ot prepared to believe what was said about the Klans.
Respectable Southern gentlemen denied their existence and I felt
bound by their protestations. Yet a "den" met frequently in
Greensboro; sometimes in Bogart's Hall; sometimes in the old
Caldwell Institute (now torn down), again upstairs over the
Lindsay corner (recently destroyed) opposite the court house and
more often in the woods in the northern suburbs of the town, not
a great ways from the residence of Judge Dick.

These meetings were occurring after the beginning of my residence
in Greensboro, for nearly a year, but I did not know of them.
Indeed, young men with whom I was well acquainted, actually were
members of the fraternity--men whom I met every day, on social
terms, in my boarding house at Mrs. Gilmer's. I had not reason to
suspect their membership. Of course the assemblages were as
secret as could be. When they were held in Bogart's Hall, for
example--so I have since been told by participants--the only
light was a candle, placed under a table, so that its rays could
not shine through the curtained windows.

While I myself was incredulous, my political friends, Union men,
natives of the South, familiar with the methods and peculiarities
of the people, were firm believers in the entity of the Kuklux.
They saw and understood the most trivial signs and signals. These
men had been on the spot when the rebellion raged and had, in
many instances, belonged to the "Red Strings," and other secret
societies, banded together for mutual help and protection, and to
aid the Union cause, in which they implicitly believed; and to
assist escaping prisoners of war through the military lines. If
therefore they observed a peculiar mark upon a tree, or figures
upon the ground, they knew there was some meaning intended.

But the time soon came when I had to believe. In the latter days
of 1869, Judge Tourgee, then of the Superior Court, issued a
bench warrant for the arrest of several citizens of Caswell
county. They were charged with having visited in disguise the
cabins of a number of negroes, whom they took out and whipped. I
was employed by Gov. Holden to conduct the examination of
witnesses for the State; but the defendants easily proved alibis,
as usual in such cases.

A few months afte