The Nation's Peril Part 6

In the then condition of affairs n.o.body dared to appear against the suspected parties, and consequently witnesses could not be had in the ordinary way.

At this juncture General Geo. G. Meade, then in command of the Military Department there--for the State of Georgia was at this time under martial law--telegraphed to Gen. Grant, in Washington, that he desired the services of a competent and able detective to a.s.sist in bringing the guilty parties to justice. A second dispatch was sent by Gen. Meade, requesting that Col. H. C. Whitley, of the United States Internal Revenue service (then absent under Department orders in Kansas), should be directed to report to him in person for the duty indicated. In pursuance of this request Col. Whitley went to Columbus and commenced his labors, which resulted in the arrest of the parties above named.

A military commission was at once convened to try the accused. The witnesses for the Government gave their testimony in a straightforward manner, their evidence being fully corroborated by that of the people in the house where the deed had been consummated, and the conviction of the parties seemed inevitable.

The citizens of Columbus raised a hue and cry; the local newspapers sharply criticized the proceedings; a furore of excitement was engendered; the ablest legal counsel to be had for the defence, with Alexander H.

Stephens at the head, were engaged, and large sums of money were expended in behalf of the prisoners.

All parties were astounded, however, at the evidence which was produced against the accused. Its preparation showed a skill and ingenuity such as had never before been exhibited in working up a case before the courts of the district, and it was necessary that some measures should be devised to save the partic.i.p.ants in the fearful tragedy from their justly merited punishment.

This could only be accomplished in one way--by the adoption of the 14th Amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, it being a clause in the law that, upon the adoption of this amendment by the legislature of any State, all cases of civilians pending before military tribunals organized in said State, should be taken cognizance of by the civil courts therein.

The Democratic members of the Georgia Legislature were between two fires; the 14th Amendment was a bitter pill, but the necks of their confreres were in danger, and they were compelled to vote solid with the Republicans, and thus end the proceedings before the military tribunal. By this means, the trials of the Ashburn murderers were taken out of the hands of the military authorities, the prisoners put under bail, the witnesses compelled to flee for their lives, and there the matter rests.

To the un.o.bserving mind the murder of George W. Ashburn would seem totally unavenged; but to him who sees in every great event the hand of an over-ruling Providence, evolving good from evil, a different conclusion must be arrived at. In his life, he fought manfully for the establishment of civil rights, and the political equality of the oppressed race of which he was the chosen champion. In his death that result was consummated, in the State of Georgia, sooner perhaps by years than it would otherwise have been without this sacrifice. "Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud in the cause of liberty and reason," there shall we find just such sacrifices as this, and there, too, "in the eternal fitness of things" and the onward march of law and the establishment of order, shall we find the triumphal vindication of those principles for which the republic has labored and travailed, and George W.

Ashburn died.

A THRILLING NARRATIVE.

DESPERATE ENCOUNTER AND DEFEAT OF A BAND OF KU KLUX.

As an instance of what the courage of one man can do in a righteous cause, against a mult.i.tude of those who are actuated by wicked and unlawful motives, the case of Mr. J. K. Halliday, a resident of Jackson County, near Jefferson, Ga., is perhaps one of the most extraordinary on record.

Mr. Halliday is a native of Jackson County, Ga., where he has always lived and done business. He was opposed to secession and rebellion from the first; was continually counselling peaceful measures, and openly avowed himself a Unionist. During the war, he utterly refused to take up arms against the Government, and being a man of great influence and large means, was enabled to avoid conscription into the rebel ranks.

He was a thriving business man, the proprietor of two plantations and a mill, and kept a large number of hands engaged at work. After the close of the rebellion and as a measure of concession to the turbulent spirits by whom he was surrounded, he employed white men to do his labor.

Mr. Halliday soon found, to his inconvenient cost, that these men demanded exorbitant wages; that they were indisposed to perform a fair day's work, sometimes not working at all, and then but for a half day, but always charging him for full time--and he finally became disgusted with, and discharged them altogether. This was sufficient to bring him into contempt with the Klan, who charged him with being a "negro lover," as well as a Union sympathizer, and an open-mouthed Radical.

Threats of his a.s.sa.s.sination and the destruction of his mill and other buildings were freely uttered. He was formally "warned" by the K. K. K.'s, that he must change his course, politically, or he would certainly suffer death. Halliday's reply to this threat and warning was simply to proceed to Jefferson, and procure some of the best modern weapons, for defense, that he could find. With these he returned to his dwelling, awaited results, pursuing his usual course, advocating such political principles as he please, and employing colored men as before.

During the spring of 1871, at a meeting of the Ku Klux Camp of Jefferson County, it was solemnly resolved that Halliday should be killed, and his property destroyed. The night for the "visitation" was duly decided on; and through an anonymous note this information was conveyed to Halliday, the writer begging him as he valued his life, to leave the place, and thus save himself.

To less resolute men this would have appeared a serious matter, but upon Halliday the threatened danger had an entirely different effect. It nerved rather than weakened his brave spirit, and he resolved to "stick." He was a man full six feet in stature, and well proportioned; he had been long accustomed to out-of-door life, and was considered one of the most powerful men, physically, in the county; he knew his strength, and relying upon that and an unswerving faith in G.o.d, he determined to defend himself and his family to the last.

On the night of the antic.i.p.ated visit, he placed his wife and his two children in the upper room of the house, and barricaded the pa.s.sage way leading thereto, as best he could.

Mrs. Halliday well knew the desperate character and murderous designs of the Klan. She clung to her husband, to whom she was devotedly attached, and expressed her fears as he pa.s.sed down the stairway, that she would never see him again, alive! To this Mr. Halliday responded:

"You forget that the GREAT MASTER is with me! Trust HIM as _I_ do," and kissing her and the little ones, he descended to the ground floor, where he intended to remain and await the advent of the party.

Some of the more faithful of the negroes observing the unusual care with which Mr. H. adjusted the fastenings upon the doors and shutters, that night, hinted to him that they "reck'nd he 'spected trouble," and they would like to be near him.

"No," said he, "go to your own places and don't come out; if they come in here, I had rather be alone, for then I can shoot and cut at random and be sure not to hit any of my own friends. Every man I strike will surely be one who ought to be stricken."

Mr. Halliday was armed with two rifles, two revolvers, and a long bowie knife. Shortly before midnight, the Klan made their appearance in front of the house, to the number of about twenty. Halliday saw them through a small half-moon shaped aperture at the top of the shutter.

They were all masked, and appeared each to wear a long rubber cape, falling from the shoulders to the waist. They came straight to the door, and, without saying a word, commenced to batter it in. The door gave way in a few moments, and as they rushed in, Halliday discharged his firearms with such fatal effect, that three of the Klan dropped dead upon the floor.

The room was intensely dark, and a desperate fight ensued, in which the a.s.sailants more frequently encountered each other than the victim for whom they were in search.

Halliday was finally grappled by one of the foremost of the party. He speedily freed himself through his superior strength and the prompt use of his bowie knife, thrusting it into his a.s.sailant's bowels, and throwing him violently back on to the crowd. The wounded man exclaimed:

"He's got a knife! I'm murdered!"

This caused a panic among the marauders, and the entire crowd left the house, taking their dead and wounded with them. After making certain that all of their own number were out, they discharged their firearms through the open doorway, and beat a retreat, taking a circuitous route, to avoid being traced by the blood that oozed from the wounds of several of the number, two of whom died soon after reaching their homes, thus making five in all who had paid the forfeit of their lives in the unholy cause.

During all the time of this desperate encounter, the feelings of the wretched wife and frightened children in the upper room, may only be imagined. The father and husband, single handed, fighting against a horde of ruffians bent upon his murder; their own fate depending upon his, and not daring to cry out lest they should be discovered, and thus bring destruction upon their own heads, their situation was agonizing in the extreme.

Mrs. Halliday did not forget the last words of her husband, so full of the strong faith that characterized the man: "_You forget that the Great Master is with me. Trust Him as I do!_" And sinking upon her knees, she poured her spirit out in silent and earnest prayer to G.o.d for help.

The dead calm that had ensued after the uproarious tumult of the firearms, and the fierce struggle of the combatants in the room below, alarmed Mrs.

Halliday more than all else. Whether her husband had been overpowered at last and taken away, or had been left dead upon the floor, with some of the murderous crew watching to see who would come for the body, she knew not. Possibly he might be lying there alone, wounded and insensible, with the life-blood ebbing away, and no friendly hand to stay the crimson tide, and the thought was terrible and agonizing.

An hour went by. An hour into which years of misery were crowded to the forlorn woman, and yet no sound of life, no ray of light gleaming through the impenetrable darkness, to relieve the awful gloom and suspense, or give her one faint shadow of hope.

Halliday was indeed lying there, exhausted and unconscious from the numerous wounds and contusions he had received. In his right hand he still held the bowie knife firmly grasped, as if awaiting the further onslaught of the foe, while his left was clenched with the determination of his iron will. The cool wind blowing off the mill-stream and coming in through the open doorway, aroused him at length to consciousness.

The remembrance of the fight, his successful resistance, the retreat of the a.s.sailing party, and, above all, his wife and children, saved--and by his own right arm!--came back to his recollection and nerved him to action. He roused himself from his lethargy, and groping his way to the stairs, he called out:

"Are you there, mother! and our darlings!"

Who shall tell the feelings of that wife-mother's heart, bowed in its terrible anguish, and now so suddenly raised to the highest pinnacle of happiness as she responded, "Here! and safe, thank G.o.d, and our husband and father."

Who shall describe the music that will compare, in Halliday's bosom, to the pattering feet of his darlings, as they rushed to meet his strong and loving embraces, and shouted, "Papa, papa!" amid their fast falling tears.

Halliday's wounds, though not fatal, were still serious enough to alarm his wife, and as early in the morning as she dared, she sent one of the negroes for a doctor; but it appeared that every doctor in the vicinity was busy with patients who had been "taken suddenly ill during the night."

One of these was the only son of a widow, the nearest neighbor to the Hallidays. He had received a "severe fall" the night previous, they said, upon a sharp instrument that had pierced his bowels and caused his death.

This proved to be the man Halliday had cut. Five funerals attested the energy and strength of the hero's arm, and the dead bodies of the victims remained as lasting "warnings" to the "defenders of the white man's government," and that it was not always wise to attack the members of the "white man's race."

It is almost needless to add that Mr. Halliday was left free from that time forth to pursue his own course, politically and otherwise as he deemed best, and that his persecutors came to realize with him that "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," and that in the struggle of the right for supremacy over the wrong, "G.o.d and one const.i.tute a majority."

SLAUGHTER OF AN UNITED STATES OFFICIAL.

John Springfield, a Deputy United States Marshal, residing in St. Clair County, Alabama, had drawn upon himself the odium of the Ku Klux of that county by accepting a position under the United States Government, the duties of which he endeavored faithfully to discharge.

He had been approached on several occasions by members of the Klan, who had made propositions to him to pervert his office, and shield certain parties who were engaged in the illicit distillation of whiskey; but had utterly refused to listen to any of these overtures, and was bold enough to proclaim the fact that he should use his best endeavors to bring to punishment the violators of the law wherever he found them.

The customary warning was sent to this intrepid officer, informing him that "St. Clair County was getting hot for him," but that if he kept on in his course he would "be sent to a hotter place in a hurry."

He was somewhat alarmed at this threat and moved about with great caution, but was unremitting in his attention to his duties until the spring of 1871, when the Klan decided that he must be stopped. An edict was issued, sealing Springfield's doom, and the second night thereafter he was followed by three members of the Klan, disguised in black gowns and with their faces blackened, and was shot dead within a few feet of his house.

This murder was charged upon the negroes, and up to the present writing, the instigators and perpetrators have escaped punishment.