When the Ku Klux Rode

This work is undertaken with the wish to gratify a popular desire for addition to the scant literature relating to the Reconstruction Era and that most remarkable organization of modern times—begotten of conditions unparalleled in history, conditions which can never recur, and vanishing with the emergency which created it—the militant Ku Klux Klan. Only one writer has ventured far into this field of research, which until then seemed forbidden, and in his contribution to history, fact and fiction are so interwoven as to be almost indistinguishable. But the widespread and intense interest manifested in his revelations of the origin and purposes of the Klan indicates that the present generation eagerly imbibes knowledge of the sacrifices and achievements of the men who in the awful crisis of reconstruction, and against almost insuperable obstacles, rescued the commonwealth from the control of corrupt adventurers and ignorant freedmen, and established orderly government, without which the subsequent marvelous development of natural resources and advancement in education which have placed the state in the forefront of progress would have been impossible. This evident interest encourages the hope that a simple narrative of facts connected with the struggle in that part of the Black Belt of Alabama which formed the Fourth Congressional District, by one who was in the midst of it and a close observer, will receive a welcome.