mad that they could not stand it.
Q. Are they white people?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How did you know Tine Martin?
A. By his size and his ways, and all.
Q. What sort of ways has he?
A. Fidgety ways, brickety ways.
Q. Unlike everybody else?
A. Not unlike everybody else, but like all the Ku–Klux.
Q. They must be a brickety family, if both the boys are brickety?
A. They are all brickety.
Q. What did they do, that you knew them?
A. Their father was there and they all tried to be brickety. One took hold of one arm of my little child and the other took the other arm, and I said, “Lord, don’t kill my child;” and he knocked me down with the pistol and said, “Damn you, fall! Damn you, get up!” and I went to get up and he said “Damn you, get over the fence;” and when I tried to get over he kicked me over, and I knew the horses.
Q. What horses?
A. One big black and four big sorrels and a mule. There were two of the Martins, and I reckon they had borrowed a mule of Gus Williams.
Q. Did you talk to him about it?
A. No, sir; if I told them I believed it was them they would have come the next night and killed me.
Q. Did you know the mule?
A. I knew it; it was Gus Williams’ mule. He must have been holding the horses. He must have known that I would have known him if I had touched him almost.
Q. Did not the Martins know that you would recognize the horses?
A. I don’t know.
Q. You knew Bruce Martin?
A. Yes, sir; he is a high, tall man.
Q. Is he the only tall man in that country?
A. No; he is a high man and a mean man, too.
Q. You and the Martins cannot get along?
A. We can’t get along, and couldn’t if I wanted to.
Q. Have you had any quarrels?
A. No, sir; I give them no chance.
Q. Did they get mad?
A. Yes, sir; he got mad. They got mad enough to Ku–Klux me.
Q. This was two months ago?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is there any justice of the peace up there? Have you any squires?
A. I know there was a squire named Blackwell.
Q. You could have come here and made complaint?
A. But I was afraid.
Q. Afraid of what?
A. Afraid of the Ku–Klux.
A. Of the Martins.
Q. Why are you not afraid of them now?
A. I am; I am afraid to go back home.
Q. Are you going home?
A. I don’t know whether I shall go back or not.
Q. You do not look very frightened.
A. I am. I have got the trembles, sir.
Q. You will not go back home?
A. Not unless I see that I can have peace.
Q. Have you your children with you?
A. No, sir; one.
Q. Where is the other?
A. With my sister.
Q. Where?
A. At home.
Q. You were not afraid to leave that girl at home?
A. Yes, sir; I was afraid, too; but all could not be at home at once.
Q. Does not the whole neighborhood know that you are down here as a witness?
A. No, sir; I do not know that they do. It was night when I came home and people told us to come here, to be here at Friday dinner time.
Q. The people then knew you were to come here?
A. The people told us to come.
Q. What people?
A. The people were from town. I do not know what you call them.
Q. What do you call them?
A. We call them Yankees.
Q. Were they soldiers?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How many?
A. Twenty–six.
Q. Did the whole neighborhood know that twenty–six soldiers were there?
A. Yes, sir; but I was off at work when they came, and my little gal; but they got my husband to tell me.
Q. You have come down here to be a witness, and twenty-six soldiers told you to come?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. In full military array in the neighborhood, so that all the people must have known it?
A. I do not know whether they knew it or not.
Q. The Martins must have known it?
A. I do not know.
Q. You were not afraid to leave your little daughter?
A. Yes, sir, I was; but I had to come; and there was the cow; there had to be somebody there.
Q. Which was the dearest to you, your cow or your daughter?
A. The daughter was, but Charley wouldn’t fetch us both.
Q. Who is Charley?
A. My husband. . . .
Testimony Taken By The Joint Select Committee To Inquire Into The Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, South Carolina, Vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1872), pp. 386-91.
2. TESTIMONY TAKEN BY THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN THE LATE INSURRECTIONARY STATES
Columbia, South Carolina
July 20, 1871
JACK JOHNSON (colored) sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Do you live in this county now?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What county did you come from?
A. From the lower edge of Laurens County.
Q. How long had you lived in Laurens?
A. I had lived there since I was born.
Q. How old are you?
A. Forty–five on the 25th of next August.
Q. What did you do there?
A. I was farming pretty much all the time until emancipation, and then I still farmed on, but cut rock and built chimneys.
Q. You were a stone-mason, then?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were you called on there by the Ku-Klux at any time?
A. Yes, sir; I was called on by one man on the way from the riot at Laurens from the fuss.
Q. By one man?
A. Yes, sir, just one man. He said he had been out three nights, and his horse hadn’t eat a bite. I heard him tell that gentleman after he got done beating on me.
Q. What did he do to you?
A. He came up to the gin-house and jumped off of his horse and said to me, “Didn’t I tell you I would give you as much for your cotton in the seed as anybody?” I told him yes, and I told him Mr. Johnson told me to get my cotton ginned up and pay him what I owed him for bacon and corn, like a gentleman. He says to me, “What ticket did you vote?” I told him I voted the republican ticket. “God Damn you,” says he, “have you got a tie-rope here?” Says I, “Mr. Reizer, I don’t think I have done anything to call for that.” He says, “No, God damn you, you haven’t done anything; you go against our party; you go against us who have been a fried to you all your days. I suppose you hallooed the other day, Hurrah for Governor Scott. Didn’t you vote for Governor Scott?” I told him I did, and I thought I was right in doing so. He says “Why did you think so?” I told him I thought that was the right way, and it was right for me to go that way. He says, “Suppose you want to be burned right here?” I says, “No, I am not prepared to die,” and I stooped down to pick up some cotton on the ground, and he struck me on the head and knocked me down on the face.
Q. What with?
A. With a club about a yard long, and I turned and got hold by his coat and tried to struggle up, and he jerked out his pistol and said, “God damn you, if that is what you’re after, I’ll kill you right now.” I told him I didn’t want him to kill me. He beat me on the head. I don’t know what passed, but he beat on me to his satisfaction, and I went to raise again, and he says, “God damn you, I’ve a great mind to shoot you through and through.” I says, “Mr. Reizer, you are beating me for nothing. O Lord, I hope you’ll not kill me.” He says, “Do you think the Lord has any feeling for you or anybody else that voted the ticket you have?” I told him yes, I thought he ought to have. When I said that he struck me right across the top of my forehead, and I caught his hand, and he says, “God damn you, I left eight of your republican party biting up dirt at Laurens, and you’ll be biting dirt before morning;” and he said then, “I don’t say I’ll kill you, but, God damn you, there’s men from Tennessee to kill you;” and he turned around and said to Mr. Miller, “I ought to kill this God-damned nigger right here.” Those gentlemen were standing there and not one of the white gentlemen standing around said a word noway. He went on then toward the house to have his horse fed. I struggled along to the fence and got on the fence and got over and went through to my wife’s house, and she said they had been there hunting me. I told her to please give me a little piece of bread and meat and I would try to get away from there. She cut off me off some bread and a bit of bacon, and I put it in my pocket and made off to Newbury Court-House. When I came on the road by Squire Hunter’s they were camped on the road, about thirty men. They had their horse-feed lying in the corners of the fence, and taken down fence rails to put up pens to put their horses in. I went through the field and on down to the Lutheran church, and there was another company that I knew nothing at all about. I thought I had better keep the woods all the time to Newberry Court-House, and I did keep the woods and held all the way. I had to part the brush with my hand to get this arm through, for I had but one arm then to use. I had to keep this arm here for nine weeks, and never will use it again. I can’t turn the drill in the rock with that arm. One finger he broke so that it hung down.
Q. Who was that Mr. Reizer?
A. George Reizer, the son of old Billy Reizer.
Q. How far did he live from you?
A. About three miles.
Q. What is he?
A. A farmer and a store-keeper. He has a large store.
Q. Who were these other men that you spoke of?
A. Mr. Frank Miller and Elam Ritchie and Henry Johnson.
Q. Did they come with him?
A. No, sir, they were tending about the gin-house; Mr. Johnson was with me.
Q. What were their politics?
A. Henry Johnson told me he was sorry. I asked him wasn’t that awful that I was beat that way for nothing. He said, then, “I am sorry, but my advice would be for you to get away from about here.” I asked his advice. He said, “Get away for fear they will kill you; and I made my escape.
Q. Were they the men you worked for?
A. Mr. Johnson was working with me that day, because I had a good mule and he had two young mules that I raised to haul these loads. He had me to help him haul his cotton and he helped me. We were swapping work.
Q. Had you been to the election the day before?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Where?
A. At Clinton.
Q. Had these men been to the election, too, that were there with you?
A. No, sir, only one.
Q. Who?
A. Young Adams, a colored man.
Q. Were they of the same party with you? Were they republicans or democrats?
A. There were no republicans there but black men; the other two were democrats, but they were powerful opposed to what Reizer did to me.
Q. Did you ask them for protection?
A. No, sir, because I knew it was no use.
Q. Why?
A. Because I knew it was no use for nobody to ask protection from men as vigorous as they were, because they were all principally against us voting, and Mr. Johnson had told me before to vote a reform ticket if I wanted to save myself; and I knew it was no use.
Q. Was Reizer drunk or sober?
A. I never saw him drunk in my life.
Q. You say he is a farmer and store-keeper in that neighborhood?
A. Yes, sir, he has a farm going on right there. He went the next day after he beat me and rode up to my house and asked for me. My wife told him she didn’t know where I was, I was gone to my father. I didn’t tell her I was going to Newbury, for I knew she would go crazy entirely if I did. He asked what he should do to get his money out of that farm. She told him to do what he could. He said, “By God, he knew what he would do.” He turned around and galloped off and came back and took away my fodder and things. It took four loads to haul my fodder. And he took off my cotton.
Q. What became of your crop?
A. He took it all off. I owed $70 and he took off my mule. He took my cow up there to sell her, and Mr. Boyd wouldn’t let her be sold. He said he claimed the cow in my behalf; he hated to see all my property go for nothing. There was my hogs. I think they brought $8. I had two hogs in the pen to have weighed two hundred by Christmas. That mule I had refused $175 for. All the men in the settlement knew that mule. I loved the mule. It was as large a mule as I have seen since I have been here in Columbia. He took my fodder and he sold my corn. He sold it for twenty bushels, more or less. I had measured my corn when I put it up, and I had eighty bushels, and he sold it for twenty bushels, more or less.
Q. Did you owe anybody else but him in that neighborhood?
A. Yes, sir, I owed some other men. I owed the lady I rented the land from. I bought the land off for a hundred dollars a year. She said she would rather I should have it than anybody else, for I would work it. Mr. Dave Boyd and Billy Young came and told my wife she had better go off to some other place, because Mr. Reizer was going to take my truck away, and she had better hunt a home some other place.
Q. Where is your wife?
A. She has come here.
Q. Have you any children?
A. No, sir; I have one boy driving a carriage now, down below, for the hotel.
Q. How much was your crop worth that you left there?
A. Well, the man taking the census around was at my house just about four days before the election came off, and he came into the cotton-field where my wife was picking cotton and asked for my property, and I told him, and he said my property at the house was worth $600 besides my crop—that is, my hogs and cows. I had one cow and calf and another heifer and two yearlings. I wouldn’t have taken one hundred dollars for my cow, because when we drove her up she would give two gallons of milk every night and morning, and we needed no begging with her.
Q. Have you been back since?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you feel afraid to go back?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Why?
A. I know one thing. Mr. George Reizer don’t care for money no more than you for a chaw of tobacco, and if he didn’t kill me, he would have it done; because he had been at me so long before the election to vote the conservative ticket, and I would not tell him what I would do. I told him I couldn’t promise nobody I would vote such a ticket for I would have gone against my principles and against my own feelings. He came to there a day or two before the election and asked me what I would take for my cotton in the seed. I told him I didn’t want to sell my cotton in that way. He said I might go to any white man in the settlement and ask him what the cotton was worth in the seed, and leave it to him which would be best for me to do. I left home immediately, and went over to Jared Johnson, one of the strongest democrats in the settlement, but one of the best men who wouldn’t tell anybody anything wrong about it. He is a magistrate. I asked him what was best for me to do. I told him Mr. Reizer was powerful mad at my house yesterday; I wouldn’t promise him not to vote the republican ticket. He says, “You go home and let everybody see you are gathering your crop and paying your debts, and when you get your cotton ginned, pay Mr. Reizer half and Mrs. Dillon half until you get them both paid.” I rented my land from her. He says, “I got some meat of George Reizer on a lien, and he wrote me an insulting letter, and I let him know I am not a nigger.”
Q. How is it there in regard to the other colored people? Do they feel at liberty to vote as they please, or has this system of intimidation been carried on to any extent?
A. Well, they are down up there now, for all the republican men that have been the leaders, speaking and going about through there, has left there—has come out and left them. My wife come from there about four weeks ago. She is just as well brought up as a white child. Her old master and mistress had no children, only her to take care of, and she was respected; and she said they refused to speak to her there, and told her she had better go away from there to Columbia, for that was a bad place for negroes, it was a harbor for negroes; nobody there seemed to have no use for us—no old friends.
Q. What do you know about the liberty of the colored people there to speak or do as they please? How was it at the election?
A. All voted that could vote, only they were persuaded to vote the other way.
Q. Was there any violence of this kind before the election of last October?
A. Yes, sir; there were lots of threats. You could hear rumors of threats all through the settlement. There was Mr. Tom Ware. The day of the election I walked up, and I had a chill on me that day. I put in my vote, and some of them says, “There’s Old Jack voting for Scott!” Says I, “Suber”—he is school commissioner at Laurens now, a colored man—“Did you notice how they voted; there are some going in I don’t think is right. Dr. Tom Ware spoke up, and says, “Now, the last God damned one of you are voting yourselves into your graves.”
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. What did you mean, saying it was not going all right?
A. What I meant was this: When I went to go out of the gate to go to vote, I had no ticket, and I asked a gentleman for a ticket. I had just got there. I catched him by his coat, and pulled him around, and asked for a ticket. He handed me a ticket, and I says, “What are you; are you a republican?” He says, “I am as full-pledged a republican as you ever saw.” I took the ticket and went back in the yard; they told me I couldn’t go in then; enough time had gone. Only ten voted at a time. I showed the ticket to a white man in the yard there, and he says, “That’s a democratic ticket, you’ll not vote it.” I says, “No, not for this world.” This man, Al. Daggan, pulled me. He is a colored man, and he says, “I’ll give you a right ticket.” And then I went in and voted.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Can you read.
A. No, sir.
Q. Had you taken any part in politics—been a candidate for office?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you do anything else than vote?
A. No sir, only to vote; only this, I took a great propriety in counseling the people which way to vote—the colored people. I had been riding about a good deal. I was the only colored man that had a mule anywheres nigh my house, and I would go ‘way off to speeches, and come back and tell the news how the speeches were; that was all I did, and for that they were very down on me.
By Mr. Stevenson:
Q. Did you say the scar was still on your head?
A. Yes, sir, here is the scar of his lick. [indicating.] He struck me here, and struck me again, and this finger he broke entirely, so that I can’t turn a drill in my hand.
Q. Was that done with a club?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Had he a pistol?
A. Yes, sir. When he was beating me his cartridges began to fall out of his pocket, and he gathered them up, and said, “Those are sort of things for you, God damn you.”
Q. How many white men were there?
A. Three grown white men, and one young man nearly grown.
Q. Did they do anything to protect you?
A. No, sir, they just stood and looked on.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. How old a man is this George Reizer?
A. I should suppose he is twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old.
Q. Who was the other man with him when he came up?
A. There was no other man; he came up by himself.
Q. Who was the other man begged for a horse feed?
A. He begged for it.
Q. Of you?
A. No, sir, of this other white young man. That was at Mr. Miller’s house, where this was done. It was at Mr. Miller’s gin-house.
Q. Where did Reizer come from? Did he come to see you particularly?
A. He left the crowd at Mr. Joe Hunter’s. They had all come down there together.
Q. How far was that from Miller’s?
A. Three miles.
Q. How do you know he left a crowd there?
A. My wife and all the rest said so. He came by my house first, and asked for me, and they told him I was gone to the gin-house with a lot of cotton.
Q. How far is that?
A. Three miles, about. They were all shooting up at Mr. Hunter’s.
Q. How far is Hunter’s house from your house?
A. About half a mile.
Q. Was your wife there?
A. No, sir, she was at Mr. Sanderson’s.
Q. How far is that?
A. It was only about a quarter of a mile, and she could see all around the door and around the store where they were.
Q. What time did he leave Hunter’s?
A. I don’t know. I know about the time he came to where I was.
Q. What time was it?
A. I think the sun was about two hours high.
Q. Was there anybody with Reizer when he came up?
A. No, sir.
Q. No crowd in sight?
A. No, sir; not that I saw. But after I left for home and got my meat and bread, coming back to the road, there were fifty-three men going right down to where Mr. Reizer beat me.
Q. Was that the first crowd you met?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How came you to say there were thirty?
A. There were fifty-three that night. There was more than me saw them. This man Johnson, that was at the gin-house with me, met them in the night. They said they heard Dr. Pink Johnson hail as they passed his house, and asked them where they were going, and they said they were going over to the other road.
Q. Were they Ku-Klux?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were they disguised?
A. They were just on the way from the raid at Laurens.
Q. Had they disguises on?
A. No, sir.
Q. How do you know they were Ku-Klux?
A. They were acting very much like it.
Q. Do you know that what you are telling here you are swearing to?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And yet you call them Ku-Klux?
A. Well, what is the difference between the Ku-Klux? A man that will kill a man I always call him a Ku-Klux.
Q. There were fifty-three of them?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would they all kill a man?
A. I don’t know what else but that business they were there for. Why should they be out? If I were to start out in that sort of a crowd, knowing so many men had been killed above and below here, take up my gun and gone to join them, I would say I would kill a man just like they did.
Q. You think all those fifty-three men were Ku-Klux not disguised?
A. They had guns and ammunition.
Q. Had they been up to this riot?
A. There was where the Ku-Kluxing had been done.
Q. Was the Laurens riot by Ku-Klux?
A. That is what they say. I don’t know what Ku-Klux is.
Q. Who says it?
A. Everybody. They don’t call them anything else. These men that are killing men about, they are Ku-Klux.
Q. You don’t know much about the Laurens fight; how it was begun or what it was?
A. No, sir; I was not at it, but I knew many of the men who were killed.
Q. That is your opinion of the Laurens raid, that all who were engaged against the colored people were Ku-Klux?
A. I can’t think anything else, because if they had not been, I would not have thought they would have killed Mr. Henry Johnson and Frank Miller, and the people were right smartly opposed to them and never left their homes for them. Mr. Hunter and Mr. Bond, and Calvin Adams and Tom Hutton would all leave their homes to go to that riot, but Johnson and Frank Miller never left their homes. They said they wouldn’t take part in anything of the kind.
Q. How far is that from Laurens?
A. Eighteen miles below Laurens.
Q. You do not think Frank Miller and Johnson were Ku-Klux?
A. No, sir.
Q. How do you account for the fact of four men standing there, seeing this one man come up furious as a mad bull and attack you, without taking your part?
They are like all other men. They knew that if they took any part in that they would be called taking a negro’s part. That is the way they do up there. When a white man goes in and speaks in behalf of the negro, they put him in above all the negroes.
Q. You think all the white men are for killing all the negroes?
A. Some were for peace, and some were not.
Q. There is no peace between the white men and the negroes?
A. I should not call it so; because I tried for four years to be as humble as I could, and to get along with them in some way, and I couldn’t do it.
Q. All the white men opposed to the negroes you think are Ku-Klux?
A. I don’t know that I can say that they are.
Q. You say the assessor, when he came around a day or two before the election, said your property about the house was worth $600?
A. Yes, sir; besides my corn and cotton.
Q. And your cow?
A. No, sir. I talked a little too fast; I had gathered my corn and counted it.
Q. But he did not count your cotton?
A. No, sir.
Q. He counted the cow?
A. Yes, sir; both times. I had a cow and a heifer.
Q. Did he count your mule?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then he estimated the amount of your property at $600, including all your property, except your cotton crop?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What was your cotton crop worth?
A. My cotton crop, from what I can understand—Mr. Reizer sold three bales and I had about a hundred pounds lacking to make two bales when—
Q. Was that worth about $100?
A. I can’t say what.
Q. What was cotton worth?
A. Cotton was worth nineteen and quarter, I think.
Q. What would it come to—about four hundred pounds in a bale?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would not that be about $120 or $130?
A. Then he hired hands and picked out another bale.
Q. Then you had three bales?
A. Yes, sir. Then he sold about twelve hundred pounds in the field to John May, a colored man.
Q. All this property is gone?
A. Yes, sir; I have never received it.
Q. The $600 worth, and the cotton and everything else; cows, mules, and everything else?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who had it sold—Reizer?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. On execution?
A. I don’t know how he did it; he just went there and gathered it. I owed him some for bacon.
Q. How much?
A. I give him the lien. I bought my mule and got me some little feed to go on to feed my mule along until I could get somebody to help me out, and rented me the land and went to work. I went to the store and asked Mr. Reizer to let me have bacon and corn. He asked, how much. I told him about $70 worth of bacon and corn together. He asked me if I would give him a lien on my crop. I told him I would give a lien on everything I made, outside of the rent.
Q. Then you owed him $70?
A. Yes, sir; he wrote it down that he was to let me have $70 worth in bacon and corn.
Q. You owed him $70.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Your contract was to pay Mrs. Dillon $100 rent?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then you owed $170.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who else?
A. Well, I owed some little debts up there, but I don’t know that it concerned him.
Q. It concerns me just now. How much did you owe besides that $170?
A. I can’t tell you without I saw my account. I owed Mr. Bob Callomy $30.
Q. That makes $200.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who else did you owe?
A. I don’t know anybody else.
Q. You said you owed little debt?
A. Yes, I couldn’t tell who they were now until I could see. They were little things. I don’t know that anybody had any charges against me.
Q. Part of the cotton had to be attended to, and Reizer attended to that and made twelve hundred pounds of it?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you not heard what disposition he made of that property?
A. He wrote me out a few papers and sent me.
Q. Here?
A. Yes, sir. My wife went up there and sent to him for a settlement, and he sent her $2, and sent her the papers, and said that was all he owed me; and I think he claimed that I owed him something over a hundred dollars.
Q. How much over?
A. I don’t know that, but she said she thought, from the way he did, that he claimed over a hundred dollars. But when I went to him the last time for bacon—I was out of bacon—and told him I wanted some—
Q. Never mind that.
A. He told me I was up with my lien.
Q. You gave him a lien for $70.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Then you owed $200?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You owed $230, if Reizer was honest in saying that you owed him thirty more. He claimed that, did he not?
A. I don’t know; I can’t go to see him. Mr. Moore has got it.
Q. What papers did he send you?
A. Mr. Moore has it. I sued him just day before yesterday.
Q. Where?
A. Here in Columbia.
Q. How did you sue him here? He lives in Laurens?
A. I have given it to the lawyer. The lawyer said if I would pay his way there, he would attend to it. I told him I couldn’t go up there.
Q. How was this property disposed of?
A. It is gone; he sold it.
Q. Did he get a judgment against you?
A. I don’t know what he did, for I cannot tell.
Q. Then you do not know anything about it?
A. I know he sold it, and I got nothing.
Q. Did Mrs. Dillon get her pay?
A. I don’t know.
Q. Did Mr. Callomy get his pay?
A. I don’t know.
Q. You do not know anything about it?
A. No, sir; I left my property. All I hear from my wife is that it is all gone; that he took it away.
Q. And you are going to sue him for it?
A. Yes, sir, and assault and battery.
Q. If what you stated here is true, both about taking your property and about assaulting you, you ought to sue him?
A. Yes, sir; and I think, according to the law the white man told me, he ought to be prosecuted for taking my property without anything.
Q. When he rode up was he on horseback?
A. He jumped off his horse at the fence.
Q. What did he first say?
A. He said, “What the hell are you doing here?” I said, “I am hauling cotton.” He said, “Didn’t I tell you I would give as much for your cotton as anybody else?” I said, “Yes; but you told me to leave it to two men, and Mr. Johnson told me what to do.”
Q. What were you going to do?
A. I was going to have it ginned. I was going to let Mr. Bond gin it and sell it for me, and pay Mrs. Dillon some and Mr. Reizer some.
Q. Did he appear to be mad because you would not let him have your crop of cotton?
A. He wanted to buy it in the seed.
Q. Then he asked you right away what ticket you voted?
A. Yes, sir. Then he said, “God damn you, you have done everything against the party you could.”
Q. Did he whip you for voting that ticket, or for the cotton?
A. I just put it that way. I don’t know whether it is right or wrong. I believe he brought that excuse of the cotton to pick a quarrel to beat me.
Q. Is Reizer understood to be so bad a man as all this?
A. He never had much of a good name with the colored men.
Q. Has he had other difficulties with other people?
A. He had difficulties way in back times; I don’t know about lately, but he has no feeling for black men.
Q. What other black man has he beaten for voting the republican ticket?
A. I don’t know that he has knocked any about.
Q. You say you believe he made this cotton an excuse to beat you, because you were a republican?
A. Yes, sir; I believe it, and shall always believe it. I don’t know as he had any right to do it.
Q. He had no right to whip you for either cause, but you say he made the cotton a pretext to get up a quarrel and beat you for voting the republican ticket?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Are there any other black men republicans?
A. Yes, sir; but he had no chance at them. He had a chance at me because he made a crop with me.
Q. Have you heard of his beating any other negro men?
A. No, sir; only he shot one man. He didn’t kill him, but he shot him to pieces nearly. That is since that. I didn’t blame him so much for that, for if he hadn’t caught up with who it was he would have always sworn it was me. A man went and bored into his store-house, and he shot him up pretty bad. A black man was trying to get into his store.
Q. That is, a black man was trying to get into his store and shot him?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. That is all you have heard of his feeling against the black people?
A. I don’t know about that; he has a bad feeling toward me.
Q. You say you do not blame him for shooting that black man?
A. No, sir. I should have done so in his place. I should have tried to find out who he was if balls could find out.
Q. You had no difficulty except about this cotton?
A. No, sir. He would halloo, “How are you getting on?” and “Hurry!”
Q. Has not Mr. Reizer been kind to negroes there, to help them?
A. Very kind for their money. Nobody ever had much dealing with him except that way. That is the way with the black people there; they work all the year as hard as they can, but when Christmas comes the whole bandanna of them got nothing.
Q. What is the “bandanna?”
A. I say the whole bandanna of the colored people have no money when Christmas comes.
Q. Whose fault is that?
A. It is because many of them can’t read or write.
Q. Do you think those white people cheat them out of what they should get?
A. Yes, sir; pretty much. Some of the black people wastes what they make.
Q. Do the republican white people hate them?
A. They don’t have any white republican people in that county. In Laurens County there are a few, but I don’t think there is a republican white man in our neighborhood.
Q. Does the negro population carry that county at the election?
A. They have been doing it so far.
Q. All the time?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. There is a much larger number of black people than whites?
A. I reckon there is.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Did you say he told you he had been up where they killed people?
A. He told me, “God damn you, I’ve left eight of your republican party biting dirt up here at Laurens, and you’ll be biting dirt before day. I don’t say I’ll kill you, but, by God, there’s men from Tennessee will kill you. . . .”
Testimony Taken By The Joint Select Committee To Inquire Into The Condition of Affairs In The Late Insurrectionary States, South Carolina, Vol. II (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1872), pp. 1165–73.
3. TESTIMONY TAKEN BY THE JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN THE LATE INSURRECTIONARY STATES
Yorkville, South Carolina,
July 27, 1871.
ANDREW CATHCART (colored) sworn and examined.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. How old are you?
A. I am about seventy-seven years old, the first day of last March.
Q. Where do you live?
A. Down forenenst Squire Joe Miller’s, on a plantation that I bought in slavery times. I bought myself about twenty years ago, and then worked and bought myself a little plantation.
Q. How long is it since you bought that plantation?
A. About twelve years.
Q. How long since you bought your freedom?
A. I reckon it has been twenty-one or twenty-two years; I cannot tell exactly.
Q. Do you recollect what you paid for it?
A. Yes, sir; I do.
Q. How much?
A. I paid $190 for a tract for—
Q. But for your freedom, how much did you pay?
A. I paid $330 for my freedom.
Q. How many acres do you own down there?
A. Ninety; I bought another place, a place that Willburn Ward owned, adjoining and together it makes ninety-eight acres.
Q. How much did you say you paid for it?
A. I paid $190 for the first, and $350 for the last part—the Ward place.
Q. Have you got it all paid for?
A. Yes, sir; all.
Q. Go on and tell us what you know of the operations of the Ku-Klux in your neighborhood—what they did to you.
A. When they first came in to me, they said, “Ku–Klux, Ku–Klux, Ku–Klux,” and catched hold of me, and says one, “Have you any arms?” I said I had a rifle up there. They said, “Take it down and break it all to pieces.” I got it and went to my hearth and broke it all to pieces there on the rocks of my fire–place, and then bent the muzzle, and they struck me a few licks while I was at it. The men talked to me; I think it was one Henry Reeves spoke to me; and I looked at him, and every time I would go to look at him, he would slap me in the face; but still I would look at him when I got a chance, because I had not heard his voice in twelve months, and yet I thought of him then. He was a man that had lived with me, and I knew his voice when I heard it, and so I would look at him from head to foot. I knew the man’s temper; I have seen him in good humor and in ill humor. He is a fractious sort of a man. The next thing they said was, “Where is your money?” I told them I had no money. Says he, “Open the chest, or I will break it open, and open it damned quick.” My wife handed him the keys and they opened the chest. They did not do anything but just throw it open. “Come,” says he, “damn him, take him out and hang him, kill him, shoot him, take him out and shoot him.” As they marched me out of the door one stood inside of the door and turned back as they marched me out. I took him to be one Jimmy Jones, that I had worked with for five years. His father is an old man. I farmed for him, and made him corn and cotton, and took care of it until he died. He came back and sat down and commenced plundering the chest. The old woman sat right by him; her knees were right against it, and his gown fell off he was so busy plundering, and then she look and saw his pantaloons, and knew the pantaloons; she knew the coat and the pockets of his coat; she knew them well; she saw his chin; it had a little beard coming out. Then after he had plundered and taken out several things, such things as would be useful to him, they marched me out, and he went on with Henry Reeves. Says he, “Where were your children when they were run away?” You see five years before that they belonged to an Irishman. He was a curious sort of a man, and sold them to a man named Davies, and we did not know where he took them to. I told him I did not know where he took the children to. He talked in the Irish way. He is a passionate man; that is Reeves I am talking about now. Says he “Damn you, tell me where they are or I will kill you.” I told him I did not know where they were, and I could not tell. He took the butt of an Army gun and struck me on the head, and dropped me to my knees. I scrambled a while and got up. Says he then, “I will kill you if you do not tell me.” I told him I could not tell where they were. He just took and struck me a solid lick here on the head, and I thought it would burst my head open. It was a hard lick, and I fell with my breast on a stump. I spit blood after that for two months from that blow. As I was going on to tell you, I scrambled and raised up, and he said he would be damed if he did not kill me if I did not tell him, and they presented their guns at me. I turned around and said, “O Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord have mercy on my soul!” I said, “You can kill me if you see cause.” I expected that was to be my last word. Then they started. But I must tell one word here. As I came out of the door they knocked me right here in the hip and they carried me out, and I have not been able to plow since, I am so lame. I do not believe I will ever be over it. When I go to the field to hoe for half an hour I have to sit down to rest. They told me to go in the house and to run and jump the bars. I scarcely could drag myself. I went in as well as I could. When I got in the house they told me to shut that door and not say anything. Then they marched me down to the house where my daughter and another woman taught school. They had authority to teach from Mr. Lathan and Mr. Johnson agreeable to the law. They went down there and tore the school–house all to pieces; they worked on it half to quarter of an hour, and not only treated it rough but broke it all to pieces. Tore the tenons out and broke it all up. One hallooed, “Burn it up;” but another one hallooed, “No burning,” but they raised a fire; they had a pile of boards and they put stuff under and then put the fire there, but after they went off I crawled under there and put the fire out, and saved it.
Q. Had that building been used as a school?
A. Yes, sir; for two years.
Q. For white or colored children?
A. For colored children. It was on the place I bought of Ward. It was a frame house, worth forty or fifty dollars, that they tore up for me. They shot one ball in the end of the house by the window, and shot another through the door, and it went just above the bed. They seemed to shoot for somebody in the bed. My daughter was living there in the house. It is one hundred and fifty yards from the house I staid in. She ran out and got away; but they got all of her things out of the chest and threw them on the floor and tramped over them, and took two or three pieces of clothing, some silver thimbles, and several other things that I do not remember now. They took a jug of vinegar and bursted it among them. They destroyed a heap of things.
Q. Is that all of it?
A. I think that is all. Then they went off.
Q. How many were there of them?
A. I could not tell you now, because everytime I would go to look at them they would slap me in the face and over the eyes; but I saw there were fifteen or twenty of them; there might have been a little over fifteen and a little under twenty, or there might be twenty; I know there was a large company.
Q. Did you see the kind of disguises they wore?
A. Yes, sir; they had on some sort of caps—one thing and another—and sort of horns one had. But they would not let me look at them, but slapped me whenever I looked; and I could just look at them from the body down.
Q. Did you recognize any others than the two you have mentioned?
A. I can mention this Ben Presley; Ben Presley is my nigh neighbor; I knew him by his walk and by his looks and by his motion; and when he first began to talk he said that I was a ruler—“You think you will rule; but, God damn you, you shall not rule.” I told him I always kept myself as humble since my freedom as before, and I did not want to rule anything. He says, “You have got a bald–faced horse that you ride up and down the road.” I told him I did not ever ride him. He said, “Well, your son does.” I told him, “He didn’t ride often.” He talked in his plain, natural voice then, and I knew him. He is a man I am used to; he seemed to get mad when he talked.
Q. Who is Ben Pressley?
A. He is Richard Pressley’s son; he is not here now.
Q. Is Richard Pressley a farmer?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Does he own the land he occupies?
A. Yes, sir; a large place; Ben manages it for him; he has been almost dead for a year.
Q. How old is Ben?
A. I reckon he is near thirty.
Q. Is he a drinking man?
A. Yes, sir; he drinks pretty smart at times. The same night they came on Charlie Bryant’s, I think it was the 11th of March; I got June Moore to write it down; I could not write myself; here is the paper [producing scrap written as follows: “Thay Night the Ku Klux Come to my house Was March 11th 1871. ANDREW CATHCART.”] Charlie Bryant heard them throw the house down, Mr. Currance heard it, and they heard it at old man Wallace’s; they could hear them two miles off shooting and knocking and hallooing.
Q. What did they do with Charlie Bryant?
A. He was out, not at his place, but they abused his wife pretty bad; they liked to have killed her. They knocked her down, I think, with a pistol. They knocked her down and beat her, so her child said, after she was down. She did not know much about it, for she was as bloody as a hog that had been stuck.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Was that the same night on which they had been to your house?
A. Yes, sir. Charlie said when they started part of them came right up to his house again, and another part came up the York road.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. Have you ever reported this case here in town before to anybody?
A. Yes, sir; I think June reported it. I never reported it myself, but I think June Moore made mention of it up here.
Q. Is that all you know about it?
A. Yes, sir, that is all.
Q. Have you taken any part in the public affairs of that township except in getting up this school–house?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you get up this school–house on your own land?
A. This had been a kitchen built on the land, and then the big house was there, and I let them teach in the kitchen. I just let it be for a school–house. That house was worth as much as forty or fifty dollars.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. Had you been a republican leader?
A. I had never been leader of nothing, but I voted the republican ticket.
Q. You did not undertake to lead?
A. No, sir, I led nothing.
Q. You are seventy–seven years old?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What makes you think that is your age?
A. I have it on a book at home—the Old Testament. I had my brother’s son’s age, and he was nearly a year younger than me, and from that we counted it up, and it makes me seventy–seven last March.
Q. You counted up by your brother’s son’s age?
A. Yes, sir; I was about seven months older than him.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. Had you a brother so much older than you that he had a son nearly as old as you were?
A. Yes, sir. And counting his age off, and giving me seven months more, makes me seventy–seven.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. You spoke of an Army gun; what did you mean by that?
A. I mean by an Army gun, one of those rifles such as the blacks had mustering with—the colored militia. They had bayonets on the guns that night that they beat me.
Q. They had one of those guns?
A. Yes, sir, more than one. I saw two or three, maybe.
By Mr. VAN TRUMP:
Q. When did you get your gun?
A. It was an old rifle I had got long before; I allowed to sell it, but I did not; I made no use of it.
Q. What part of the county do you live in?
A. In York, on the lower edge of the county, fornenst Squire Joe Miller’s; north of here on the Charlotte road; seven miles from here.
Q. If you have named the right men here, Andrew, I hope you may catch them and punish them as they deserve.
A. I pray God I have spoken the truth as I understand it.
Q. It is my duty to see whether you are mistaken or not. Who is Henry Reeves?
A. He is Henry Reeves; he lives down here not far from Nely Miller’s.
Q. What is his business?
A. Only a farmer. If he came on me I think he came out of spite, because my children that ran away used to belong to his sister.
Q. What do you mean by their running away?
A. They left with that Irishman?
Q. Was it since freedom?
A. No, sir; it was five years before freedom. They were slaves to them, and it was thought by many that he sold them, but it was not known whether he sold them or what it was. One Davis took them away.
Q. What interest had Reeves in them?
A. That’s it. They were his sister’s negroes, and he had ambition against me, thinking I harbored them.
Q. Do you think that Reeves has a hatred—
A. He has a spite against me. Whatever man it was he spoke in such ambition and spoke in a great rage.
Q. Is that the reason you think it was Reeves?
A. No, sir; after he spoke I knew his voice, and I looked at him and he would put his face right up in mine and slap me.
Q. You did not have much chance to see?
A. Yes, sir. After he did that I would keep looking. I looked at his body and shoulders, and I knew the make of the whole man, and knew his voice and everything.
Q. Did you know him by his dress?
A. No, sir; I did not know him by his dress, but I knew the shape and make of the man.
Q. Is not that a very dangerous way to prove a man guilty, because he is made like somebody else?
A. Yes, sir; but did you never see a man you were so used to that you could tell him by looking at the build of the man and the voice. Now look at a blind man how he can call a man by his voice. Here is Mr. Cook and Mr. Campbell; anybody that they know they can call by their names. And this man was like one of my home folks to me. He had not talked to me for a year, but when he spoke I looked up like it was one of my home folks.
Q. But do you not know that a blind man has the faculty of hearing much more sharply and accurately than we who see?
A. Yes, sir, but I know him; he is a hasty–tempered man.
Q. Are there not many such in the South?
A. Yes, sir, a great many; but he had a hasty stammering sort of a way that I knew.
Q. Do you say that Henry Reeves stammers?
A. He sort of stammers and whines like, as it were, and is crabbed when he quarrels.
Q. Is it a stutter?
A. No, sir; a sort of whining, grumbling.
Q. Will not almost any man grumble when he is mad?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Does Reeves have a particular grumble?
A. Not when he is not mad, but I had seen him mad so often that I knew him at once.
Q. Let me ask you now—as an old man of seventy–seven years, who cannot expect to live very long—
A. No, sir, of course not.
Q. Let me ask you, if Henry Reeves’s life depended on the fact would you swear that he was there?
A. I would swear that it was a man made just like him, and talking like him, and acting like him in passion and temper; a man that had vengeance in him whenever he talked of those children. If you were coming to me in that shape you would not come raging in that way unless you were interested. You would not want to knock my brains out about a thing you were not interested in.
Q. Did this man Reeves talk about the children that night?
A. Yes, sir; he knocked me down, and said he would be damned if he would not kill me if I did not tell where the children were. I could not tell.
Q. But your children had gone away before freedom?
A. Yes, sir; five years.
Q. Then of what value would they be to him?
A. No value, but it seemed an old grudge five years old. He held a spite at me because they were his sister’s children.
Q. How near did you live to Henry Reeves?
A. About four miles.
Q. From the time your children ran away before freedom until the present time you have seen Reeves as a neighbor; have you seen him several times?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Has he had any difficulty with you about the children?
A. No, sir; never. I saw him over at Mr. Gillespie’s, and I had seen him pass on the road.
Q. Was he kind toward you?
A. No, sir; he never appeared to have much to say.
Q. Did he ever talk to you about the children?
A. No, sir.
Q. Never named them?
A. I never heard a complaint about it, but when he spoke in that angry way I knew his voice.
Q. If this man among the Ku–Klux was not Henry Reeves, but some other man, and he wanted to keep you from knowing who he was, and had to talk to you about something, would he not be likely to talk about something which he thought you would put on Reeves or some other man that he might assume to be or talk about or for?
A. No, sir; I do not think there is a man in my section would do it, or could.
Q. Who is Jimmy Jones?
A. He has just got to be a man. I worked for his uncle for about five years when he was a boy and unable to work for one or two years; then he came up and worked with me.
Q. What is his business?
A. Farming. As I went to come out of the door when they marched me out, he stood in the door and turned and came right back and commanded the chest to be unlocked, and called for my money—my cotton money. I told them I had sold it, but I had not yet got the money. I said I had no money. He went and began to scramble for it; he went right to the chest; he had often seen me put it there. He sometimes worked with me, working a little farm. He went at it just as orderly as if he knew all about it.
Q. But how did you know it was Jones?
A. He had on a pair of pantaloons, when I met him at the door and looked at him, that I knew, and I am particularly confident that I knew his walk; as I went out I looked at him.
Q. What kind of a walk has James Jones—the real Jones?
A. A sort of a teetering walk, a sort of swing that made me look at him.
Q. Is James Jones the only man you ever saw who had a swinging walk?
A. No, sir; but if it is a person you have been working with a long time and have noticed particular you can tell the walk. There may be a walk like his, but to the best of my knowledge that was him.
Q. Would you swear it was him?
A. I will tell you more. My wife looked at him, and his gown that he had on fell off while he was there. He had been to our house several times before that, and she had looked at his clothes. He is like one of our home folks, and she knew them. There was the same pantaloons and the same coat pockets, all agreed just for him, and he stammered a sort of talk like this. [The witness assuming an unnatural bass tone.] He tried to talk a sort of Irish, outlandish like that—to keep us from understanding him or that it was him, until they got mad, and then they talked naturally.
Q. Did Jimmy Jones get mad too?
A. No, sir, but he talked with a different voice from natural.
Q. Did that help you to discover him, by his voice?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Is it easier to discover a man by a counterfeit voice than by his natural tone?
A. Sometimes he would talk pretty naturally in his own voice again, and we knew his foolish ways; he is a mighty brickety fellow.
Q. What business does he follow?
A. He is the one that took my money.
Q. What business does he follow as a profession?
Q. Does he own a farm?
A. Yes, sir; cotton and corn.
Q. Does Reeves own a farm?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Does Presley?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. I thought you said Presley was the son of a man who owned a farm.
A. Yes, sir; the land belongs to his father but he manages it.
Q. You are satisfied that these three men were there that night and Ku–Kluxed you?
A. I believe it with the bottom of my heart.
Q. They asked for your money?
A. Yes, sir; they asked for my cotton money.
Q. Did they get the money?
A. Yes, sir; $31.40.
Q. Then they were robbers as well as Ku–Klux?
A. Yes, sir; I told it to the neighbors all about, and everybody said “Who was it?” but I knew that such a company could not have gone and made the fuss and noise they did and nobody know it.
Q. Did you tell anybody that you found or discovered Reeves, or Jones, or Presley?
A. No, sir; I never told that to anybody.
Q. Who did you first tell it to?
A. Here is the first place I ever made the discovery to anybody, when I told it here today.
Q. Then this is the first time you have told who these men were?
A. Yes, sir; the first time I have told it plainly. I gave little scattering hints, but I never made it plain.
Q. Who did you give scattering hints to?
A. Dr. Barron was talking to me, and I told him I knew the men, and he told me it was a very difficult thing without I was confident. I would not positively say. One of them had a scar under here, [under the chin,] where he had had a boil, and my daughters both saw the scar and knew it, and I saw it. He was about the size of that young man, [a young man of slight build, and less than ordinary height.] He looked maybe a little bigger; he was a common–sized man. I will not say who he was, but that scar was in the company, and if any one knows the company that was along that night, if there was any such one in that company they might know it was him. It might point out the man.
By Mr. STEVENSON:
Q. Why did you not tell these names before today?
A. Because they would have killed me. I began to talk a little about it, and I heard something. They laid a trap. There was a paper that they would be on me again. I went to Mr. Jerome Miller’s and Dr. Miller’s and laid there several nights. I expected to be shot. Dr. Miller told me and Jerome did, that I need not be afraid; that they would guarantee that I would not be disturbed any more; that they had attended to it. I took them as friends. They told me I need not be afraid; they had attended to it. Mark you, I am a negro and cannot read or write, but I know some few things.
Q. You think that Reeves had a grudge against you because of the loss of the slaves?
A. Yes, sir; I say that now. I never told it before.
Q. Is he the only man in that neighborhood who has a grudge because of the loss of negroes?
A. I do not believe there was a man in the country cared about it except him. I would not have thought it of him unless he had been in such a passion—a temper raised to such a height.
Q. Are not all the old slave–holders more or less mad about the loss of their slaves?
A. O, yes, sir; but that was nothing to my children running away.
By the CHAIRMAN:
Q. How many children had you?
Q. Were they slaves at the time you bought your freedom?
A. Yes, sir; and several years afterward.
Q. Do you know where they are now?
A. Yes, sir; they are living with me now. Two of my daughters looked at those Ku–Klux the other night, and they said they would be qualified as to these men. One of my daughters had the measles and was in bed; the other was in bed, too; but when they came they looked at the Ku–Klux and knew them, and said they could swear to them.
NOTE BY MR. VAN TRUMP.—In the event that the general committee, at their meeting in September, shall decide on taking further testimony, I hereby give notice that I shall take additional testimony in relation to the evidence of one William K. Owens, a witness examined at Yorkville, South Carolina, not having time now to take the same.
P. VAN TRUMP.
Testimony Taken By The Joint Select Committee To Inquire Into The Condition of Affairs In The Late Insurrectionary States, South Carolina, Vol. III (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1872), pp. 1590–97.