The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

Thomas Dixon, Thomas Wintz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780765606174
• eBook ISBN: 9781317457879
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: History

Thomas Dixon was a lawyer, North Carolina state legislator, Baptist minister, lecturer, and novelist. This novel, an abridgement by Cary Wintz was originally published in 1905. It reflects turn-of-the-century attitudes most southerners had about Republican rule during Reconstruction.

Book III

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The Reign of Terror

Chapter 1

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A Fallen Slaveholder’s Mansion

Piedmont, South Carolina, which Elsie and Phil had selected for reasons best known to themselves as the place of retreat for their father, was a favorite summer resort of Charleston people before the war. Ulster county, of which this village was the capital, bordered on the North Carolina line, lying alongside the ancient shire of York. It was settled by the Scotch folk who came from the North of Ireland in the great migrations which gave America three hundred thousand people of Covenanter martyr blood, the largest and most important addition to our population, larger in numbers than either the Puritans of New England or the so-called Cavaliers of Virginia and Eastern Carolina; and far more important than either, in the growth of American nationality.

To a man they had hated Great Britain. Not a Tory was found among them. The cries of their martyred dead were still ringing in their souls when George III started on his career of oppression. The fiery words of Patrick Henry, their spokesman in the valley of Virginia, had swept the aristocracy of the Old Dominion into rebellion against the King and on into triumphant Democracy. They had made North Carolina the first home of freedom in the New World, issued the first Declaration of Independence in Mecklenburg, and lifted the first banner of rebellion against the tyranny of the Crown.

They grew to the soil wherever they stopped, always home-lovers and home-builders, loyal to their own people, instinctive clan leaders and clan followers. A sturdy, honest, covenant-keeping, God-fearing, fighting people, above all things they hated sham and pretense. They never boasted of their families, though some of them might have quartered the royal arms of Scotland on their shields. To these sturdy qualities had been added a strain of Huguenot tenderness and vivacity.

When Mrs. Cameron received Elsie’s letter, asking her to secure for them six good rooms at the “Palmetto” hotel, she laughed. The big rambling hostelry had been burned by roving Negroes, pigs were wallowing in the sulphur springs, and along its walks, where lovers of olden days had strolled, the cows were browsing on the shrubbery. But she laughed for a more important reason. They had asked for a six-room cottage if accommodations could not be had in the hotel. She could put them in the Lenoir place. The cotton crop from their farm had been stolen from the gin—the cotton tax of $200 could not be paid, and a mortgage was about to be foreclosed on both their farm and home. She had been brooding over their troubles in despair. The Stonemans’ coming was a godsend.

Mrs. Cameron was helping them set the house in order to receive the new tenants.

“I declare,” said Mrs. Lenoir, gratefully. “It seems too good to be true. Just as I was about to give up—the first time in my life—here came those rich Yankees and with enough rent to pay the interest on the mortgages and our board at the hotel.”

“I was heart-sick over it for you.”

Marion entered and placed a bouquet of roses on the table, touching them daintily until they stood each flower apart in careless splendor. Their perfume, the girl’s wistful dreamy blue eyes and shy elusive beauty, all seemed a part of the warm sweet air of the June morning. Mrs. Lenoir watched her lovingly.

“Mama, I’m going to put flowers in every room. I’m sure they haven’t such lovely ones in Washington,” said Marion, eagerly, as she skipped out.

“I’m glad you’re coming to live with us in the heart of town,” observed Mrs. Cameron. “This place is a cosey nest, just such a one as a poet-lover would build here in the edge of these deep woods, but it is too far out for you to be alone. Dr. Cameron has been worrying about you ever since he came home.”

“I’m not afraid of the Negroes. I don’t know one of them who wouldn’t go out of his way to do me a favor. Old Aleck is the only rascal I know among them, and he’s too busy with politics now even to steal a chicken.”

“And Gus, the young scamp we used to own; you haven’t forgotten him? He is back here, a member of the company of Negro troops, and parades before the house every day to show off his uniform. Dr. Cameron told him yesterday he’d thrash him if he caught him hanging around the place again. He frightened Margaret nearly to death when she went to the barn to feed her horse. Will you come to the hotel before the Stonemans arrive?”

“No; I’ll welcome and tell them how glad I am they have brought me good luck.”

“I’m delighted, Jeannie. I wished you to do this, but I couldn’t ask it. I can never do enough for this old man’s daughter. We must make their stay happy. They say he’s a terrible old Radical politician, but I suppose he’s no meaner than the others. He’s very ill, and she loves him devotedly. He is coming here to find health, and not to insult us. Besides, he was kind to me. He wrote a letter to the President. Nothing that I have will be too good for him or for his. It’s very brave and sweet of you to stay and meet them.”

When the Stonemans arrived, the old man was too ill and nervous from the fatigue of the long journey to notice his surroundings or to be conscious of the restful beauty of the cottage into which they carried him. His room looked out over the valley of the river for miles, and the glimpse he got of its broad fertile acres only confirmed his ideas of the “slaveholding oligarchy” it was his life purpose to crush. Over the mantel hung a steel engraving of Calhoun. He fell asleep with his deep, sunken eyes resting on it and a cynical smile playing about his grim mouth.

Margaret and Mrs. Cameron had met the Stonemans and their physician at the train, and taken Elsie and her father in the old weather-beaten family carriage to the Lenoir cottage, apologizing for Ben’s absence.

“He has gone to Nashville on some important legal business, and the doctor is ailing, but as the head of the clan Cameron he told me to welcome your father to the hospitality of the county, and beg him to let us know if he could be of help.”

The old man, who sat in a stupor of exhaustion, made no response, and Elsie hastened to say: “‘We appreciate your kindness more than I can tell you, Mrs. Cameron.”

“I am expecting Ben home this week,” the mother whispered. “I need not tell you that he will be delighted at your coming.”

Elsie smiled and blushed.

“And I’ll expect Captain Stoneman to see me very soon,” said Margaret, softly. “You will not forget to tell him for me?”

Elsie fell in love at sight with Marion and her mother. Their easy genial manners, the genuineness of their welcome, and the simple kindness with which they sought to make her feel at home put her heart into a warm glow. Mrs. Lenoir explained the conveniences of the place and apologized for its defects, the results of the war.

“I am sorry about the window-curtains—we have used them all for dresses.”

“We will soon place curtains at the windows,” said Elsie, cheerfully.

“The carpets were sent to the soldiers for blankets during the war. It was all we could do for our poor boys, except to cut my hair and sell it. You see my hair hasn’t grown out yet. I sent it to Richmond the last year of the war.”

She looked at the girlish hair hanging in ringlets about Mrs. Lenoir’s handsome face, smiled pathetically, and asked:

“Did you really make such sacrifices for your cause?”

“Yes, indeed. I was glad when the war was ended for some things. We certainly needed a few pins, needles, and buttons, to say nothing of a cup of coffee or tea.”

“I trust you will never lack for anything again,” said Elsie, kindly.

“You will bring us good luck,” Mrs. Lenoir responded. “Your coming is so fortunate. The cotton tax Congress levied was so heavy this year, we were going to lose everything. Such a tax when we are all about to starve! Dr. Cameron says it was an act of stupid vengeance on the South, and that no other farmers in America have their crops taxed by the National Government. I am so glad your father has come. He can help us, maybe.”

“I am sure he will,” answered Elsie, thoughtfully.

The village of Piedmont crowned an immense hill on the banks of the Broad River, just where it dashes over the last stone barrier in a series of beautiful falls and spreads out in peaceful glory through the plains toward Columbia and the distant sea. The muffled roar of these falls, rising softly through the trees on its wooded cliff, held the daily life of the people in the spell of distant music. In fair weather it soothed and charmed, and in storm and freshet rose to the deep solemn growl of thunder. Beyond the sweep of the river loomed the three ranges of the Blue Ridge mountains, the first one dark, rich, distinct, clothed in eternal green, the last one melting in dim lines into the clouds and soft azure of the sky.

As the sun began to sink now behind these distant peaks, each cloud that hung about them burst into a blazing riot of color. The silver mirror of the river caught their shadows, and the water glowed in sympathy. As Elsie drank the beauty of the scene, the music of the falls ringing its soft accompaniment, her heart went out in a throb of love and pity for the land and its people.

“Can you blame us for loving such a spot?” asked Marion. “I hope you will help take care of things after we’re gone. If Sam Ross comes— Sam’s an idiot who lives in the poor house—if he comes he’ll expect a dinner—I’m afraid he’ll cry when he finds we’re not here. But you can send him to the hotel to me.”

“How on earth did you meet him?”

“His father was rich. He was a good friend of my Papa’s. In the war Mr. Ross lost his two younger sons, both killed at Gettysburg. His wife died broken-hearted, and he only lived a year afterward. Everything was lost. Sam was sent to the poorhouse. He found out somehow that we loved him and comes to see us.”

I’ll remember,” Elsie promised.

“And one thing more,” she said, hesitatingly. “Mama asked me to speak to you on this—that’s why she slipped away. There’s a little room we locked. It was Papa’s study, just as he left it, with his papers scattered on the desk—you won’t mind?”

“It shall be sacred, my child. You must come every day if possible, and help me.”

Mrs. Lenoir hurried over to the two young women. “Come, Marion, we must be going now.”

“I am very sorry to see you leave the home you love so dearly, Mrs. Lenoir,” said the Northern girl, taking her extended hand. “I hope you can soon find a way to have it back.”

Elsie watched them walk across the lawn to the street, the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction by Cary D. Wintz
• Dedication
• To the Reader
• Leading Characters of the Story
• List of Illustrations
• Book I: The Assassination
• Book II: The Revolution
• Book III: The Reign of Terror
• Book IV: The Ku Klux Klan
• About the Editor