Part 44 (1/2)

*For letter in full, see Governor's Letter-book, page 328.

**For letter in full, see Governor's Letter-book, page 329.

12. At the time when the Governor was so anxious thus ”summarily”

to try and shoot people, not a single man had been killed in Caswell, and only one in Alamance. It might be borne in mind, too, that the men whom he refers to, and whom he afterwards arrested as a.s.sa.s.sins and murderers, were among the best men in all the land, many of them venerable for age as well as respected for personal integrity and Christian character.

QUESTIONS.

1. How did our people take the many changes in State polity?

2. What was done with the University?

3. How was the manner of electing judges changed? What was the effect of this change?

4. What secret organization was formed at this time?

5. What is said of the Ku-Klux?

6. Can you tell something of the condition of society?

7. How are the doings of the Ku-Klux considered?

8. What was done by the Governor in regard to the Ku-Klux?

9. What occurred in Alamance county?

10. What was the general effect produced by the Federal troops?

11. What was the next step taken by Governor Holden?

12. Who were the men arrested by order of the Governor?

CHAPTER LXVII.

THE RESULTS OF RECONSTRUCTION--Continued.

A. D. 1868 TO 1870.

On the 21st of May, John W. Stephens, then a Senator from Caswell county, was secretly murdered in an unused room in the courthouse at Yanceyville. A large concourse filled the house when the deed was committed, the occasion being a Democratic political gathering, and Stephens was seen and talked to at the meeting, being there as a spectator. Strange to say, however, it is a mystery to this day as to who committed the crime.

2. It was insisted by Governor Holden and his party that Stephens had been murdered by the Ku-Klux. This however, was as stoutly denied, and the a.s.sertion added that, as Stephens was an object of derision and contempt rather than of hatred, there was neither desire nor cause to put him to death.

3. Meanwhile, Congress had refused to confer upon the President the power to declare martial law, and the August elections kept drawing near. A new Attorney-General and a new Legislature and new Congressmen were to be elected. The Governor and his party were therefore compelled to rely on the Shoffner bill alone.

4. State troops, as they were called, were now recruited, and, on the 21st of June, George W. Kirke, a brutal ruffian of infamous character, and known to be such, who had commanded a regiment of Federal troops during the war, was brought from his home in Tennessee and commissioned Colonel. This man Kirke, in his public posters calling for recruits, the original of which was found in Governor Holden's own hand-writing, appealed to his old comrades to join him, saying that ”the blood of their murdered countrymen, inhumanly butchered for opinion's sake, cried to them from the ground for ensconce.”

5. On the 8th of July, the county of Caswell was declared to be in a state of insurrection. Meanwhile, however, a company of Federal troops had been stationed at Yanceyville, and had found use for neither ball nor bayonet, and in both Alamance and Caswell the courts were open and not the slightest obstruction to any process of the law.