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White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction
Allen W. Trelease's "White Terror," originally published in 1971, was the first scholarly history of the Ku Klux Klan in the South during the Reconstruction period, and based as it is on massive research in primary sources, it remains the most comprehensive treatment of the subject. In addition to the Klan, Trelease discusses other night-riding groups, including the Ghouls, the White Brotherhood, and the Knights of the White Camellia. He treats the entire South state by state, details the close link between the Klan and the Democratic party, and recounts Republican efforts to resist the Klan.
557 pages, Paperback
First published March 21, 1979
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October 18, 2020
In White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction, Allen W. Trelease explains his thesis that the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a reaction to the growing power of blacks in the South after emancipation. He argues his point in six chronologically organized parts divided into twenty-five chapters. He describes the Klan’s impact on states throughout the South including Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, George, South Carolina, and Florida. Essentially, the book details the conception and early years of the KKK in depth with plenty of evidence.
In Part I, “Klan Beginnings in Tennessee,” Trelease explains the birth of the Klan at Pulaski, Tennessee, in Thomas M. Jones law office, on a date that is not specifically known. He begins by writing that this is one of the many mysteries surrounding the Klan, but believes that it was either in May or early June 1866. The six original members were Captain John C. Lester, Major James R. Crow, John B. Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard R. Reed, and Frank O. McCord. According to the author, all were Confederate veterans and all were looking for amusement after the tedium of the postwar era (3). At its conception, the Klan had no motive except that it was, “designed purely for amusement, and for some time after its founding it had no ulterior motive or effect” (5). Eventually, the organization expanded physically and along with that, their goals evolved to curb lawlessness and Unionism, and above all, “keeping the Negro in his place” (10). At this time, the group would only resort to threats and not physical violence.
Part II, “Expansion Throughout the South, Spring and Summer, 1868,” continues the explanation of the Klan’s expansion throughout the states in the South. The group expanded first into Alabama and Mississippi and later into Georgia and the Carolinas. Here, the first form of “violence” is described as the Klansmen dressing up and acting like ghosts, as if they had been raised from the dead, where they would show up at the doorsteps of blacks. According to Trelease, the act was not believable and that blacks feared the “mortals they knew to be hiding in sheets while threatening or committing crimes of violence” (57). The author also explains the importance of the Democratic press in the South as the reason that the KKK expanded as quickly as it did. They gave the Klan favorable coverage until they got violent, then they would discredit those acts or claim that it was a hoax.
Next, in Part III, titled “The Klan Fails to Elect a President,” Trelease explains the importance of the presidential election in 1868, and details the tactics that the Klan used to get the Democratic candidate, Schuyler Colfax. Essentially, the Klan made their presence known at the polls, making threats to those blacks who made it. At this time, major terror tactics made their first appearance, Klan members would ride horses to the homes of blacks and fire shots through their windows, raided their homes, or murdered them. Obviously, Colfax lost the election to the Republican Ulysses S. Grant; the Klan did not succeed through the use of terror and therefore was weakened and disbanded in some states. Trelease adds that those that did not were more violent and dangerous than ever before.
Part IV, “The Klan in 1869 and 1870,” deals with the emergence of the Klan in the areas where it was not as active such as North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In 1869, the terror was worse than it had ever been. Trelease mentions many examples of violence such as the kidnapping of a black man named Caswell Holt who was a suspect in thievery. The Klan went to his house, hung him by the neck from a tree limb, raising him just enough to stand on his tiptoes in an attempt to get a confession. He refused, was beaten, and took the case to court where the backward, white protecting tactics, began. Nobody was found guilty. They returned a year later, and shot through the front door ravaging his daughters and throwing his possessions out of the house. The Klan reemerged in the other states and terror tactics were expanded in the South.
Part V, “The Culmination of the Ku Klux Terror, 1871,” explains the expansion of terror from the early life threatening tactics to those that took lives. The Klan did not just use their tactics to put down illegal activity but also legal and social activities. Whippings for workers accused of laziness were a common occurrence and blacks who intruded on white rights were whipped or even killed. Republican officeholders were also targeted in 1871, that Trelease depicts as the height of the Klan. Most states had achieved Democratic victories at the state level and the Klan looked to rid those governments of all Republican participants.
Finally, in Part VI, “The Federal Government and the Ku Klux Klan, 1870-1872” deals with the federal government’s attempt at creating legislation to make the Klan’s terror tactics illegal. The issue that they faced dealt with federalism and the jurisdiction of the federal government. The states were left to deal with most of the results of terror by the KKK and Congress was not allowed by the Constitution to make laws limiting their tactics. President Grant was more able to sequester the Klan because of the presence of the Army in the South who arrested many suspected Klansmen. Congress passed The Enforcement Act of May 31, 1870 that made it a federal offense to bribe or intimidate voters. Section 6, the most important part of the legislation, “made it a felony for two or more persons to conspire together or go in disguise with intent to deprive someone of any right or privilege of citizenship, or to punish him afterward for exercising it” (385). The law allowed for investigation of the Klan and eventually led to the arrests and trials of many members, the first of which were two men from North Carolina and eventually led to mass arrests in 1872.
Reviewers of White Terror are positive about the book as an important piece of history. They write that the book is well written and explains the story of the KKK very well. One reviewer, Stanley P. Hirshson, does criticize the work because it neglects the papers of Northern Democrats and of Northerners’ participation in the Klan conspiracy. He also sums it up as a “monument to the folly of the majority, the Republicans who sat around while their fellow party members were being attacked and who complacently watched the destruction of the Southern wing of their party.”
Trelease’s book is well written and takes on an interesting topic making it a relatively easy read. The book is lengthy but is filled with research that supports his thesis and shows the evolution of the KKK from a small organization of people looking for something to break the monotony of postwar life to a large group using terror to maintain white supremacy in the South. At times, the book does get monotonous because of the way that it is organized, taking the state and regional approach. That approach though allows for a detailed view of the Klan in the postwar period. Overall, the book is a valuable and important one because it is the most authoritative view of the KKK and sheds light on the creation, growth and downfall of the group.
In Part I, “Klan Beginnings in Tennessee,” Trelease explains the birth of the Klan at Pulaski, Tennessee, in Thomas M. Jones law office, on a date that is not specifically known. He begins by writing that this is one of the many mysteries surrounding the Klan, but believes that it was either in May or early June 1866. The six original members were Captain John C. Lester, Major James R. Crow, John B. Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard R. Reed, and Frank O. McCord. According to the author, all were Confederate veterans and all were looking for amusement after the tedium of the postwar era (3). At its conception, the Klan had no motive except that it was, “designed purely for amusement, and for some time after its founding it had no ulterior motive or effect” (5). Eventually, the organization expanded physically and along with that, their goals evolved to curb lawlessness and Unionism, and above all, “keeping the Negro in his place” (10). At this time, the group would only resort to threats and not physical violence.
Part II, “Expansion Throughout the South, Spring and Summer, 1868,” continues the explanation of the Klan’s expansion throughout the states in the South. The group expanded first into Alabama and Mississippi and later into Georgia and the Carolinas. Here, the first form of “violence” is described as the Klansmen dressing up and acting like ghosts, as if they had been raised from the dead, where they would show up at the doorsteps of blacks. According to Trelease, the act was not believable and that blacks feared the “mortals they knew to be hiding in sheets while threatening or committing crimes of violence” (57). The author also explains the importance of the Democratic press in the South as the reason that the KKK expanded as quickly as it did. They gave the Klan favorable coverage until they got violent, then they would discredit those acts or claim that it was a hoax.
Next, in Part III, titled “The Klan Fails to Elect a President,” Trelease explains the importance of the presidential election in 1868, and details the tactics that the Klan used to get the Democratic candidate, Schuyler Colfax. Essentially, the Klan made their presence known at the polls, making threats to those blacks who made it. At this time, major terror tactics made their first appearance, Klan members would ride horses to the homes of blacks and fire shots through their windows, raided their homes, or murdered them. Obviously, Colfax lost the election to the Republican Ulysses S. Grant; the Klan did not succeed through the use of terror and therefore was weakened and disbanded in some states. Trelease adds that those that did not were more violent and dangerous than ever before.
Part IV, “The Klan in 1869 and 1870,” deals with the emergence of the Klan in the areas where it was not as active such as North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In 1869, the terror was worse than it had ever been. Trelease mentions many examples of violence such as the kidnapping of a black man named Caswell Holt who was a suspect in thievery. The Klan went to his house, hung him by the neck from a tree limb, raising him just enough to stand on his tiptoes in an attempt to get a confession. He refused, was beaten, and took the case to court where the backward, white protecting tactics, began. Nobody was found guilty. They returned a year later, and shot through the front door ravaging his daughters and throwing his possessions out of the house. The Klan reemerged in the other states and terror tactics were expanded in the South.
Part V, “The Culmination of the Ku Klux Terror, 1871,” explains the expansion of terror from the early life threatening tactics to those that took lives. The Klan did not just use their tactics to put down illegal activity but also legal and social activities. Whippings for workers accused of laziness were a common occurrence and blacks who intruded on white rights were whipped or even killed. Republican officeholders were also targeted in 1871, that Trelease depicts as the height of the Klan. Most states had achieved Democratic victories at the state level and the Klan looked to rid those governments of all Republican participants.
Finally, in Part VI, “The Federal Government and the Ku Klux Klan, 1870-1872” deals with the federal government’s attempt at creating legislation to make the Klan’s terror tactics illegal. The issue that they faced dealt with federalism and the jurisdiction of the federal government. The states were left to deal with most of the results of terror by the KKK and Congress was not allowed by the Constitution to make laws limiting their tactics. President Grant was more able to sequester the Klan because of the presence of the Army in the South who arrested many suspected Klansmen. Congress passed The Enforcement Act of May 31, 1870 that made it a federal offense to bribe or intimidate voters. Section 6, the most important part of the legislation, “made it a felony for two or more persons to conspire together or go in disguise with intent to deprive someone of any right or privilege of citizenship, or to punish him afterward for exercising it” (385). The law allowed for investigation of the Klan and eventually led to the arrests and trials of many members, the first of which were two men from North Carolina and eventually led to mass arrests in 1872.
Reviewers of White Terror are positive about the book as an important piece of history. They write that the book is well written and explains the story of the KKK very well. One reviewer, Stanley P. Hirshson, does criticize the work because it neglects the papers of Northern Democrats and of Northerners’ participation in the Klan conspiracy. He also sums it up as a “monument to the folly of the majority, the Republicans who sat around while their fellow party members were being attacked and who complacently watched the destruction of the Southern wing of their party.”
Trelease’s book is well written and takes on an interesting topic making it a relatively easy read. The book is lengthy but is filled with research that supports his thesis and shows the evolution of the KKK from a small organization of people looking for something to break the monotony of postwar life to a large group using terror to maintain white supremacy in the South. At times, the book does get monotonous because of the way that it is organized, taking the state and regional approach. That approach though allows for a detailed view of the Klan in the postwar period. Overall, the book is a valuable and important one because it is the most authoritative view of the KKK and sheds light on the creation, growth and downfall of the group.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2015
This was comprehensive look at the activities of the Klu Klux Klan right after the Civil War ended. It was born in Tennessee and spread throughout the south states. They heavily opposed Reconstruction programs of the time. They didn't have a single overall organization but were many groups obviously inspired by the original group. The midnight riders would use a policy of beatings, whippings, rape, arson, shootings and lynching. Their two main targets were recently freed slaves and Republicans. It became such an issue that Congress eventually took action in 1871. After lengthy investigations they were able to make prosecutions and convictions but were relatively small in comparison to the actual number terrorist-like activities that went on. Even so it did slow down curtail the vast majority of activities. By the time Reconstruction ended in the 1877 and the advent of the Jim Crow era of the south the need for the group dropped drastically. The KKK did have revivals first inspired by the film "Birth of a Nation" in the 1920's and then during the segregation/Civil Rights battles of the 1950's and 1960's. This is an excellent reference for those looking into the birth of the Klu Klux Klan Reconstruction period. I think this is an often overlooked element during this time period in American History.
January 27, 2020
A comprehensive and highly detailed survey of the Ku Klux Klan's beginnings in early Reconstruction Tennessee and its proliferation throughout the American South. Trelease challenges the Klan apologism of his scholarly forbears and nineteenth-century Democratic propaganda by arguing that the Klan was a very real and politically motivated terrorist vigilante auxiliary of the Southern Democratic Party. A reactionary "counterrevolutionary device" to reverse Reconstruction-era policies, the Klan thrived by way of tacit Democratic sanctioning of its reign of terror, the Democrat's quiet support lying at the crux of what Trelease calls the Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy. Trelease follows Klan violence chronologically, state-by-state, and county-by-county from its beginnings and spread during the spring and summer of 1868, it's surge during the Election of 1868 and its climax from 1869 to 1872. Trelease pays special attention to the role of Democratic newspapers in shaping public opinion and racist public complicity with the Klan. By the same token, the author attends to Republican efforts to subdue Klan violence often resorting to militia campaigns, federal troops, and in some cases martial law or the suspension of habeas corpus. The book ties up its argument with a survey of the political proceedings in Washington that ultimately dissolved the South's first wave of Klan activity in the American South and ends with a reflection on the Klan's second life in American history during the early and mid-twentieth century. The second Klan and today's Klan being new evolutions of its "spiritual ancestor" (422).
April 11, 2016
I've finally finished it!!! This book was jam-packed with information, a lot of information. Some times, I couldn't wrap my head around how this organization, or lack thereof, could do such horrid things. This book was well put together and very detailed. Even though I had to read this book for a history project, I'm happy I chose this one.
December 30, 2025
Holy shit, there is so much more to it than I knew. This book splits the South into regions and then splits those regions by year, tracking the Klan through all of it. I'm mostly reading it to learn about black resistance, of which there was a lot. State backed (or not) anti-Klan militias, organized arson campaigns against Klan plantations, mobilizing to outnumber the Klan, killing at least one of your lynchers, etc. The most 'fun' was reading about the Lowry band's war on first the confederacy and then the Klan. But the Klan outnumbered and outgunned blacks and Republicans and usually the weak-to-non-existent state governments. When the Klan was thwarted, they regrouped in larger numbers and carried out massacres, often killing hundreds at a time.
The first Klan was hardly an organization and more a way of acting. It's supposed leader tried to disband it 3 years before Klan violence even peaked. It didn't take orders from its founders, and plenty didn't seem to know it was founded in Pulaski, TN. In reality it was usually the nighttime arm of the Democratic Party and was most active around election time, and so coalesced around state and regional goals. Some places were even less organized than that.
The Klan started as a lark for bored professionals but within a few years killed thousands of people, black and white unionists or Republicans. The number of elected officials they assassinated was huge. The Klan was cross-class in membership but lead and directed by the "respectable" class. There was no standard uniform and many wore no disguise at all. The founders created rituals but most either didn't follow them or made up their own.
Plenty more to say, but this is hands-down the best book I've found on the first Klan. If you live in the South I highly recommend reading about exactly what happened in your county.
The first Klan was hardly an organization and more a way of acting. It's supposed leader tried to disband it 3 years before Klan violence even peaked. It didn't take orders from its founders, and plenty didn't seem to know it was founded in Pulaski, TN. In reality it was usually the nighttime arm of the Democratic Party and was most active around election time, and so coalesced around state and regional goals. Some places were even less organized than that.
The Klan started as a lark for bored professionals but within a few years killed thousands of people, black and white unionists or Republicans. The number of elected officials they assassinated was huge. The Klan was cross-class in membership but lead and directed by the "respectable" class. There was no standard uniform and many wore no disguise at all. The founders created rituals but most either didn't follow them or made up their own.
Plenty more to say, but this is hands-down the best book I've found on the first Klan. If you live in the South I highly recommend reading about exactly what happened in your county.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews