and no G.A.R. man could become a member. The costume of the Klan
was especially designed to strike terror in the uneducated Negroes.
Loose-flowing sleeves, hoods in which were apertures for the eyes, nose,
and mouth trimmed with red material, horns made of cotton-stuff standing
out on the front and sides, high cardboard hats covered with white
cloth decorated with stars or pictures of animals, long tongues of red
flannel, were all used as occasion demanded. The KuKlux Klan finally
extended over the whole South and greatly increased its operations on
the cessation of martial law in 1870. As it worked generally at night,
with its members in disguise, it was difficult for a grand jury to get
evidence on which to frame a bill, and almost impossible to get a jury
that would return a verdict for the state. Repeated measures against
the order were of little effect until an act of 1870 extended the
jurisdiction of the United States courts to all KuKlux cases. Even then
for some time the organization continued active.

Naturally there were serious clashes before government was restored to
the white South, especially as the KuKlux Klan grew bolder. At Colfax,
Grant Parish, Louisiana, in April, 1873, there was a pitched battle in
which several white men and more than fifty Negroes were killed; and
violence increased as the "red shirt" campaign of 1876 approached.

In connection with the events of this fateful year, and with reference
to South Carolina, where the Negro seemed most solidly in power, we
recall one episode, that of the Hamburg Massacre. We desire to give this
as fully as possible in all its incidents, because we know of nothing
that better illustrates the temper of the times, and because a most
important matter is regularly ignored or minimized by historians.[1]

[Footnote 1: Fleming, in his latest and most mature account of
reconstruction, _The Sequel of Appomattox_, has not one word to say
about the matter. Dunning, in _Reconstruction Political and Economic_
(306), speaks as follows: "July 6, 1876, an armed collision between
whites and blacks at Hamburg, Aiken County, resulted in the usual
slaughter of the blacks. Whether the original cause of the trouble
was the insolence and threats of a Negro militia company, or the
aggressiveness and violence of some young white men, was much discussed
throughout the state, and, indeed, the country at large. Chamberlain
took frankly and strongly the ground that the whites were