The court was glad to get rid of them. There was
no question raised over technicalities in making out bail-bonds. The clerk
wrote the names of imaginary bondsmen as fast as his pen could fly, while
the perspiration stood in beads on his red forehead.

Another telegram from old Stoneman to the White House, and the Writ of
_Habeas Corpus_ was suspended and Martial Law proclaimed.

Enraged beyond measure at the salute from the troops, he had two companies
of negro regulars sent from Columbia, and they camped in the Courthouse
Square.

He determined to make a desperate effort to crush the fierce spirit before
which his forces were being driven like chaff. He induced Bizzel to return
from Cleveland with his negro wife and children. He was escorted to the
City Hall and reinstalled as Mayor by the full force of seven hundred
troops, and a negro guard placed around his house. Stoneman had Lynch run
an excursion from the Black Belt, and brought a thousand negroes to attend
a final rally at Piedmont. He placarded the town with posters on which
were printed the Civil Rights Bill and the proclamation of the President
declaring Martial Law.

Ben watched this day dawn with nervous dread. He had passed a sleepless
night, riding in person to every Den of the Klan and issuing positive
orders that no white man should come to Piedmont.

A clash with the authority of the United States he had avoided from the
first as a matter of principle. It was essential to his success that his
men should commit no act of desperation which would imperil his plans.
Above all, he wished to avoid a clash with old Stoneman personally.

The arrival of the big excursion was the signal for a revival of negro
insolence which had been planned. The men brought from the Eastern part of
the State were selected for the purpose. They marched over the town
yelling and singing. A crowd of them, half drunk, formed themselves three
abreast and rushed the sidewalks, pushing every white man, woman, and
child into the street.

They met Phil on his way to the hotel and pushed him into the gutter. He
said nothing, crossed the street, bought a revolver, loaded it and put it
in his pocket. He was not popular with the negroes, and he had been shot
at twice on his way from the mills at night. The whole affair of this
rally, over which his father meant to preside, filled him with disgust,
and he was in an ugly mood.

Lynch's speech was bold, bitter, and incendiary, and at