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  Title: The Clansman

  An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

  Author: Thomas Dixon

  Release Date: August 9, 2008 [EBook #26240]

  Language: English

  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CLANSMAN ***

  Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed

  Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

  * * *

  THE CLANSMAN

  * * *

  The Illustrations Shown in This Edition Are Reproductions of Scenes from the Photo-Play of “The Birth of a Nation” Produced and Copyrighted by The Epoch Producing Corporation, to Whom the Publishers Desire to Express Their Thanks and Appreciation for Permission to Use the Pictures.

  * * *

  THE REIGN OF THE KLAN

  * * *

  THE CLANSMAN

  AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  OF THE KU KLUX KLAN

  BY

  THOMAS DIXON

  AUTHOR OF

  THE LEOPARD’S SPOTS, COMRADES, ETC.

  ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY

  THE BIRTH OF A NATION

  PRODUCED AND COPYRIGHTED BY

  EPOCH PRODUCING CORPORATION

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

  * * *

  Copyright, 1905

  By Thomas Dixon, Jr.

  THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

  * * *

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  A SCOTCH-IRISH LEADER OF THE SOUTH

  My Uncle, Colonel Leroy McAfee

  GRAND TITAN OF THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE

  KU KLUX KLAN

  * * *

  TO THE READER

  “The Clansman” is the second book of a series of historical novels planned on the Race Conflict. “The Leopard’s Spots” was the statement in historical outline of the conditions from the enfranchisement of the negro to his disfranchisement.

  “The Clansman” develops the true story of the “Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy,” which overturned the Reconstruction régime.

  The organization was governed by the Grand Wizard Commander-in-Chief, who lived at Memphis, Tennessee. The Grand Dragon commanded a State, the Grand Titan a Congressional District, the Grand Giant a County, and the Grand Cyclops a Township Den. The twelve volumes of Government reports on the famous Klan refer chiefly to events which occurred after 1870, the date of its dissolution.

  The chaos of blind passion that followed Lincoln’s assassination is inconceivable to-day. The revolution it produced in our Government, and the bold attempt of Thaddeus Stevens to Africanize ten great States of the American Union, read now like tales from “The Arabian Nights.”

  I have sought to preserve in this romance both the letter and the spirit of this remarkable period. The men who enact the drama of fierce revenge into which I have woven a double love story are historical figures. I have merely changed their names without taking a liberty with any essential historic fact.

  In the darkest hour of the life of the South, when her wounded people lay helpless amid rags and ashes under the beak and talon of the Vulture, suddenly from the mists of the mountains appeared a white cloud the size of a man’s hand. It grew until its mantle of mystery enfolded the stricken earth and sky. An “Invisible Empire” had risen from the field of Death and challenged the Visible to mortal combat.

  How the young South, led by the reincarnated souls of the Clansmen of Old Scotland, went forth under this cover and against overwhelming odds, daring exile, imprisonment, and a felon’s death, and saved the life of a people, forms one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of the Aryan race.

  Thomas Dixon, Jr.

  Dixondale, Va.

  December 14, 1904.

  * * *

  CONTENTS

  BOOK I

  THE ASSASSINATION

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. The Bruised Reed 3

  II. The Great Heart 19

  III. The Man of War 33

  IV. A Clash of Giants 38

  IV. The Battle of Love 56

  VI. The Assassination 61

  VII. The Frenzy of a Nation 80

  BOOK II

  THE REVOLUTION

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. The First Lady of the Land 90

  II. Sweethearts 101

  III. The Joy of Living 112

  IV. Hidden Treasure 115

  V. Across the Chasm 120

  VI. The Gauge of Battle 131

  VII. A Woman Laughs 136

  VIII. A Dream 148

  IX. The King Amuses Himself 152

  X. Tossed by the Storm 162

  XI. The Supreme Test 165

  XII. Triumph in Defeat 179

  BOOK III

  THE REIGN OF TERROR

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. A Fallen Slaveholder’s Mansion 187

  II. The Eyes of the Jungle 204

  III. Augustus Cæsar 209

  IV. At the Point of the Bayonet 218

  V. Forty Acres and a Mule 235

  VI. A Whisper in the Crowd 244

  VII. By the Light of a Torch 254

  VIII. The Riot in the Master’s Hall 263

  IX. At Lover’s Leap 276

  X. A Night Hawk 284

  XI. The Beat of a Sparrow’s Wing 297

  XII. At the Dawn of Day 305

  BOOK IV

  THE KU KLUX KLAN

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. The Hunt for the Animal 309

  II. The Fiery Cross 318

  III. The Parting of the Ways 327

  IV. The Banner of the Dragon 337

  V. The Reign of the Klan 341

  VI. The Counter Stroke 351

  VII. The Snare of the Fowler 358

  VIII. A Ride for a Life 362

  IX. “Vengeance Is Mine” 369

  * * *

  LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY

  Scene: Washington and the Foothills of the Carolinas.

  Time: 1865 to 1870.

  Ben Cameron Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan

  Margaret His Sister

  Mrs. Cameron His Mother

  Dr. Richard Cameron His Father

  Hon. Austin Stoneman Radical Leader of Congress

  Phil His Son

  Elsie His Daughter

  Marion Lenoir Ben's First Love

  Mrs. Lenoir Her Mother

  Jake A Faithful Man

  Silas Lynch A Negro Missionary

  Uncle Aleck The Member from Ulster

  Cindy His Wife

  Colonel Howle A Carpet-bagger

  Augustus Cæsar Of the Black Guard

  Charles Sumner Of Massachusetts

  Gen. Benjamin F. Butler Of Fort Fisher

  Andrew Johnson The President

  U. S. Grant The Commanding General

  Abraham Lincoln The Friend of the South

  * * *

  THE CLANSMAN

  * * *

  Book I—The Assassination

  CHAPTER I

  The Bruised Reed

  The fair girl who was playing a banjo and singing to the wounded soldiers suddenly stopped, and, turning to the surgeon, whispered:

  “What’s that?”

  “It sounds like a mob——”

  With a common impulse they moved to the open window of the hospital and listened.

  On the soft spring air came the roar of excited thousan
ds sweeping down the avenue from the Capitol toward the White House. Above all rang the cries of struggling newsboys screaming an “Extra.” One of them darted around the corner, his shrill voice quivering with excitement:

  “Extra! Extra! Peace! Victory!”

  Windows were suddenly raised, women thrust their heads out, and others rushed into the street and crowded around the boy, struggling to get his papers. He threw them right and left and snatched the money—no one asked for change. Without ceasing rose his cry:

  “Extra! Peace! Victory! Lee has surrendered!”

  At last the end had come.

  The great North, with its millions of sturdy people and their exhaustless resources, had greeted the first shot on Sumter with contempt and incredulity. A few regiments went forward for a month’s outing to settle the trouble. The Thirteenth Brooklyn marched gayly Southward on a thirty days’ jaunt, with pieces of rope conspicuously tied to their muskets with which to bring back each man a Southern prisoner to be led in a noose through the streets on their early triumphant return! It would be unkind to tell what became of those ropes when they suddenly started back home ahead of the scheduled time from the first battle of Bull Run.

  People from the South, equally wise, marched gayly North, to whip five Yankees each before breakfast, and encountered unforeseen difficulties.

  Both sides had things to learn, and learned them in a school whose logic is final—a four years’ course in the University of Hell—the scream of eagles, the howl of wolves, the bay of tigers, the roar of lions—all locked in Death’s embrace, and each mad scene lit by the glare of volcanoes of savage passions!

  But the long agony was over.

  The city bells began to ring. The guns of the forts joined the chorus, and their deep steel throats roared until the earth trembled.

  Just across the street a mother who was reading the fateful news turned and suddenly clasped a boy to her heart, crying for joy. The last draft of half a million had called for him.

  The Capital of the Nation was shaking off the long nightmare of horror and suspense. More than once the city had shivered at the mercy of those daring men in gray, and the reveille of their drums had startled even the President at his desk.

  Again and again had the destiny of the Republic hung on the turning of a hair, and in every crisis, Luck, Fate, God, had tipped the scale for the Union.

  A procession of more than five hundred Confederate deserters, who had crossed the lines in groups, swung into view, marching past the hospital, indifferent to the tumult. Only a nominal guard flanked them as they shuffled along, tired, ragged, and dirty. The gray in their uniforms was now the colour of clay. Some had on blue pantaloons, some, blue vests, others blue coats captured on the field of blood. Some had pieces of carpet, and others old bags around their shoulders. They had been passing thus for weeks. Nobody paid any attention to them.

  “One of the secrets of the surrender!” exclaimed Doctor Barnes. “Mr. Lincoln has been at the front for the past weeks with offers of peace and mercy, if they would lay down their arms. The great soul of the President, even the genius of Lee could not resist. His smile began to melt those gray ranks as the sun is warming the earth to-day.”

  “You are a great admirer of the President,” said the girl, with a curious smile.

  “Yes, Miss Elsie, and so are all who know him.”

  She turned from the window without reply. A shadow crossed her face as she looked past the long rows of cots, on which rested the men in blue, until her eyes found one on which lay, alone among his enemies, a young Confederate officer.

  The surgeon turned with her toward the man.

  “Will he live?” she asked.

  “Yes, only to be hung.”

  “For what?” she cried.

  “Sentenced by court-martial as a guerilla. It’s a lie, but there’s some powerful hand back of it—some mysterious influence in high authority. The boy wasn’t fully conscious at the trial.”

  “We must appeal to Mr. Stanton.”

  “As well appeal to the devil. They say the order came from his office.”

  “A boy of nineteen!” she exclaimed. “It’s a shame. I’m looking for his mother. You told me to telegraph to Richmond for her.”

  “Yes, I’ll never forget his cries that night, so utterly pitiful and childlike. I’ve heard many a cry of pain, but in all my life nothing so heartbreaking as that boy in fevered delirium talking to his mother. His voice is one of peculiar tenderness, penetrating and musical. It goes quivering into your soul, and compels you to listen until you swear it’s your brother or sweetheart or sister or mother calling you. You should have seen him the day he fell. God of mercies, the pity and the glory of it!”

  “YOUR BROTHER SPRANG FORWARD AND CAUGHT HIM IN HIS ARMS.”

  “Phil wrote me that he was a hero and asked me to look after him. Were you there?”

  “Yes, with the battery your brother was supporting. He was the colonel of a shattered rebel regiment lying just in front of us before Petersburg. Richmond was doomed, resistance was madness, but there they were, ragged and half starved, a handful of men, not more than four hundred, but their bayonets gleamed and flashed in the sunlight. In the face of a murderous fire he charged and actually drove our men out of an entrenchment. We concentrated our guns on him as he crouched behind this earthwork. Our own men lay outside in scores, dead, dying, and wounded. When the fire slacked, we could hear their cries for water.

  “Suddenly this boy sprang on the breastwork. He was dressed in a new gray colonel’s uniform that mother of his, in the pride of her soul, had sent him.

  “He was a handsome figure—tall, slender, straight, a gorgeous yellow sash tasselled with gold around his waist, his sword flashing in the sun, his slouch hat cocked on one side and an eagle’s feather in it.

  “We thought he was going to lead another charge, but just as the battery was making ready to fire he deliberately walked down the embankment in a hail of musketry and began to give water to our wounded men.

  “Every gun ceased firing, and we watched him. He walked back to the trench, his naked sword flashed suddenly above that eagle’s feather, and his grizzled ragamuffins sprang forward and charged us like so many demons.

  “There were not more than three hundred of them now, but on they came, giving that hellish rebel yell at every jump—the cry of the hunter from the hilltop at the sight of his game! All Southern men are hunters, and that cry was transformed in war into something unearthly when it came from a hundred throats in chorus and the game was human.

  “Of course, it was madness. We blew them down that hill like chaff before a hurricane. When the last man had staggered back or fallen, on came this boy alone, carrying the colours he had snatched from a falling soldier, as if he were leading a million men to victory.

  “A bullet had blown his hat from his head, and we could see the blood streaming down the side of his face. He charged straight into the jaws of one of our guns. And then, with a smile on his lips and a dare to death in his big brown eyes, he rammed that flag into the cannon’s mouth, reeled, and fell! A cheer broke from our men.

  “Your brother sprang forward and caught him in his arms, and as we bent over the unconscious form, he exclaimed: ‘My God, doctor, look at him! He is so much like me I feel as if I had been shot myself!’ They were as much alike as twins—only his hair was darker. I tell you, Miss Elsie, it’s a sin to kill men like that. One such man is worth more to this nation than every negro that ever set his flat foot on this continent!”

  The girl’s eyes had grown dim as she listened to the story.

  “I will appeal to the President,” she said firmly.

  “It’s the only chance. And just now he is under tremendous pressure. His friendly order to the Virginia Legislature to return to Richmond, Stanton forced him to cancel. A master hand has organized a conspiracy in Congress to crush the President. They curse his policy of mercy as imbecility, and swear to make the South a second Poland. Their watc
hwords are vengeance and confiscation. Four fifths of his party in Congress are in this plot. The President has less than a dozen real friends in either House on whom he can depend. They say that Stanton is to be given a free hand, and that the gallows will be busy. This cancelled order of the President looks like it.”

  “I’ll try my hand with Mr. Stanton,” she said with slow emphasis.

  “Good luck, Little Sister—let me know if I can help,” the surgeon answered cheerily as he passed on his round of work.

  Elsie Stoneman took her seat beside the cot of the wounded Confederate and began softly to sing and play.

  A little farther along the same row a soldier was dying, a faint choking just audible in his throat. An attendant sat beside him and would not leave till the last. The ordinary chat and hum of the ward went on indifferent to peace, victory, life, or death. Before the finality of the hospital all other events of earth fade. Some were playing cards or checkers, some laughing and joking, and others reading.

  At the first soft note from the singer the games ceased, and the reader put down his book.

  The banjo had come to Washington with the negroes following the wake of the army. She had laid aside her guitar and learned to play all the stirring camp songs of the South. Her voice was low, soothing, and tender. It held every silent listener in a spell.

  As she played and sang the songs the wounded man loved, her eyes lingered in pity on his sun-bronzed face, pinched and drawn with fever. He was sleeping the stupid sleep that gives no rest. She could count the irregular pounding of his heart in the throb of the big vein on his neck. His lips were dry and burnt, and the little boyish moustache curled upward from the row of white teeth as if scorched by the fiery breath.