S.

L. D.

AUTHENTIC HISTORY

KU KLUX KLAN, 1865-1877

BY

SUSAN LAWRENCE DAVIS

1924

SUSAN LAWRENCE DAVIS

Publisher

488 Seventh

Avenue

New

York, N. Y.

Copyright, 1924, by

SUSAN LAWRENCE DAVIS

Monox
Picture, Foreign,

and Aix

Other Rights Reserved

Printed in U.S. A.

XVIII.

ARKANSAS.
The
stated
facts

of Reconstruction in Arkansas were

by

W. M.

Fishback as follows
will be

"To

obtain a clear appreciation of the state of

it

things in Arkansas during reconstruction

necessary to show

how

the 'carpet-bag' government

;

was put upon our people by Congress also the sort of government it was. It is well known that the Southern people had returned from the Civil War utterly impoverished. Nothing was left for the support of themselves and their families except their own courage and manhood. The people trusting implicitly upon the good faith of Congress pursued their labors feeling assured that nothing damaging to their interests would be consummated without their consent. The constitutional convention met and formulated a constitution which was so unrepublican in its schedule that the people did not dream Congress would approve it and accordingly not half of them voted upon its ratification. This constitution gave to three men, James L. Hodges, Joseph Brooks and Thomas M. Bowen, such absolute control of the election of state and county officials under it that they could
elect or defeat

whom

they wished.
269

270

AUTHENTIC HISTORY
to select such judges and

They were given power

clerks of election as they

saw

fit.

They were given

power to reject or count all votes which seemed to them legal or illegal, fraudulent or rightful. Section
eleven of this constitution gave these election judges the right to allow
satisfied

any vote with which they might be

The "carpet-bag" politicians elected under this knew there was likely to be trouble as soon as the people should find out how they had been betrayed and how wantonly they were to be plunconstitution

dered of every sacred right of the

citizen.

Although General C. H. Smith, U. S. A., commanding the District of Arkansas, wrote his superior officer that there was no state of facts existing in Arkansas to warrant such a step, the governor upon
the flimsiest pretext declared martial law in

many

of

the counties in the state.

Negro
at

militia

maurauded and murdered

counties.

will

marched and through these

an amnesty act forbidding the punishment of any of the murders or outrages committed by this negro militia. It protected a multitude of wanton crimes. In the face of these outrages what was there then about the republican party as our people know it to
legislature passed at this time

The

commend
South?

it

to self-respecting, patriotic

men
it

of the

Surely, after reading these facts

will not

be hard for our fair-thinking fellow citizens of the North to account for the solidity of the south and the

KU KLUX KLAN,
organization of the

1865-1877

271

Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas, which

was led by

GENERAL ALBERT

PIKE.

General Albert Pike was born in Boston, Massachusetts, December 29, 1809. When he was four years old his parents removed to Newburyport in the same State, where young Pike grew to manhood, getting
the usual education of the times in the

common schools,

supplemented by a few terms at a private school in the same town and at the academy in Framingham. He began to teach school at the age of fifteen and when sixteen passed an examination for and entered the freshman class at Harvard. Owing to straitened circumstances he paid for his board and tuition by teaching during the fall and winter at Gloucester. He fitted himself while teaching to enter the Junior class in the fall of 1826 and passed the necessary examination, but owing to a misunderstanding with the faculty regarding his tuition fees he returned home and educated himself, going through the prescribed course of studies for the junior

and

senior

years while teaching.

He

taught in Fairhaven and

afterward as assistant and principal in the grammar school at Newburyport and then for several years in a private school in the latter town, until March, 1831.

In the spring of 1831 he started for the West, walking much of the way, and for the next few years traveled, explored, traded and lived among the In-

272

AUTHENTIC HISTORY
language and customs, and by
honest

dians, learning their

his

and straight-forward association with

them, gained a confidence which thirty years afterwards, during the great Civil
useful and powerful

War, made him

later

so

among them

in the cause of the

in the

Confederacy which he espoused, and

prosecution of claims against the

U. S. Government in their behalf. General Pike commanded a regiment and afterward a brigade of Indian troops, C. S. A. He settled in Little Rock in 1833 and it was there that he became editor of the Arkansas Gazette, studied law and wrote for some of the magazines. His series of poems entitled "Hymns to the Gods," which were written earlier, some of them while surrounded by
pupils in the classroom, he sent to the editor of

Blackwood's Magazine, Edinburgh, Scotland, John Wilson, who published them about 1838, pronouncing him "The coming poet of America" and remarking that "These fine hymns entitle their author to
take his place in the highest order of his country's poets" and that "His massive genius marks him to be
the poet of the Titans," but his
is

poem "Every Year"

called his masterpiece.

General Pike was a Captain of Cavalry in the Mexican War where he served with distinction, participating in the battle of

Buena Vista and afterwards

riding

a distance of five hundred miles, from Saltillo to Chiahuahua, through a country swarming with the fugi-

from Santa Anna's defeated armies., with only forty-one men of his command, receiving the surrender of the city of Mapini on the way.
tive soldiers

KU KLUX KLAN,

1865-1877

273

About 1851 he transferred the practice of law from Little Rock to New Orleans, practicing also before the Supreme Court of the United States, returning in 1857 to Little Rock where he remained until
the outbreak of the Civil

War, when he

served as

commissioner for negotiating treaties with the Indians and as Brigadier General in the Confederate
States

Army.

After the

War

between the States he resided in

Memphis, Tennessee, for several years, moving to Washington about 1869, where he resided for the remainder of his life. His death occurred on April 2,
1891, in the eighty-second year of his age.

He

joined Free

Masonry

in 1850

and

in less

than

nine years became the highest ranking officer in this

institution, becoming Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, which is the "Mother Supreme Council of the World" and was founded at Charleston, South Carolina, May 31, 1801, and which office he occupied from 1859 until his death in 1891. General Pike became universally known throughout the masonic world by reason of his activities in promoting the growth of this branch of Free Masonry and it was his genius that evolved the modern rituals of this masonic rite out of the older

rituals in use in earlier times.

As
his

a lawyer he was one of the foremost jurists of day. As a scholar, philosopher, poet and master

of languages he ranked with the most eminent, and

as a soldier

and statesman

his ability

was unques-

274
tioned.

AUTHENTIC HISTORY

He has been called the "Homer of America" and "The Zoroaster of modern Asia." It was when he was sixty-five years old that he began the study of the Sanscrit language and after mastering this ancient and now obsolete tongue was fourteen years translating the Vedas and other sacred books of the East. Besides poetry and his numerous masonic writings, he wrote on law, politics, philosophy, military science and general literature. His manuscript writings total in round numbers 36,000 pages and his
printed writings total about 25,000 pages.
cally all of his

Practi-

works are to be found in the Library at Washington. It is an interesting fact and significant of the man that he never published any book for sale. With the exception of his legal briefs, whatever he had printed was done at his own expense for private circulation or was donated to the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree over which he presided for so many years. His versatile mind, genius, and tremendous energy are best illustrated by a perusal of the bibliography of his writings which is in print. On his death-bed he took up an old-fashioned pencil and calling for a slip of paper wrote this now famous thought: "Shalom! Peace that comes with blessing to care-fretted weary men, when Death's dreamless sleep ends all suffering and sorrow." James D. Richardson, 33rd Degree (Tennessee) said in his address at the dedication of the Memorial to General Pike, the magnificent Temple of the
of the

Supreme Council

KU KLUX KLAN,
Supreme Council on 16th
Street,

1865-1877

275

Washington, D. C.

"When

he closed his eyes in death the greatest light

Free Masonry, in any land, went Scottish Masons everywhere, no matter what out. language they spoke, knew him and bore testimony The to their reverence and admiration for him.
that ever shone in

Grand Bodies

of the Rite in

many

other lands de-

lighted to honor him; in addition to the high honors

bestowed upon him by the Mother Supreme Council of the World he was Honorary Grand Commander of the Supreme Councils of Brazil (United), Egypt and Tunis Honorary Member of the Supreme Councils for the Northern Jurisdiction of the United States, France, Belgium, Italy at Torino, Spain, England and Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Greece, Hungary, Nueva Granada, Canada, Colon, Peru,
;

Mexico and Uruguay."

For

the foregoing biography of General Pike, I

am

greatly indebted to

Wm.

L. Boyden, 33rd Deof the

gree,

Librarian of

The Temple

Supreme

Council of the 33rd and Last Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Free Masonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America, Washington, D. C. Part of a set of chess men was taken from the mountain home of Albert Pike when it was raided by a detachment of the Second Kansas, U. S. A. Cavalry, who were camped near Little Rock, Ark.,

summer of 1863. When they returned to camp they distributed their booty and these chess
in the

men

fell

to the lot of Capt. E. S. Stover of Co. B.

276

AUTHENTIC HISTORY
Rite Masons there.
so

Soon after the war he moved to New Mexico and became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scottish

many years, and when he was then over 80 years of age (though now dead) he returned them to be placed among the relics of General Pike
In 1915, after
in the Library of the

SUPREME COUNCIL.
I was a
little girl.

These old-fashioned chess men were like the ones in my home with which General Forrest played a

"make

believe"

game with me when

General Albert Pike had a most remarkable memory, and one of his greatest feats in this line was reproducing entirely from memory the Scottish
Rite Ritual,
all

copies of

it

having been destroyed

C, when it was burned by the Federals during the Civil War. General Pike organized the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas after General Forrest appointed him Grand Dragon of that Realm at the convention at Nashville,
by
fire in

Charleston, S.

Tenn.

He

was

also appointed at that time Chief

Judicial Officer of

The

Invisible

in this capacity that the

Ku

Empire. He advised Klux Klan memorize their

public.

Ritual and to never

make

it

I have made diligent effort to obtain a written Ritual and have requested hundreds of the original Klan to recite this for me and they have always said
that this one secret

would never be revealed.

General Pike appointed Mr. Henry Fielding and Mr. Eppie Fielding of Fayetteville, Arkansas, to

him in organizing Dens in that state. They were members of the Athens, Ala., Klan from its beassist

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IJSI

THE WALLACE HOUSE

Organized November 28, 1876

which redeemed South Carolina from "Carpet Bag" Speaker Wallace in Center. Rule."
(See page 215 for other

and

"Negro

names

(Contributed by Mrs. Margaret Wallace Gage, daughter of General Wallace, Birmingham, Ala.)

KU KLUX KLAN,

1865-1877

277

ginning and went to Arkansas, to live in 1867. They were Confederate soldiers, and gave me much information about the powerful influence General Pike had over the people of Arkansas during the dark

days of reconstruction. In 1872 Arkansas had two governments operating at one time and civil war was threatened and great excitement prevailed against the Washington Government.
Little

General Pike called a mass meeting at Rock, Ark., in the Capitol building and ap-

pealed to the people to be patient until better times

would come and assured them that he would go to Washington and intercede for them, which he did

many times. At this meeting General Pike

and Stripes and
in a

unfurled the Stars

most beautiful manner, asked the people to follow it, which thousands of them did, promising him to be patient until the Ku Klux Klan could redeem the state.