The American Narrative Episode 5: The Kirk-Holden War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5f8Dk6-iPQ

DISCLAIMER (0:00) – The following program contains descriptions of violence and suggestive topics that may not be appropriate for younger audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

TIM (0:10) – You’re listening to The American Narrative: Histories of a Nation, a podcast series by Discover America. I’m your host, Tim Murphy, alongside cohost Grant Shea, ready to deliver another thrilling tale about our nation’s arcane past.

GRANT (0:22) – I’m excited, man. I’m excited to explore what new and interesting story we got planned this week.

TIM (0:28) – In today’s episode, we continue our journey through the Reconstruction Era South, and investigate the Kirk-Holden War—North Carolina’s counterproductive campaign against Klan violence.

TIM (0:39) – The geopolitics of the American Civil War were kaleidoscopic, far more complex than the rudimentary North-South divide. Ideological differences over loyalty, secession, and the very meaning of war permeated through the Union and Confederacy, creating deep internal divisions within their respective states. In North Carolina, these fissures were particularly stark along geographic lines: the state’s coastal plains and mountainous regions generally maintained Unionist sympathies, while the agricultural Piedmont overwhelmingly favored secession.

Amid this turmoil emerged William Woods Holden— a walking contradiction whose mercurial character encapsulated the shifting tides of North Carolina politics. Holden’s career began in journalism, first apprenticing as a typesetter for the Hillsborough Recorder and Raleigh Star, both pro-Whig newspapers. Yet, when he acquired the North Carolina Standard in 1843, he aligned himself with the Democratic Party. Holden quickly gained notoriety for his fiercely partisan and provocative editorials, especially among disaffected Whigs, who decried his sectional arguments endorsing state sovereignty and the westward expansion of slavery. Under Holden’s leadership, the Standard quickly became one of North Carolina’s most widely circulated periodicals, and a valuable mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. Holden built a reputation as a political “kingmaker” in antebellum North Carolina, and by the early 1850s, he had risen to chair the Democratic State Executive Committee.

In 1858, Holden sought the Democratic nomination for governor. Although he received considerable support from the state’s more populist elements, party leaders selected state superior court Judge John Willis Ellis instead. Later that same year, Holden also lost his bid for the U.S. Senate to Thomas Clingman. These defeats embittered Holden, who blamed elitist ex-Whigs for undermining his political prospects.

Following Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860, Holden worked vigorously to preserve North Carolina’s status within the Union. He denounced the rhetoric of fire-eaters—a notable departure from his earlier advocacy for states’ rights—and prophesized that secession could spark a devastating civil war. This pragmatic, cautious approach alienated many of his remaining Democratic supporters.

Holden maintained his Unionist sympathies through the State Secession Convention of February 1861, leading efforts that repealed North Carolina’s initial ordinance of secession. However, after the attack on Fort Sumter, public sentiment sharply shifted, and Holden wholeheartedly committed himself to the Confederate cause.

But Holden’s support for the Confederacy soon faded. Disillusioned by Jefferson Davis’s insular leadership and incongruous Confederate policies, Holden organized a new “Conservative” Party that opposed the incumbent state government led by Governor Henry Toole Clark. Ironically, many beneficiaries of this conservative campaign were old-line Whigs who had opposed Holden during the antebellum period.

With support from former Whigs, Holden endorsed Zebulon B. Vance—a Confederate colonel and former U.S. Congressman—as the Conservative candidate for governor. Vance handily won the election and initially enjoyed a close working relationship with Holden. By 1863, however, disagreements over the war’s direction caused their alliance to unravel. 

Holden, increasingly influenced by the Peace Platform, argued that North Carolina should independently negotiate an armistice as a means to overcome Richmond's blind obstinance, mitigate further destruction, and secure favorable terms with the federal government. He maintained that it was better to secure an honorable peace than risk unconditional surrender—a view that resonated with deserters, draft dodgers, and Unionists alike.

Vance strongly disagreed, believing that peace should be pursued in cooperation with other Confederate states. Unable to dissuade Holden, Vance severed political ties and denounced the peace movement as dangerous and subversive. Said Vance: “I will see the Conservative party blown into a thousand atoms—and Holden and his understrappers in Hell—before I will consent to a course, which I think, will bring dishonor and ruin upon the state and the Confederacy!”

In 1864, Holden turned the peace platform into a political campaign, challenging Vance in that year’s gubernatorial election. However, many former Whigs—once integral to the Conservative Party’s success—joined Democrats and branded Holden as a traitor to the Confederacy. Vance ultimately defeated Holden in a landslide victory, receiving over eighty percent of the vote.

GRANT (5:08) – You know what you find a lot of the times? A lot of the times the politicians or the leaders whose whole platform is built on peace or on just stability—or really just ‘put your head in the sand and don’t look around’—like, it’s not a long-term platform. And it’s really just because dynamics and society and demographics—everything is constantly in flux and changing. And so it’s hard to even conceptualize what peace in one instance looks like as opposed to the next, and…Peace for the sake of peace, right? It’s like, you can’t…sometimes there’s an unjust peace or…I feel like at the end of the day, you got to—there’s got to be principle beyond just the avoidance of conflict, because conflict is part of human nature. You got to figure out whose conflict is more justified and, you know, try to make is as equitable and fair as possible. But, it’s just like, you know, “my whole platform is peace”—You just don’t see it long-term working in a lot of situations. I think it’s an admirable, noble goal and aspiration, but it’s just—it doesn’t seem to be that effective throughout the annals of history.

TIM (6:27) – Yeah, and there's something to be said, too, about pacifism and abstaining from violence; like that's all admirable. And I think—as it relates to the disagreement between Holden and Vance—Holden could see the forest for the trees, right? He saw that the Confederacy couldn't outlast the Union, and he was like, 'We should get ahead of this. We should negotiate our own peace to avoid this destructive war and any unfavorable terms of surrender.' But Vance was like, 'Absolutely not. We made a pact with these other southern states. We must abide by what the Confederacy collectively decides.'

GRANT (7:03) – Yeah.

TIM (7:04) – But I'm sure you can already appreciate Holden's tendency to contradict his previous positions, and we're not even out of the Civil War yet.

GRANT (7:13) – Yeah, I was getting—I had an inkling. Interesting.

TIM (7:18) – Despite this setback, Holden’s prospects for executive authority were not completely exhausted. After the Confederacy collapsed, President Andrew Johnson appointed him as North Carolina’s provisional governor on May 29, 1865.

Democrats and ex-Confederates seethed with resentment at Holden's appointment. One detractor remarked: “[The conquerors] have taken the lowest, most abject, and degraded man they could find amongst us—one Holden—and exalted him to the post of provisional Governor—a base born bastard with neither the breeding [nor] the instincts of a gentleman…”

While Holden’s tenure as provisional governor was rather unremarkable, he did wield significant power by securing pardons for many former Confederates, thereby restoring their political franchise. He also filled government vacancies with loyal supporters, drawing contempt from Conservative opponents.

During a special gubernatorial election in December 1865, the Conservative Party nominated State Treasurer Jonathan Worth to run against Holden. As a state senator, Worth staunchly opposed North Carolina’s withdrawal from the Union and was one of only three lawmakers who rejected the final ordinance of secession. Nevertheless, he remained loyal to North Carolina throughout the conflict. Under the Vance administration, Worth became the public treasurer, where he exercised conservative fiscal management and frequently quarreled with Confederate treasury officials.

Despite his relative obscurity, Worth defeated Holden, and the Conservatives swept into power. President Johnson later appointed Holden as Minister to El Salvador, but the Senate refused to confirm him. Holden eventually returned to editing the North Carolina Standard.

In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, which placed the former Confederate states under military occupation—North Carolina was placed in the Second Military District, alongside South Carolina. These measures not only disenfranchised many former Confederates, but also required states to revise their constitutions and ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which secured citizenship and suffrage for newly emancipated blacks. During this period, Holden once again shifted his political allegiances. Backed by northern carpetbaggers and a sizeable African American coalition, he helped organize the state Republican Party. Holden also presided over the North Carolina Union League—a fraternal organization that mobilized freedmen to support Republican candidates and initiatives. Nearly forty percent of the state’s black population joined the League, making its support indispensable to Republican success.

Conservatives responded to the Union League’s influence by supporting the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization that used violence and intimidation to “remove the dark savages and white ignoramuses wearing the oath of office”—simply put, to suppress black and Republican political participation.

First appearing in 1868, the North Carolina Klan was not a single militant arm, but rather three loosely organized groups: the White Brotherhood, the Invisible Empire, and the Constitutional Union Guard (or CUG). Although Klan activity occurred across the state, it was especially concentrated in predominantly white, agrarian counties of the Piedmont region.

TIM (10:29) – I just want to point out, too, like some of these names, they just sound foreboding. They just sound intimidating.

GRANT (10:37) – Yeah, you know what’s funny is a lot of these racist, sexist—whatever organizations they are that really rely on violence to perpetuate injustice and inequality—their names are deliberately designed to evoke fear or evoke like a sense of, as you said, foreboding. It’s almost like a branding. It’s like marketing. It’s like, ‘all right, well, you know, our whole structure is based on violence and fear. That’s how we perpetuate injustice. And we need to have a name that demonstrates our values, and our values being fear, violence, and…’ It’s not surprising, right, that they, like as you just said, they deliberately—everything is deliberate. It makes sense, but, it’s usually just masking an insecurity. Oppression is the mask of fear.

TIM (11:34) – Against this politically and racially-charged backdrop, the North Carolina Constitutional Convention convened on January 14, 1868. These proceedings were largely dominated by Republicans, Unionists, and free blacks who were overwhelmingly sympathetic to the tenets of Congressional Reconstruction. The new state constitution abolished slavery, guaranteed universal male suffrage, eliminated property and religious qualifications for voting and officeholding, and authorized the creation of a "general and uniform system of Public Schools" open to both African Americans and whites.  

While the final constitutional draft was being prepared, Holden received the Republican nomination for governor. During the April 1868 referendum, North Carolinians ratified the new constitution and elected Holden to the governorship, defeating Conservative opponent Thomas Samuel Ashe by more than 18,000 votes. Governor Worth refused to concede to “North Carolina’s malicious prince of demagoguism,”  but ultimately relinquished his office under protest on July 1, citing “military duress” imposed by General Edward Canby, commander of the Second Military District. Holden was formally inaugurated on July 4, the same day North Carolina regained admission to the Union.

Holden’s ascension and support for what many Democrats considered an illegal constitution fanned the flames of vituperation, especially from Josiah Turner, Jr., the acerbic editor of the Raleigh Sentinel, North Carolina’s leading Conservative newspaper. Turner—a caustic and uncompromising enemy of Radical Reconstruction—castigated all North Carolina Republicans, Holden in particular. The animosity was likely personal in nature, as suggested by The Western Democrat, dated November 7, 1865: 

“Mr. Josiah Turner, of Orange County, a candidate for Congress in the Raleigh District, drew up a petition for pardon, in which he bitterly assailed the old Democratic party, and falsely accused it of bringing all the evils upon the country. And then he had the impudence to ask Governor Holden to endorse if favorably. The Governor very properly refused to recommend the petition of a man who was so full of party malice, and the result is that the “so-called” Honorable Josiah Turner is opposing Governor Holden with all his might.

It is said that Mr. Turner’s petition for pardon covered forty foolscap pages, filled with party slang and denunciation—nothing more than a reflection upon and insult to the Governor and President. If a man feels compelled to ask pardon, propriety at least would suggest that he refrain from abuse and denunciation of those whom he is asking a favor.”

GRANT (14:10) – Wow.

TIM (14:12) – Turner was a master of polemical journalism, and routinely used the Sentinel to ridicule the Holden administration, often stooping to personal invectives. Here are just a couple of examples of Turner’s admonishment.

The first—drawn from the Daily Sentinel, dated December 17, 1868—describes Holden’s ineptitude for the state’s high office: “Many of Governor Holden’s friends do not hesitate openly to express their disappointment at the weakness and lack of judgement displaying in his administration of the Executive office. Why they should be thus disappointed, we are unable to comprehend. Any man, who observed with half an eye, the manner in which he conducted the Provisional regime, ought to have been prepared for the imbecility and narrow partisanship which he has exhibited in his present, more enlarged field of power and duty.

No one will deny to him flat-rate talent as a party newspaper paragraphist and as a shrewd political manager, where other interests than his own are involved. But when the latter is the case, he becomes actually stupid in his bunglings; and hence, it is that, inflated with conceit, that he could signalize the office…[H]e has done nothing but blunder and boggle from the start.

The Guardian of the State’s interests, he has allied himself with the horde of carpet bag adventurers who have infested the land, and who are running the ship upon the rocks, with a consenting pilot at the helm.”

GRANT (15:31) – Wow.

TIM (15:33) – So, that’s number one.

TIM (15:36) – The second example comes from the Weekly Sentinel, dated March 16, 1869. Here, Turner speculates the Republican Party’s ulterior motives behind the Fifteenth Amendment:

“Anyone unacquainted with the political history of our time…would very naturally suppose that the party that foisted [this] amendment upon the American people was indeed the unfaltering and honest friend of the negro…[and] that it was a resultant of the most unfeigned friendship for the inferior race. But he would soon find…that all this ostensible sympathy with, and love for, the negro and his rights, were the merest sentimental vaporing and rant, and meant nothing seriously.

The right to vote is given; the above amendment guarantees that, but how about the right to hold office? It is not [supposed] that “the friend and brother” shall be President, or Congressman, or Governor…The poor credulous negro may be used in advancing the selfish schemes of political emissaries and propagandists…The balance of power is in the negro’s hand, but like a simpleton, he pliantly obeys what his white leader says; he votes like an automation moved by the hands of the political juggler, and quietly takes a seat out in the dark and cold, whilst his “so-called” white ally and friend is snugly ensconced in the chimney corner of some lucrative office.

Yes, the poor, deluded negroes may vote; nay, it is their inalienable right, quoth the great Radical Smelfungus, but they shall not have offices, and if they perchance should get offices, they must be “poor ones”…Such is the platform of Radicals.”

GRANT (17:04) – You know, I think they—this is the kind of history that people need to be taught if they’re growing up in America, right? It’s like, if you have a soul, and you have any moral principles—you hear something like that, and it’s just—the emotions that it brings out, it’s hard to articulate, but it’s just so antithetical to the words written in the Declaration, or the founding principles—the bedrock of the country—that we aspire to be. It’s almost like…it’s hard. It’s just so hard to reconcile that kind of rhetoric and that kind of opinion with what the nation is supposed to aspire to be. It’s just heartbreaking, but, it is what it was, you know? People thought like that, and you can’t shy away from it.

TIM (17:56) – Yeah, and it's like a very underhanded critique, too. Like, he's saying, 'Yeah, you got the right to vote, but you're naive to think that the Republicans will support you if you try to run for office.' Which—that's a fair assessment, but not coming from someone who's a member of the Democratic-Conservative Party, like—would you vote for them, or even support enfranchisement in the first place? No, I don't think so.

GRANT (18:21) – Nah.

TIM (18:22) – And also—the language that Turner uses—there are overt implications of racial inferiority, like how African Americans are being puppeteered by the Republican Party, but they're too ignorant or too simple-minded to realize what's going on. So, you can see the type of rhetoric Mr. Turner liked to espouse. 

GRANT (18:43) – Oh, yeah.

TIM (18:44) – And these are just two of honestly thousands of examples you can find.

GRANT (18:48) – And you know, you think, right? That’s your legacy. You know, 160 years from now, two guys are going to be on a podcast and they’re going to be reading what you wrote, and that’s what you chose to leave behind. It’s just the ash heap of history, you know? It’s like, all right…what does that leave behind? What good is that? It’s fear. It’s all fear. It’s fear of losing privilege. I mean that’s what—fear of discomfort…Again, we can’t shy away from it, you know? The good, the bad, and the ugly. And there are—there’s good. I hate when people just summarily dismiss like, no—that’s not what it means to be a human. Like, there’s a reason the scales of justice, they’re scales, right? Everything’s relative, and everything…you have to train yourself, and you have to be rooted in defensible moral values to discern good and bad—degrees of good, degrees of bad—and, you know, context. I think that’s what history does, man. And that’s what these podcasts and what you’re—you do such an amazing job at, is it’s just like—going back to the roots of what it means to be a human and thinking about and reading what other people said and how they reached their opinions, their perspectives, their conclusions, and then figuring out the truth based on a plethora of different perspectives.

TIM (20:07) – I also think that we should bring back the term ‘Smelfungus’ as an insult.

GRANT (20:14) – Smelfungus. I’ve never heard that before, but I’m using that now. That’s definitely—that’s been added to my repertoire. I’m going to…I guess it’s like a smelly fungus? Just like someone who sucks? Like, I mean…you Smelfungus! It almost sounds like a Harry Potter spell.

TIM (20:32) – It does!

GRANT (20:34) – Yeah. Smelfungus!

TIM (20:39) – Some Republicans referred to Turner as “King of the Ku Klux” due to his provocative language. Although no definitive evidence exists linking Turner to the Klan, his incendiary rhetoric almost certainly fomented political extremism in the Piedmont.

On the night of January 24, 1869, approximately three dozen members of the Lenoir County Constitutional Union Guard kidnapped five men—four black and one white—from the Kinston jail. The abducted prisoners—Richard Noble, Robin Grady, Cato Grady, John Miller, and Daniel Smith—were taken to a nearby bridge and executed; their bodies dumped into the Neuse River.

Within days of this vigilantism, the Moore County Klan committed one of the most heinous crimes in North Carolina’s history. On a cold winter’s night, at least thirteen masked men stormed the home of Daniel Blue, a black man, and indiscriminately starting shooting. As the gun smoke settled, Blue lay upon the floor, shot but not mortally wounded. His family, however, was not so lucky; Blue's pregnant wife and four of his five children were slain. When the attackers discovered that Blue's fifth child was still alive, one of the Klansmen proceeded to "[kick] its brains out with the heel of his boot," killing the child.

In an attempt to cover up their crime, the culprits set fire to Blue's home with the bodies of his family still inside. Remarkably, Daniel Blue escaped with his life. The Klan never offered any specific reason for its attack on the Blue family, but their actions were intended as a brutal reminder to ensure that blacks “knew their place.”

TIM (22:11) – That’s just awful.

GRANT (22:13) – Yeah, I mean it’s like satanic, or it’s just evil—evil and cruelty. It’s just basically like where you can’t make a good enough argument, and you can’t—and empathy, and law, and justice, and none of that’s on your side. This is violence. It’s like the brute force method. It’s like the schoolyard bully that, you know, you just…I don’t know.  

TIM (22:39) – Local authorities were often unwilling or unable—either by collusion or intimidation—to prosecute Klan-related offenses, which placed even more pressure on the state government to protect its citizens. 

As a practical matter, on February 19, 1869, the General Assembly passed the “Act to Prescribe the Power and Duty of the Governor in Respect to Fugitives from Justice," which empowered Holden to “employ a detective force, as he may deem sufficient, to pursue and apprehend any felon who is a fugitive from justice, within or without the limits of the State.” The newly established detective agency operated under North Carolina Adjutant General Abial W. Fisher, a former Union officer.

Despite the efforts of state-sanctioned investigators, white extremists continued to operate with relative impunity. On May 1, 1869, Sheriff Orson R. Colgrove arrested two CUG members—Ash Devane and James Hines—for mule theft and placed them in the Jones County jail. Two days later, the CUG orchestrated a jailbreak, freeing Devane and Hines from custody. Motivated by their animosity, the CUG later ambushed and killed Sheriff Colgrove on a public road near Trenton.

The Raleigh Sentinel issued a quasi-sympathetic editorial following Colgrove’s murder: “We regretted deeply to hear of the killing of Sheriff Colgrove, of Jones [County]. Scarcely anything but the most flagrant violation of official duty and the prostitution of one’s office to the worst purposes can palliate, much less justify, the enormous offense of killing an officer of the law. 

We have heard, however, of several instances in the State, in which carpetbag and scalawag Sheriffs and Deputies seem to have combined to distress and worry the people. Public officers who do this not only subject themselves to merited censure, but they may [also] expect fierce retaliation…

The [killing of Sheriff Colgrove] itself was a high crime, a heinous offense which deserves punishment, but the summary manner in which the colored and white friends of Sheriff Colgrove are acting, professedly with the view of getting at the guilty party, is outrageous, lawless, and wicked, and ought to be suppressed…If justified by the authorities, the next thing we shall hear of will be open civil war in the State.” 

Following the Colgrove murder, Judge Charles Randolph Thomas, Jr. issued a formal appeal to Governor Holden, requesting military assistance to reestablish law and order. Holden obliged and appointed R. T. Bosher—a former state detective— to lead a militia company of 25 men into Jones County.

The presence of militia temporarily stopped the violence, but the Klan inevitably renewed their threats against Republican officials. M. L. Shepard explained the situation to Holden: "One week ago yesterday, notices were found posted on trees in this neighborhood that D.D. Colgrove, L.D. Wilkie, and M.L. Shepard must leave the county before the first day of September, or else they would be removed by death…When I am killed (doing my duty), and in defense of the Law, then my Friends will have to take my place…" Shepard was subsequently gunned down at his sawmill on August 16.

Klan outrages only intensified during the latter half of 1869. One of the most widely publicized acts of violence involved Alonzo B. Corliss of Alamance County—a “crippled carpetbagger” from Vermont who led a local Union League and taught black children at a Quaker school in Company Shops. On November 26, several disguised men abducted Corliss, brutally beat him in a nearby forest, and threatened to kill him if he did not leave the area.

Corliss detailed his encounter with the Klan four days later: "We are in trouble. Five men disguised in a Satanic garb...dragged me from my bed and bore me roughly in double quick time one-and-a-half miles to a thicket, whipped me unmercifully and left me to die. They demanded of me that I should cease 'teaching [negros]’ and leave in ten days or be treated worse…I am not able to sit up yet. I shall never recover from all my injuries."

TIM (26:36) – I honestly didn't realize how many examples of racial violence I included in this episode. But now after reading it through, there's quite a lot.

GRANT (26:49) – And that was their one weapon. I mean, it was just fear and violence. It’s a tale as old as time, unfortunately, but what I will say is—these concrete examples, you know, these experiences that people went through and the pain and the suffering that they—they communicated, they shared, they felt—I mean…it’s important that it’s never glossed over, right? There’s one way to honor people’s suffering and it’s to not forget it, and it’s to make sure it’s shared. These are stories that aren’t shared enough because they’re uncomfortable for certain people, but they are the most human and most deeply, in some ways, American stories that need to be shared.  

TIM (27:38) – With Klan enormity spreading across the Piedmont, Governor Holden urged the General Assembly to strengthen the state’s "Fugitives from Justice” law. He cited “numerous complaints…of violence and mob law in certain counties, by parties who ride at night armed and disguised...injuring, insulting, and punishing inoffensive whites and colored persons."  Only by expanding militia powers, Holden argued, could North Carolina effectively punish offenders in areas where civil authority was failing.

On December 16, 1869, State Senator T. M. Shoffner introduced "An Act to Secure the Better Protection of Life and Property”—later dubbed the Shoffner Act. This bill gave Holden the executive prerogative to “declare [any] county to be in a state of insurrection and to call into active service the militia of the state to such an extent as may become necessary to suppress such insurrection." The act also authorized Holden to suspend of habeas corpus—the legal protection against unlawful detention—“whenever, in his judgement, the civil authorities…are unable to protect its citizens in the enjoyment of life and property,” and request federal assistance if the state militia proved inadequate. The bill faced determined resistance from Conservative legislators, who argued that suspending habeas corpus violated constitutional rights. After removing this controversial provision, the legislature ratified the Shoffner Act on January 29, 1870.

The Klan reacted with outrage. In Alamance County, several Klansmen plotted to kill Shoffner in his home. However, Captain Eli Euliss—a high-ranking member of the Alamance Klan and personal friend of Shoffner's—learned of the plot and persuaded the senator to accompany him to Greensboro. The plan dissolved after Shoffner’s escape, but he continued to receive death threats and eventually fled to Indiana.

During the same period, Klansmen in Moore County conspired to murder Governor Holden. John Barrett, one of Holden's informants, later testified about a clandestine meeting of the Moore County Klan, where several members "agreed to assassinate Governor Holden by going to his mansion about dark and pretending to have business of importance with him…and when he made his appearance, to shoot him and then make their escape as best they could." Their plans floundered soon thereafter, and the plot was ultimately abandoned.

Unfortunately, Ku Klux violence continued to escalate following the passage of the Shoffner Act. On the evening of February 26, 1870, one hundred masked Klansmen descended on Graham, Alamance County, and abducted Wyatt Outlaw—a Union veteran, town commissioner, and deputy member of the Union League’s Grand State Council. The white vigilantes dragged Outlaw to the town square, lynched him within sight of the courthouse, and pinned a note to his corpse that read, "Beware, you guilty, both white and black."

Despite the atrociousness of Outlaw’s lynching, Democratic-Conservative publications, like the Hillsborough Recorder, could not resist espousing wild conspiracy theories: 

“It is represented to us that about one o’clock last Saturday night, a disguised body of seventy-five or a hundred men appeared at the house of Henry Holt, colored, and entered his house, where they found not Holt, but an aged negro man named [Wyatt Outlaw]…The intention seems to have been to hang both Holt and Outlaw, coachmakers working in co-partnership, but they seem to have swapped beds if not “families” that night, and not knowing the whereabouts of Holt, they did not search for him outside of his premises. They, however, took Outlaw and the cord out of the bed, mounted him on a mule, and hung him with the bed cord to an oak limb in front of the Court house door, where he was found the next morning…

It is also represented to us that Outlaw’s wife at the inquest swore positively that the first man that took hold on Outlaw was a negro, and that she believes a majority, if not all of them, were colored—Outlaw was the generalissimo or President of the [Union] League, in command of the funds which he was in the habit of stealing or appropriating to his own use. 

Now, whether this diabolical outrage was committed by the Ku Klux or by the Loyal League…for embezzling funds…it was a high-handed outrage against the Law, the Peace and Dignity of the State, and the perpetrators should be ferreted out and dealt with according to law. Such deeds as this will not only prevent Northern men coming here and settling, but will drive off [the] desirable population, disgrace society, and tarnish the escutcheon of the State.”

GRANT (31:51) – “Desirable”—that’s always a…what [are] desirable parts of society? These coded words, I’m always like hmm.

TIM (32:04) – Less than two weeks later, the body of another black man, William Puryear, was found in a nearby millpond. Puryear, who was mentally disabled, had claimed to have recognized of two of Outlaw's killers.

On March 7, Holden declared Alamance County to be in a state of insurrection. As part of his proclamation, Holden asserted: “I have waited to see if the people of Alamance would assemble in public meeting and express their condemnation of such conduct by a portion of the citizens of the County, but I have waited in vain. No meeting of the kind has been held. No expression of disapproval even of such conduct by the great body of the citizens has yet reached this Department; but, on the contrary, it is believed that the lives of citizens who have reported these crimes to the Executive have been thereby endangered, and it is further believed that many of the citizens of the County are so terrified that they dare not complain, or attempt the arrest of criminals in their midst. The civil officers of the County are silent and powerless.”

Hoping to deter further violence, Holden dispatched forty federal troops from Raleigh to Alamance County. The commanding lieutenant persuaded the local magistrate to issue warrants for twelve men suspected in various murders, but these charges were dropped when other citizens provided alibis and issued death threats against civil officials.

Klan intimidation left state and local authorities powerless to act, pushing Holden to seek federal intervention. Mindful that the Shoffner Act did not empower him as governor to suspend habeas corpus, Holden pleaded with President Ulysses S. Grant: “If Congress would authorize the suspension by the President of the writ of habeas corpus in certain localities, and if criminals could be arrested and tried before military tribunals, and shot, we would soon have peace and order throughout all this country.” Grant sympathized with Holden’s concerns and sent more federal troops to North Carolina, but took no further steps.

Still seeking support, Holden sent Adjutant General Fisher to Richmond, Virginia, to request additional reinforcements from Major General Canby. However, Canby was not convinced that Alamance County was truly experiencing an insurrection, and informed Fisher that only the president could authorize additional military intervention.

Meanwhile in Caswell County, John Walter Stephens—a Republican State Senator and outspoken advocate for freedmen's rights—grew increasingly concerned for his safety. A former Freedmen’s Bureau agent and Union League organizer, Stephens was integral in mobilizing the county’s majority black electorate. His willingness to openly associate with black residents earned their trust, culminating in his victory over Conservative candidate Bedford Brown during the 1868 state senate race.

White residents came to despise Stephens, branding him a racial and political renegade. The county became a breeding ground for rumors, many of which were completely unsubstantiated. Allegations ranged from claims that Stephens acted as a spy for Governor Holden, to accusations of bribery and arson. But perhaps the most outlandish charge was that Stephens had committed matricide. On June 30, 1869, Stephens’s mother was found dead in her bedroom with her throat cut. Although the coroner ruled her death accidental—attributing it to a fall on a broken pottery shard—the suspicious circumstances fueled speculation. Political adversaries weaponized the tragedy, using it to further attack his reputation.

Democrats relentlessly attacked Stephens’s character, often referring to him as “Chicken” Stephens. Now, this was not an affront to cowardice or mediocrity. In 1866, authorities in Rockingham County indicted Stephens for killing his neighbor’s chickens after they destroyed his garden. Following his release from jail, Stephens retaliated by caning the neighbor. When bystanders attempted to intervene, Stephens’s pistol accidentally discharged, injuring two men. The incident became a lasting source of political mockery.

By the spring of 1870, tensions in Caswell County had reached their breaking point. Stephens wrote to Governor Holden, warning "we are unable to administer the laws, we feel that unless we can get our county under Military rule, we cannot protect our people.” As a result of repeated threats, Stephens insured his life, fortified his home, and carried three pistols on his person.

On May 21, Stephens attended the Democratic nominating convention at the Caswell County Courthouse. After observing the proceedings, he accompanied Frank A. Wiley—a Democrat and former sheriff—to the building’s ground floor. Hoping to bridge the partisan divide, Stephens reportedly offered Wiley political support should he seek reelection. Unbeknownst to Stephens, Wiley had conspired with the Klan to lure him into a deadly trap. The two men entered a vacant storeroom, where a dozen Klansmen lay in wait. One assailant, G. T. Mitchell, held a rope around Stephens's neck, while another, Tom Oliver, stabbed him to death. According to John Lea, founder of the local Klan chapter, Stephens was “tried by the Ku Klux Klan and sentenced to death. He had a fair trial before a jury of twelve men."

When Stephens failed to return home that evening, his brothers and friends searched the courthouse. They attempted to enter a locked room on the first floor but could not get in, so several men stood guard overnight. The next morning, one of Stephens’s friends glimpsed through a window and saw a body lying behind a wood pile. After forcing their way inside, they confirmed that it was Stephens: deceased.

“Treachery, treason, and murder have done their work,” exclaimed the Raleigh Daily Standard. “A State Senator has been ruthlessly assassinated, not in the night-time by masked ruffians, but in the light of day, in the very precincts of a house dedicated to law, peace, and justice. Standing as a spectator in a Democratic meeting, he is decoyed to his death. He is stabbed and hung and the murder is concealed until the villains who perpetrated it escaped. Deliberate, cold, and malicious, planned with all the ingenuity of demons, place and hour chosen, the murderers of Stephens are members of a political klan, the record of whose deeds excel the ghastly stories of fiction, and who are to a man perjurers, robbers, murders, and sworn traitors.”

What should have sparked collective condemnation instead elicited denialism, followed by misplaced blame in the Conservative press. As the Wilmington Journal reported: “We clipped yesterday a report from the Raleigh Standard to the effect that J.W. Stephens, Radical Senator from Caswell county, had been taken from his home and murdered, but that paper of yesterday’s date, does not confirm its previous report. It was probably an altogether sensational affair, gotten up for the purpose of further inflaming the Radical mind, and, of course, thereby making more capital for that infamous party to work on. Stephens was probably shot and hung in effigy, and not in reality. While we believe that he fully deserves, for his many atrocities, a far worse punishment than death, and do not care how soon he is called to his final account…we most positively and emphatically denounce any violence at the hands of private parties.”

GRANT (38:53) – How can you say that and then…

TIM (38:58) – We do not condone violence in any way, but we’ll accept it if it happens. 

GRANT (39:05) – Exactly! Death isn’t a good enough punishment, and we hope he, whatever. Blah, blah, blah. But hey, disclaimer: we’re not advocating. But it’s like, all right…oh man.

TIM (39:22) – However, once the crime had been confirmed, the New York Herald took to conspiracy: “For the murder of Senator Stephens, it cannot be ascertained who is directly responsible. A prominent politician is said to have told a number of negroes from this county in Raleigh that Stephens was not the man to lead the party in Caswell, and that “he must be got rid of”…The inference is that Stephens was murdered to make political capital, and, like the disguised negroes in Alamance who were sent to the Penitentiary for perpetrating Ku Klux outrages while representing themselves to be white men, there are many who are satisfied that the late Senator Stephens was a victim of the political designs of the leaders of his own party.”

Another account of the Stephens Murder, as published in the Raleigh Sentinel by “A Citizen of Caswell,” dubiously furthers the Herald’s preposterous claim: “I am confident from what has transpired since his death that his murder is quite as likely to have been the act of his own political partizans as of any other men…I have no belief that he was killed by the Ku Klux, nor has any other person with whom I have conversed…[T]he door of the room in which his body was found, was found to be bolted on the inside as well as locked. The perpetrators must have gone out at one of the windows, and these windows face a house occupied by colored people…No white man could have gone in or out of one of these windows without being exposed to the almost certain detection of the occupants of the said house.”

The Caswell County coroner conducted an inquest that included testimony from numerous individuals, including Wiley and Lea, who lied about their knowledge of the affair. Sheriff Jesse Griffith—a reputed Klansman—also made little effort to pursue a thorough investigation. Without any substantive evidence, the coroner's report issued a perfunctory verdict, that Stephens "came to his death by the hands of persons unknown to the jury.”

GRANT (41:12) – ‘And we’re in no interest of figuring out who, and we’re not going to try, so just…case closed. Leave us alone.’ That’s not justice. That’s—I don’t know what that is—that’s state-sanctioned murder at that point, in my opinion, but…I don’t know.

TIM (41:31) – Yeah, well, like I said earlier, these local authorities—they were either intimidated by or colluded with the Klan. And in this case, they certainly colluded.

TIM (41:42) – On May 25, Holden publicly condemned Stephens’s assassination and offered a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. He also wired U.S. Senator John Pool, requesting federal assistance. Six days later, Congress passed the Enforcement Act of 1870, which authorized the president and other federal officials to deploy the U.S. Army against the Klan. However, in this instance, President Grant chose not to employ it, since imposing the law ex post facto meant that none of its provisions could be used to address Stephen’s murder.

For months, Governor Holden hesitated to deploy the militia against suspected Klan members, fully aware of the political backlash such a move would provoke. He had assumed that North Carolinians would condemn Klan atrocities and that President Grant’s administration would offer tangible support, but neither materialized. The assassination of Senator Stephens, however, forced Holden’s hand.

On June 8, 1870, Holden met with Republican leaders in Raleigh to address the worsening crisis. Senator Pool pressed the governor to act decisively and proposed that any arrested Klansmen be tried by military tribunal. Richard Badger, one of Holden’s closest advisers, cautioned against such measures and advocated for civil trials before a specially-appointed judge. Holden ultimately sided with Pool.

Holden resolved to organize two militia regiments; their composition being of particular importance. Republican officials quickly dismissed the idea of relying on the regular state militia, convinced that too many of its members either sympathized with the Ku Klux Klan or could be easily intimidated by them. Forming an all-black militia was not an option either. Holden understood that deploying armed, colored troops to arrest white suspects would almost certainly inflame racial unrest. Seeking reliable men, Holden turned to Republicans and Union veterans from western and eastern North Carolina.

Colonel William J. Clarke was chosen to command the first regiment, drawing recruits from the Piedmont and coastal plain communities. Clarke brought considerable military experience, having served as a captain in the Twelfth U.S. Infantry during the Mexican-American War and colonel of the 24^th North Carolina Regiment in the Civil War. He sustained a severe shoulder wound at the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff in May 1864 and, after several months of recovery in Raleigh, returned to active duty in January 1865. Federal troops captured Clarke shortly thereafter in  Dinwiddie Courthouse in Virginia, and he spent the war’s final months imprisoned at Fort Delaware.

Although Clarke was an antebellum Democrat and Confederate veteran, he joined the Republican Party during Reconstruction and campaigned for Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax during the 1868 presidential election.

Upon hearing the news of Clarke’s appointment, his sister-in-law, Sophia Devereux Turner—the wife of Sentinel editor Josiah Turner Jr.—wrote to him in disbelief: "I hear you are a Radical in other, and in plain terms a Scalawag…You are determined to make [your wife and family] sufferers for what I will only believe is a political freak. Can You bear to think Your Darling Daughter shall be cut off in school...by the epithet Scalawag’s Daughter[?]"

GRANT (44:50) – Wow.

TIM (44:52) – I guess she didn’t approve.

GRANT (44:54) – No! Wow.

TIM (44:57) – And isn't it crazy how she’s Josiah Turner's wife? Like, what are the odds? 

GRANT (45:02) – Yeah! It’s like…it’s such a small world, but within that small world, the layers and the paths that these people take—unpredictable, to say the least.

TIM (45:14) – In a public speech, Clarke expressed his contempt for Klan violence: “I honestly believe that we now have to decide the question of peace, or war. If I had not so thought, I [would have] remained in the quiet and seclusion of private life...I assure you, it requires a strong sense of duty to induce me to take an antagonistic position to many cherished friends…and to expose myself to the torrent of [Conservative] invective and vituperation…but a man whose patriotic instincts carried him into two wars, and who has participated in twenty battles, will probably have sufficient fortitude to risk the stings of wasps and hornets.”

Before the militia campaign began, Holden sent Clarke to Washington D.C. to "secure an outfit for the force." In his absence, Colonel George Washington Kirk assumed field command.

Early in the Civil War, Kirk was conscripted into the Confederate Army, but as an outspoken Unionist, he escaped and joined the federal ranks. Kirk gained a reputation as an adept scout and capable leader of the Second and Third North Carolina Mounted Infantry units, making frequent incursions into western North Carolina and guiding Southern Unionists and escaped prisoners-of-war to federally-occupied Kentucky.

In June 1864, Kirk led 130 men from Knoxville to attack Camp Vance, situated near Morganton, North Carolina. Union General John M. Schofield credited Kirk’s assault with inflicting significant damage on the Confederate war effort, reporting, "At Camp Vance, [Kirk] destroyed a large quantity of rebel property, including one locomotive...three cars, the depot and commissary buildings, 1,200 small-arms...[and] 300 bushels [of] grain...besides obtaining forty recruits for his regiment.” During the war’s final months, Kirk participated in General George Stoneman's raid into North Carolina and accepted the terms of surrender of William Holland Thomas's Confederate Legion on May 9, 1865. 

In 1867, Kirk received a commission in the Tennessee militia. Two years later, he commanded a regiment that occupied Jackson and Overton counties, apprehending numerous Klansmen. By the time Kirk received Holden’s appointment, he resided in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

Kirk's reputation as a “notorious desperado”—rooted in his service as a former Union officer—proved especially controversial. Conservatives fiercely opposed him, and a number of prominent Republicans expressed skepticism. William M. Moore of Yancey County cautioned Holden that Kirk "is very odious to a great many Citizens of this Country, and to some good Republicans. If troops Must be raised in the West, I hope you will at once revoke the Commission of Colonel Kirk and appoint...a Citizen of North Carolina." Albert H. Dowell, a Republican from Asheville, thought Kirk would bring doom upon the Republican Party: "Such men as Colonel Kirk do not do a political party good. He is universally detested by the people as a military man—they fear and hate him.”

While some characterized Kirk as a derelict, others defended his record. The Rutherford Star reprinted a letter from Horace H. Walpole—the former colonel of the 122^nd New York Infantry Regiment—who endorsed Kirk as "the right character to mete out even-handed justice to those in his country who were Rebel guerrillas during the war, and who now largely compose the 'Ku Klux.' Among the true blue Unionists of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, Colonel Kirk was their right handman, leader, and protector...in many instances he thoroughly whipped organized bodies of these Rebel outlaws...and was indeed a perfect terror to these miscreants, these enemies of mankind…I think he is the right man in the place, and that our Northern Republicans ought to back him against the whole array of traducers and slanderers...we all ought to stand by this conspicuously gallant and efficient officer."

Governor Holden hoped Kirk's ties to the North Carolina mountains would help him recruit former Union troops and Republican sympathizers for the militia unit. Calls for volunteers echoed across the deepest hollows and highest peaks of western North Carolina. Hundreds of handbills were circulated and read aloud among mountain communities, declaring: "Rally union men in defense of your state! Your old commander has been commissioned to raise at once a regiment of state troops, to aid in enforcing the laws, and in putting down...the horrible murders and other atrocities committed by rebel K.K.K." Kirk eventually raised a sizable force of approximately 670 men, the majority from western North Carolina, with several recruits from eastern Tennessee.

State leaders planned a three-phase operation: Clarke’s regiment would garrison Raleigh, Kirk’s men would occupy Alamance and Caswell counties to arrest suspected Klansmen, and both units would help secure polling stations during the August 4 election.

But conservative newspapers, like the Raleigh Sentinel, fearmongered the “persecuted” public over the militia’s deployment: “INDIAN WARFARE – “For a life, another life. For a blow, another blow.” Then the object of the new military movement is to initiate the well know Indian doctrine, namely, if an Indian is killed, some white man, no matter who, must be killed to appease his spirit. Is this what the Governor means? Who will he kill for Colgrove? Who will be murdered for Stephens? Who hung for Outlaw? The civil authorities either could not or would not detect and arrest those who committed these murders, and as we are to have “a life for a life,” we suppose somebody is to be picked up, perhaps on bare suspicion…and hung and shot…Kirk is imported to execute it. Ah! He is the man for the Governor!”

GRANT (50:46) – Well maybe if there was justice in the land, and the law enforcement was doing its job, they wouldn’t need to raise up this force in the first place. I mean, death begets death, right? Like…

TIM (51:02) – In mid-July, the state militia assembled in Company Shops (present-day Burlington) and officially mustered into service. Clarke’s coastal contingent constituted the First North Carolina Regiment, while Kirk’s mountaineers formed the Second North Carolina Regiment. The newly organized troops were issued uniforms, equipment, and Springfield rifles.

Conservative commentators disparaged Kirk’s militia as backward, poverty-stricken, and obtuse. A July 30^th editorial in the New York Herald claimed that the mountaineers "look upon their muskets with a great deal of curiosity (doubtlessly wondering what they are for) and a good deal of awe; and their feeble minds are constantly vibrating between fear of this novel and formidable weapon so suddenly committed to their hands, and an overpowering dread of the bloodthirsty Ku Klux. At the slightest alarm after sunset they huddle together like a flock of sheep." Another Herald correspondent wrote, “A large majority of them [have] that sickly saffron colored complexion peculiar to the class known in the South as clay eaters'."

GRANT (52:06) – What? I don’t even—I don’t think I’ve heard of that. What?

TIM (52:10) – I guess it means that they're so poor, they eat dirt, and their skin has taken on the color of the clay they consume. 

GRANT (52:16) – Oh, okay. Oh gosh.  

TIM (52:20) – Kirk divided his forces—assigning two hundred soldiers to Lieutenant Colonel George Bergen—and hastened to Raleigh to confer with Holden. Relying on intelligence gathered from Republicans in Alamance and Caswell counties, as well as disillusioned Klan members, Holden supplied Kirk with a list of individuals to arrest.

On July 13, Holden authorized Kirk to "take the necessary steps to preserve order, and to give the fullest protection to life and property." The militia was directed to "take charge of the public buildings [in Alamance and Caswell counties], and arrest and hold for examination persons accused of felonies, especially those charged with, or being accessory to, the murder of J.W. Stephens and Wyatt Outlaw.”

TIM (53:03) – I'd also like to point out a neat parallel. Going back to our first episode on the Fishing Creek Confederacy, Union soldiers were supplied a list of names—provided by either Republican officials or party sympathizers—and they arrested people based on that list. Now, obviously that took place during the Civil War, where habeas corpus was suspended and martial law was in place. But at this point, North Carolina is no longer under military rule. They've been readmitted into the Union. So now you have a situation—and this is where the conflict comes into play—where the governor is suspending habeas corpus extralegally during peacetime.

GRANT (53:43) – Yeah, I mean, it’s fascinating when you think about expediency, and what politicians and governments sometimes will do. I mean, to bind us together as a society, we would need to think that those words are resolute, and that they are—almost like structures, in the sense of they exist independent of us. You know, they are words that we—they are principles that we base our…At the end of the day, though, all countries, societies, organizations, everything—they’re just people. And it’s like, the words on the page—the only meaning that they have is what the people give it to them. And, as you just said, the Civil War isn’t happening anymore, and the Constitution lays out certain processes that are just—for expediency’s sake—being, you know…The flexibility is important, but it’s always a balancing act.

TIM (54:44) – Upon arriving in Yanceyville on July 18, Kirk learned that congressional candidates James Madison Leach and William L. Scott were holding a public debate at the Caswell County courthouse. Kirk’s force, about 350 men, surrounded the building and arrested several suspects, including Leach, though he was later released.

The Hillsborough Recorder described the scene: “Kirk’s troops arrived in the suburbs of Yanceyville Monday evening about two o’clock. There was [a] going on in the courthouse, a political meeting—a discussion between Leach and Scott. Kirk waited outside of the town till the courthouse was filled and the speaking had begun. Then he marched in and deployed his men in and around the room. The door was closed. And then Kirk made the first arrest. Going up to Sheriff Griffith, who stood in the vestibule, with a pistol cocked in his hand, he laid his hand on him and said, “you are my prisoner.” Griffith asked, “By what authority?” “Yonder is my authority,” replied Kirk pointing…to his armed men. The courthouse was kept closed for several hours and the balance of the arrests made in good order.”

GRANT (55:47) – “Yonder is my authority,” yeah. He’s just keeping it real, I guess.

TIM (55:53) – That’s such a great line: ‘Yonder.’ 

GRANT (55:56) – “Yonder,” and you just point, and you see…

TIM (55:59) – Just point and you see, like, three hundred armed men just around the courthouse and you’re like ‘Ahh. Oh no.’

GRANT (56:03) – That is an epic line. That is an epic—they could make that in a movie or something, just saying ‘On whose authority?’ ‘Yonder.’ I love the word yonder. That’s a…

TIM (56:14) – Well, bring back Smelfungus. Bring back yonder.

GRANT (56:17) – Smelfungus and yonder, let’s go! I like it.

TIM (56:25) – “The excitement…[grows] more intense each day,” declared the New York Herald. “By instructions from Colonel Kirk, commanding the East Tennessee jay-hawkers and free-booters, no person is admitted to see the prisoners, and…some of them may be tried and convicted on irresponsible testimony by a court of Kirk’s ignorant, illiterate and partisan officers, and perhaps executed by his hand.

General Grant has said that he had been informed that no man’s life was safe in Caswell, that citizens were shot down in the streets, on the highways, and that the civil authorities countenanced all these outrages. Now in contradiction of these reports, I have the assurance of two officers in the United States army, now there, that they never knew a more law-abiding or more peaceably disposed community before in their lives.”

In total, 101 men were arrested on suspicion of Klan-related activity. Among those detained were former U.S. Congressman John Kerr Jr. and the sheriffs of Alamance and Caswell counties. No one was killed during the militia campaign and Klan activity promptly ceased. Nevertheless, the show of force sparked significant public outrage. “Alamance and Caswell counties have been invaded by armed minions of North Carolina’s new-fledged tyrant,” lamented the Wilmington Journal, “the liberty of their citizens has been disregarded, and the habeas corpus spit upon.”

Almost immediately after their arrests, the suspected Klansmen petitioned Chief Justice Richmond Mumford Pearson of the North Carolina Supreme Court for writs of habeas corpus. Among those seeking relief was Adolphus Moore, the alleged organizer of Wyatt Outlaw’s murder.

Chief Justice Pearson was a Republican and largely sympathetic with Holden's efforts; however, he determined that state militia’s arrests constituted unlawful detention. He consequently issued writs of habeas corpus, mandating that the accused appear before a civil court rather than a military tribunal.

On July 18, Pearson’s writs were returned unserved. According to the attached affidavit, Colonel Kirk dismissed the writs as “played out” and would only surrender the prisoners by Governor Holden’s command.

Pearson wrote to Holden: “Sir: I have the honor to enclose copies of four writs of habeas corpus—issued to me by Colonel George W. Kirk—together with affidavits, setting out that Colonel Kirk refused to make returns of the writs, and state that he made the arrests by your order. As Colonel Kirk does not make return, I do not feel at liberty to assume the fact that he acted under your orders, from the conversation set out in the affidavits. Please inform me if Colonel Kirk acted under order from you in making the arrests.”

Holden replied: “[Colonel Kirk] was instructed firmly but respectfully to decline to deliver the prisoners [under my orders]. No one goes before one in respect for the civil law, or those whose duty it is to enforce it, but [given] the condition of Alamance County, and some other parts of the State…I have been forced to declare them in a state of insurrection…At this time, I am satisfied that the public interest required that these military prisoners shall not be delivered up to the civil power.“

The governor further contended that “the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State are set at naught; the civil courts are no longer a protection to life, liberty and property; assassination and outrage go unpunished, and the civil magistrates are intimidated and are afraid to perform their functions…thus, civil government [is] crumbling around me.”

Holden’s letters were presented before the State Supreme Court. Since Holden and Kirk openly defied Pearson’s order, the petitioners’ counsel moved for a writ of attachment, seeking to arrest both men for contempt. They also requested that the Chief Justice immediately assume custody of the militia’s detainees, since Kirk had failed to show “sufficient excuse for his neglect and refusal” to comply with habeas corpus. The fact that he acted under the Governor’s direction was irrelevant; Kirk “had the prisoners in his custody, and he is the proper person to whom the writ should have been directed, and he must obey it by making a proper return to it.”

Chief Justice Pearson delivered his opinion on this contentious legal quandary—Ex parte Moore—on July 23, 1870. While Pearson acknowledged Holden’s authority to declare a county in a state of insurrection, he could not suspend habeas corpus or subject civilians to trial by military commission. As Pearson wrote, “The means must be proper, as well as necessary, and the detention of a petitioner as a military prisoner is not a proper means, for it violates the Declaration of Rights.”

However, even though Holden exceeded his gubernatorial authority, Pearson determined that Colonel Kirk could not be forced to return the prisoners to civil court, since he was following Holden’s direct orders. As North Carolina’s commander-in-chief, the governor exercised the physical power of the state, while the judiciary possessed only moral authority. Drawing on political theory, Pearson reasoned that two branches of government could not oppose each other. Therefore, he lacked the power to authorize the governor’s arrest, let alone compel the prisoners’ release. Enforcement of the writs ultimately fell to Governor Holden’s discretion. “I have discharged my duty,” Pearson said. “[T]he power of the Judiciary is exhausted, and the responsibility must rest on the Executive…Having conceded full faith and credit to the action of his Excellency, within the scope of the power conferred [to] him, I feel assured he will in like manner give due observance to the law as announced by the judiciary.” Unsurprisingly, Holden refused to abide by the writs.

TIM (1:01:48) – So I’m interested to hear your take, since you’re in law—you are a lawyer. What do you think of that argument?

GRANT (1:01:55) – I mean—so it’s a state law issue, and it would depend on, like, what the—I think it’s a copout, if I’m being honest. I think the way that our government is supposed to work, right, is we have the Constitution…the President—the executive, legislative, and judicial bodies are supposed to…all their efforts, all their guiding principles are supposed to be tailored towards the Constitution—like, the President’s Oath of Office is to swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Constitution lays out how things are supposed to happen.

I think what often you’ll find there…basically in almost every state, the judiciary is very reluctant to overstep—or to tell the executive branch that they can’t do things—because it’s easy to view them less legitimately than you would Congress or the executive branch because citizens aren’t typically voting directly on the judges. I know like in Wisconsin, or maybe it was Minnesota, they—citizens do vote on their judges. But if I had to guess why, it would probably be that the judges were afraid of, you know, questioning an elected official in that kind of a way. And it goes back to the whole, like…Sure, there’s words on a page and the Constitution tells you to do something, but if someone has the backing and the power of ‘yonder,’ you know? They’re going to—people will bend.

You shouldn’t let fear prevent you from upholding the Constitution. If they decided that, like—there could be pedantic procedural arguments as to the legitimacy of the…but just overall, like Marbury v. Madison, basically the Supreme Court is supposed to interpret whether the actions of the executive branch and the legislative branch abide by the Constitution. And if they don’t, that’s like the whole—the court’s whole job is to say: ‘Uh-uh, that’s not the Constitution.’ But if they just do the, ‘We’re not even going to weigh in because, you know, it’s their domain’—if that’s what the Constitution says, then okay, but if they’re just saying that because they want no part of it, and no matter what they’re going to try to say, they’re just being cowards—that’s a problem. That’s when everything starts to break down.

So, it depends, you know? And a lot of people will hide their cowardice behind overscrupulous, little pedantic procedural arguments. It’s like you can’t lose sight of why you’re there. You’re there to protect the Constitution. You’re there to—I hope—try to make the world a better place. You’re not there to just decide the easy stuff and then when it gets hard, back away. Like, that’s my opinion. I’m sure if you were to analyze the, like, the case or the…So, do you know—did they—was it just like a judicial decision? Was it like a—like that source, or—basically what the judges said?

TIM (1:05:00) – So, Pearson was the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, and I believe he made this decision unilaterally—like, there was no judicial panel involved, or anything like that.

GRANT (1:05:12) – Yeah, and sometimes there’ll be like a—like, you’ll notice in today’s government—there’s a lot of shadow docket decisions, or whatever, where you know, the Supreme Court will try to, like, just decide something without issuing an opinion—in the middle of the night, or whatever, and like—usually they’re not supposed to be doing that that much. It’s supposed to be for, like, emergencies. They’ve been doing that a lot more lately. I’m interested, like, if you were to get into the weeds of why his opinion was that way, then I’d be like ‘maybe he has a good argument, maybe not’—but regardless, something of that magnitude, I think you owe it to the people of your state…and to the government—the Constitution itself—to give a little more, or to like…I don’t know.

TIM (1:05:56) – Yeah, I think it all boils down to, you know, the system of checks and balance, right? Like, you see it at the federal level. It’s the same at the state level. You know, I think the point of the judiciary—as you said—is, like, to hold the other two branches accountable. In this case, you know—however noble the cause was—Holden clearly overstepped his authority as governor. So that—that’s when the judiciary should step in and be like, ‘No, this is what the constitution says and what you’re doing is illegal.’ And in a way, he does come out and say that—he does say, like, he can’t suspend habeas corpus—but then he then breaks it down and says, ‘well, I only possess the moral authority, so the actual…

GRANT (1:06:35) – Yeah.

TIM (1:06:36) – …the actual interpretation of the constitution is imposed to the governor and what his morals are.’

GRANT (1:06:45) – And that’s so, in my opinion, that’s so wrong. That’s like so…Basically, you know what the big—like in…peel back all the robes and the words, and—it’s basically, ‘What you’re doing isn’t right. My job is to tell you it’s not right. I have no ‘yonder’ to back me up. I can’t stop you.’ That’s really what it like—I mean, I could phrase it. I could give a very—a sixty-page legal treatise with all the citations and whatever—but like, when you really boil it down, that’s the problem. That’s always been the judiciary’s problem is that—or not problem, I shouldn’t say problem, but just their—and they shouldn’t. I mean, if you gave judges the same kinds of military forces that you gave the President and the—the problem with the judges is the reason they don’t have that is because they’re not elected. Could you imagine if like, there’s, you know, twelve judges who just ran the military and they were answerable to no one? Like we, you know…it can go the wrong way, too.

It’s basically like, if they’re not being elected by people, we don’t want to give them that. And so then, it’s this unspoken compact that…okay, well if the judges are supposed to be extremely qualified, they’re supposed to be extremely honorable, they’re supposed to know the law—the Constitution—and if you do something and they tell you, ‘don’t do it,’ you’re not supposed to do it. And if you just start saying, ‘I’m not—I’m going to do it anyway. Stop me.’ That’s when we get into the constitutional crisis of like, well, what can the judiciary do if the executive branch pulls that card, right? If they do the ‘Okay, you told me I can’t do this. I’m going to do it anyway.’  And then it’s like—then the judges have to try to say ‘well…’ Because the moment they say, ‘nope, what you did is wrong,’ then it becomes ‘well stop me.’ And if they can’t stop them, then they lose all sense of legitimacy because then it’s like, ‘well why do we listen to them in the first place?’ And it’s just like a function—our functioning constitutional republic. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But if you call the judiciary’s bluff, if you will…I mean, leave it to better minds than myself, but maybe there’s something to be said for putting more faith in the judiciary. But at the same time, there have been countless judges or—you know, like [the] Dred Scott decision. I think that’s one of the worst—I think I talked about that, whether it was the first episode or the second episode—it’s just one of the worst decisions I think in American history. And it’s like, well…it’s just frustrating, right? Because you can see they can’t say, ‘Well what you’re doing is wrong. You need to stop.’ And then the executive branch saying, ‘Well I’m not going to. Stop me.’ And it’s like…I’m kind of rambling, but it’s like interesting to talk through it because you end up finding the truth of it.

And what I will say, too, though, is you know, their job—they’ve studied the Constitution their whole life. They’ve studied case law, they’ve studied the law, they—every argument, they’ve probably heard it, probably argued about it. And so, there’s some level of deference that I think is warranted because not everybody is able or has the time to learn the Constitution and the law the way that they can. It’s like in a healthy system, we all have to be bound by just some sense of trust in each other, and some sense of respect. And if we start…it sounds trite—it sounds like something you’re taught as a kindergartener, or whatever—but there is extreme value in it.

Sorry that was such a massive ramble. I love these—I love the law stuff, though. And like constitutional law, whether it’s federal or your own state’s constitution, it’s basically like—it’s the levers and wires that make this system run. It’s fascinating.

TIM (1:10:41) – The Tarboro Southerner strongly condemned the court’s decision: “Judge Pearson—This individual, once esteemed so high for his legal learning, having been gradually sinking down to the depths of political infamy, has at last reached the bottom.

He has become the willing tool of W.W. Holden!

Great heavens! What a despicable position to be occupied by the Chief Justice of North Carolina!

While declaring…that Holden had no power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, he yet, cowardly or with criminal connivance, refuses to compel him to give up his prisoners so unjustly detained.

The acme of his infamy is reached when he says: “The power of the Judiciary is exhausted. I have no posse comitatus”—the veriest subterfuge to escape the responsibility of his high position.

He has certainly worked well for his radical master, the Governor, and will no doubt reap his reward…in the contempt and hatred of a persecuted people, to whom they turned as their last hope in the day of trial, with the same result as the lamb going to the wolf for protection.”

GRANT (1:11:41) –You know, it’s a—I think…It’s one of those, like a—the critique. You follow the substance of the critique and then you can say, ‘well maybe these people—maybe it was like…’ We could argue morally about whether it was good or bad—the [habeas corpus]—but like, the judicial responsibility? I understand the critique. Like basically saying, ‘You can’t do that. I’m so sure you can’t do that. But I’ve done everything I can and there’s nothing more I can do.’ It’s just basically then you’re put—you know who you’re putting it on, then? The voters. You’re putting it on the people. They have to rise up and if they want the law to be followed—and it’s just like, you know, people like leadership and…I don’t know. It’s tough. It’s tough.

TIM (1:12:28) – While the principle of habeas corpus languished in court, frustrations boiled over in Raleigh. Around midnight on July 22, an unknown number of assailants fired upon a colored encampment belonging to the First North Carolina State Troops. The camp’s sentries returned fire, but no one was hurt.

While the incident itself proved rather inconsequential, the Raleigh Sentinel used the episode to admonish the militia’s incompetence: “Some of the negro soldiers encamped at the Old Baptist Grove became alarmed at something last night, and commenced firing their guns at random in every direction…it is said that the reason given for this conduct is, that some person or persons fired into their camp. We do not believe a word of this.” The editorial went on and sarcastically charged that the perpetrator "was some jealous colored city civilian, taking revenge for the progress the black boys in blue are making among the colored damsels, causing them to snub the plain [clothed] chaps most provokingly."

GRANT (1:13:25) – Just pit them all against each other, and…yeah, it’s divide and conquer. It’s the tool that racists have used since the beginning of time. Like, ugh. That’s just…

TIM (1:13:40) – Fearing potential retaliatory Klan violence, Holden again requested federal reinforcements. President Grant responded by deploying six companies of infantry—approximately seven hundred soldiers—to North Carolina.

The tepid federal support aroused conservative disdain. As the Lincoln County Herald of Missouri observed: “The rascally Governor Holden of North Carolina, and his sub-rascal Kirk, now have one hundred men under arrest, with the habeas corpus annihilated. They have refused to surrender to Chief Justice Pearson these outraged citizens; and to help out this woeful crime, the block head in the white house…backs the scoundrels who are destroying peace and government in North Carolina.”

Now we can’t forget that, amidst all this turmoil, North Carolina was preparing for its state elections, scheduled for August 4, 1870. The timing of Governor Holden’s militia campaign convinced many Conservatives that its true purpose was to intimidate voters and forcibly uphold Radical Republicanism.

One such detractor, William A. Hearne, penned the following editorial in the Tarboro North Carolinian: “[I]n days of old, when a ruler of the people prostituted his position to wicked purposes of oppression, and so basely betrayed his public trust as the Governor of North Carolina has, so frequently done for partisan purposes, the swords of patriots leaped from their scabbards, THE KNIFE OF THE ASSASSIN FELT UNEASILY, BUT SURELY, FOR THE HEART OF THE RUFFIAN RULER.”

Even some Republican publications, like The Washington Star, reprimanded Holden for doing irreparable harm to the Republican Party: “We cannot resist the conviction that Governor Holden is pursuing a wholly mischievous and indefensible course in North Carolina. Giving all possible consideration to the asseverations of Governor Holden in regard to the Ku Klux Klan outrages and resistance to law, we see nothing to justify his violent despotic acts…[T]he extreme measures he has resorted to are dictated solely by a reckless, unscrupulous determination to carry out his own political ends at all hazards…The deeds of greedy, unscrupulous men, like Holden…are doing infinite mischief to the Republican cause, making it impossible to build up a self-sustaining Republican party in the South…[Holden] is simply a demagogue trickster and political desperado. A blatant secessionist when secession was uppermost, he is just the style of man now to persecute with rabid vindictiveness not only his secession neighbors, but all republicans who oppose his oppressive reign.”

TIM (1:16:08) – And they kind of have a point. Holden did ultimately vote for secession and his track record with policymaking is spotty at best.

GRANT (1:16:16) – You know, I will say, you try to—if you think about the common thread…you know, obviously I—the Ku Klux Klan is terrible. They need to be stopped. I completely…It’s really hard to—I mean, there’s no argument really there, but clearly there’s some political motivation, and it seems like the common thread throughout all his…It does seem like there, as you said, there’s an argument that the one consistent thread in his political career has been opportunism, or whatever. So I get it.

TIM (1:16:50) – With militiamen stationed at the polls, North Carolina’s 1870 elections proceeded with surprising civility. Even imprisoned Klansmen were permitted to submit their votes.

GRANT (1:17:00) – I was just going to say, so imprisoned Klansmen can vote…were African Americans have the right to vote or, you know, I guess they did, but I wonder—you know, it’s just like the [hypocrisy] or whatever—there’s all these people saying they shouldn’t have the right to vote, but meanwhile imprisoned Klansmen are being given the right to vote. Like, it’s just…I don’t know.

TIM (1:17:24) – Republican leaders approached the race with confidence, anticipating a repeat of their 1868 victory. But the final results defied their expectations. Conservative candidates captured a decisive majority in the General Assembly and claimed the state attorney general’s office, while Republican support plummeted by nearly 13,000 votes. “Holden and his crew went up like a rocket and have come down like a stick,” scoffed the Weekly Clarion of Jackson, Mississippi. “[T]hey have fallen, never to rise again.” 

The election essentially became a referendum on what the Democratic press dubbed as the “Kirk-Holden War”—a derisive term meant to accentuate Radical Republican tyranny and military despotism. Conservative critics frequently targeted Holden’s use of public funds to finance the militia campaign. Sentinel editor Josiah Turner Jr. spearheaded these attacks, and estimated that the operation cost between $250,000 and $500,000. By spotlighting these expenditures—at a time when many North Carolinians were still reeling from the economic consequences of the Civil War—Conservative leaders successfully portrayed Republican policies as reckless and misguided.

To exemplify this intense partisanship, take the following exchange between the Tarboro Southerner and the New Bern Times.

The Tarboro Southerner originally reported: “Our attention has been called to the engraving on the Republican ticket used in the recent election, representing a bale of cotton, with some mysterious letters marked on the head…On being reversed, if we interpret them rightly, they spell the word WAR…The question naturally suggests itself—what does it mean? Is it a device of the [Loyal Leaguers] to prevent their members from voting any other ticket under the penalty of having war declared against them, or does it have any connection with the Holden-Kirk movement?”

The New Bern Times replied: “It meant that the Tarboro Southerner was hard up for matter and selected the cotton bale as a subject, or we are in error. The “what does it mean” is a favorite dodge of the Democratic-Ku Klux organs, and has the merit of being entirely original with that style of press. It meant for us victory on a solid basis, but Ku Kluxism defeated us by putting fire in our cotton.”

“The reply of the Times is simply contemptible,” retorted the Tarboro Southerner. “The application of the term “Ku Klux organ” to this paper is in keeping with the character of that scurrilous and mendacious sheet…“Ku Klux” indeed! That is all the argument you can get when you charge the thieves and swindlers with the crimes and outrages they have committed in North Carolina…The solid basis he refers to is no doubt the military despotism of Holden and Kirk, which would [have indeed] been as solid as steel—had the victory been achieved.

The assertion that the Radicals were defeated by Ku Kluxism is infamously false. The author of it is, in all probability, of the genus carpetbagger, a race of scape-graces mostly from Northern penitentiaries, who are prima facia characterless vagabonds…Now that the election is over, and the spoils are no longer in reach of these vampires, many of them will gather up their wilted paper collars and their empty carpet bags, and go sneaking, like whipped spaniels [back home].”

GRANT (1:20:30) – That’s a good one. That’s…

TIM (1:20:32) – What an exchange that was!

GRANT (1:20:34) – Yeah!

TIM (1:20:38) – What began as an attempt to eradicate white supremacist violence quickly devolved into political disaster for Holden and North Carolina Republicans. Yet, the consequences of the Kirk-Holden War reverberated far beyond its immediate fallout.

Shortly after midnight on August 8, Private George Bradley of the 4^th U.S. Artillery—drunk and disoriented—wandered toward the aforementioned black militia camp at Old Baptist Grove. The camp’s sentry, Private John Pugh, spotted the interloper and twice ordered him to halt and identify himself. When Bradley ignored the warnings, Pugh shot him in the legs.

Federal military officials were infuriated by the shooting. Post commandant Captain Royal T. Frank expressed disbelief that black militiamen, “so utterly wanting in discretion and intelligence,” had been entrusted with firearms. He demanded that civil authorities discipline Pugh and relocate the camp. 

In a letter to General Henry Jackson Hunt, commander of federal troops in North Carolina, Colonel Clarke deplored the incident but defended Pugh’s actions: "I deeply regret the unfortunate occurrence of last night…My colored camp were fired on about three weeks since, and consequently they are very alert, and a man approaching the camp, at 1 o'clock at night and disregarding the challenge of the sentinel, was very naturally fired on."

The following day, Raleigh’s mayor acquitted Pugh of any wrongdoing. The militia camp was subsequently moved several blocks away.

Aside from a few tense confrontations, the Kirk-Holden War remained relatively bloodless; however, that didn’t stop Democratic newspapers from publishing reports that the militia tortured prisoners during interrogations. Upon learning of these disturbing allegations, Governor Holden immediately wrote to Kirk, emphasizing that any evidence gained through coercive means was "worthless. All prisoners, no matter how guilty they may be supposed to be, should be treated humanely.” 

Despite Holden’s directives, not all officers played by the rules. On August 5, Lieutenant Colonel Bergen overstepped his authority by sending soldiers into Orange County—an area not under martial law—to apprehend Sentinel editor Josiah Turner Jr. Holden considered Turner a political antagonist who helped disseminate Klan propaganda. He was determined to detain Turner, but only if he entered Alamance of Caswell counties. Bergen ignored these limitations and unilaterally arrested Turner, who spent three weeks incarcerated in the Caswell County Courthouse. 

Bergen also attempted to extract confessions by stringing up several suspects in his charge. Conservative outlets, like the Memphis Daily Appeal, eagerly circulated these claims of militia misconduct: 

“The following is one of several affidavits made by Kirk’s prisoners in regard to their treatment: Lucian H. Murray, being duly sworn, deposeth, and sayeth…that on the 27^th of July last…a guard of soldiers from the camp of G.W. Kirk…had been [sent] to his place of business…while he was absent therefrom. [Murray] went to the said camp and reported himself to one B.W. Bergen, who claimed to be Lieutenant Colonel under said Kirk…Bergen immediately ordered [Murray] to be put under guard and detained…as a prisoner.

[Bergen] then took [Murray] to his own tent, where there were three of his men armed with pistols; Bergen then said to this affiant that “he must tell him all about the hanging of Wyatt Outlaw.” [Murray] replied that he knew nothing about it…Bergen replied, “It is a damned lie; I know that you do”…Bergen put a rope around [Murray’s neck] and said, “Patten and Rogers (alluding to two other prisoners) knew nothing about it till they were hung up…and you must do the same.”

[H]aving already tied this affiant’s arms in the manner usual with criminals about to be executed…Bergen drew the rope, and swung [Murray] up by the neck. After suspending him for a short time, he was let down. Bergen asked him if he would confess then; [Murray] replied he had nothing to confess…Bergen seized the rope and again hoisted [him] from the ground, more roughly than before and suspending him longer; upon being let down [Murray] was unable to speak for some time…After other conversation and threats of killing…Bergen said: “I will now give you until tomorrow night, and if you don’t confess then, I will kill you dead.”

Bergen’s excesses eventually caught up to him. On August 26, Colonel Kirk ordered his arrest. Authorities detained him in Raleigh, where Company H of the 1^st North Carolina State Troops held him under guard.

Unable to find relief through the state courts, the suspected Klansmen petitioned Federal District Court Judge George W. Brooks for writs of habeas corpus. Brooks granted their requests and, in a blistering twenty-page opinion, condemned Governor Holden's “rude soldiers” for their “barbarous detention” of suspects, which violated their due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. He made no reference to the ongoing white supremacist violence that had initially prompted the arrests.

GRANT (1:25:23) – That was going to be my one thing, is like I—I have no idea what the, like, habeas corpus law is, right? But I guess the one time you suspend it is if law enforcement in the area that’s supposed to be performing its duties aren’t, because they’re not detaining the people that need to be detained. And there’s such riotous, like—there’s so much unlawfulness going on that you need to come in and—and honestly, I mean, I don’t know. If Ku Klux Klan, racial terror violence isn’t enough, it’s hard to like—if that’s not enough to justify it, I don’t know what is. At the same time, what it really boils down to is just that law enforcement should have been doing their job on the local level. Then, you know, you wouldn’t have to do all this, but you realize what happens if someone doesn’t do their job—someone isn’t upholding the law, or upholding the Constitution—it has a ripple effect. Not only down the food chain and how much it hurts the people’s lives they’re responsible to protect, but also up the food chain and, you know, how the authorities react and how the government works. And it’s just like, just be honorable and do a good job. That’s—as scary as it might be—you just got to try to do the right thing.

TIM (1:26:42) – And I think we've established, too, a pattern of violence that afflicted the North Carolina Piedmont in 1869, 1870. It was endemic.

GRANT (1:26:51) – Yeah.

TIM (1:26:52) – As we saw, the civil authorities, local magistrates—they were either colluding with the Klan or just too intimidated by them. And that's how we got to this point.

GRANT (1:27:02) – Yep, yep. You know, it’s funny. And I think it’ easy to fall into the trap of ‘oh, suspension of habeas corpus—in and by itself—[is a travesty].’ I mean, how could you, you know? End of all…If you look at the context of it, that—that isn’t one of those examples where I’m like, completely unwarranted. No, that’s one of those where I’m like—it’s like one of those necessary evils, maybe? Like I don’t know. But it’s just that, as you said, like [a] systemic pattern. It’s not just a…it’s all relative. It’s all relative. But, yeah.

TIM (1:27:41) – On August 6, Brooks ordered Colonel Kirk to present the prisoners before him in Salisbury, North Carolina. Governor Holden was taken aback by the intervention, especially since federal courts typically lacked jurisdiction over state criminal matters. He immediately contacted President Grant to protest, declaring his intention to keep the prisoners detained unless otherwise compelled by federal troops. Holden sought to defy Judge Brooks as he had defied Judge Pearson, but Grant—acting through Secretary of War Amos Ackerman—instructed the governor to obey Brooks’s writ. This directive placed Holden in a difficult position. Unable to openly defy the federal government, he acquiesced and ordered Kirk to turn the prisoners over to the civil courts.

TIM (1:28:22) – And it’s like, with this scenario, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, right?

GRANT (1:28:26) – Yeah.

TIM (1:28:27) –Early on, Holden was begging for intervention. He was telling the federal government, 'Give me troops. Give me supplies. I need all the help I can get.' But now, when some federal judge does intervene but not in his favor, he's like, 'Whoa. Hold on a second. You can't do that. This is a state matter.'

GRANT (1:28:43) – A hundred percent. It’s like, you got to be consistent, right? And what’s the one thing that’s been consistent for this guy? It’s been his own, you know—it’s like…

TIM (1:28:50) – His own inconsistency!

GRANT (1:28:51) – Yeah. It’s his own—it’s his own ambition—it’s his own…and it’s like, when you have people like that in charge, that’s not good, you know? You got to be consistent, like you said. And it’s like—and you don’t want to just be consistent to these weird, procedural ideas of like—why don’t we get back to being consistent about just like: Do unto others. Be good to your neighbor. Like—like those…you need some paradigm to understand and make judgments about the world. And you need to be consistent because the moment you lose that, then you start becoming this wish-washy, like—Oh, well it’s in my interest today. I like it. Oh, next week it’s not, so now I don’t. Like—well how about, like—my one consistent principle is I want to try to make people’s lives better, not just my own, or whatever. But that, you know…what’s going to maximize the well-being of the most people?

TIM (1:29:50) – The detainees were divided into two groups: one was brought before Judge Brooks in Salisbury, while the other appeared before Judge Pearson in Raleigh.

The federal court hearings in Salisbury began on August 22. The prosecutorial team, led by outgoing Attorney General Lewis Olds—Governor Holden’s son-in-law— mistakenly assumed that the proceedings were only preliminary. Thus, they were unprepared and presented no evidence or witnesses that implicated the accused. Given the absence of probative evidence, Judge Brooks found that the charges lacked legal merit and immediately discharged the defendants. 

TIM (1:30:23) – Kinda dropped the ball, there.

TIM (1:30:29) – The Raleigh hearings progressed somewhat better for the state. The prosecution presented enough evidence for Chief Justice Pearson to indict forty-nine prisoners, ordering them to be tried in the Alamance and Caswell County superior courts. However, none of those tried were convicted; all were acquitted and released by the end of August.

The complete absence of convictions substantiated Governor Holden’s claim that the civil courts were incapable of prosecuting the Klan. Whether through intimidation, collusion, or outright perjury, Klansmen ensured that their brethren would not be held accountable for their crimes.

“The civil law has proved powerless,” lamented Joseph Holden, Governor Holden’s son and editor of the Raleigh Daily Standard. “This no one pretends to deny. What refuge for them, then? Nought save the strong arm of military power. None of us wish to resort to the last extremity, nor to be laid under the burden of taxes thus brought upon us. But above all consideration of dollars and cents is the life of the humblest citizen, and the poor and just of the community. All the trouble resulting from the use of the military be upon the heads of those who have provoked it and made it necessary."

Governor Holden officially disbanded the militia on September 21, though he retained part of the 1^st North Carolina State Troops as personal bodyguards to prevent possible assassination attempts. On November 10, the proclamation of insurrection in Alamance and Caswell counties was lifted, officially ending the Kirk-Holden War. 

As Democratic-Conservatives consolidated their governmental power, calls for Holden’s impeachment intensified. The Tarboro Southerner rancorously exclaimed: “[Governor Holden] is the vilest man that ever polluted a public office and his crimes are now crying in trumpet tones against him. Impeach the Traitor, the Apostate, and the Renegade, and drive him into the infamous oblivion which is so justly his due."

On December 9, Orange County legislator Frederick N. Strudwick—a known Klan organizer—introduced eight articles of impeachment against Governor Holden in the North Carolina House of Representatives. All charges stemmed from Holden’s use of extraordinary executive powers. The first two articles accused Holden of unlawfully declaring insurrection in Alamance and Caswell counties, alleging that he aimed to "stir up civil war, and subvert personal and public liberty, and the Constitution of said State.” The remaining six items addressed various grievances, such as unlawful detention, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the improper use of state funds. Democratic legislators argued that Holden’s militia campaign was not about suppressing Klan violence, but rather persecuting his political opponents and ensuring Republican dominance in the state government.

The House Judiciary Committee swiftly adopted Strudwick’s resolution. On December 19, the House voted 60 to 46 in favor of impeachment. In response, members of the African American caucus issued a joint statement defending the governor, calling the impeachment proceedings retaliatory: “[Governor Holden] thwarted the designs of a band of assassins, who had prepared to saturate this state in the blood of the poor people on the night before the last election, on account of their political sentiments, and to prevent them from voting.” The next day, Holden relinquished his governing authority to Lieutenant Governor Tod Robinson Caldwell.

Prior to his impeachment trial, Holden publicly defended his actions: “[A]ll my appeals for law and order and peace…were in vain. One of two courses was before me: Either to enforce the law with a strong hand, and thus make the fight of the sword, and not the use of it, as I did, the instrument for restoring civil power; or to resign my place and skulk from my oath and my duty into retirement. I could not do the latter, and hence I acted. I have no doubt I made blunders and mistakes in some of the means which I employed to suppress the Ku Klux, but let me ask, did the Union and Confederate commanders make no mistakes in their operations during the late war?”

GRANT (1:34:24) – Yeah, you know and I—I just…the Ku Klux Klan was so terrible, you know? It’s—I will give him credit for acknowledging, you know, “I made blunders” or whatever, but I have to agree in the sense of like—the ultimate mission of stopping that terrorism—like, you just…tough decisions had to be made. You were going to—you were either going to make people happy, make them sad, but—I think, you know, you got to keep people safe from racial terror.

TIM (1:34:57) – Holden’s impeachment trial ran from January 30 to March 22, 1871. Throughout the proceedings, prosecutors presented a steady stream of witnesses—including several suspected Klan members from Alamance and Caswell counties—who recounted abuses committed by Kirk’s militiamen. One particular witness, Jesse Gant, characterized the militia as “a parcel of vagabonds…the most ignorant and stupid creatures I ever talked with, either white or black.”

Holdens defense lawyers challenged the credibility of Conservative witnesses, arguing that their political affiliations and Confederate ties tainted their testimonies. While the defense conceded that the militia’s actions were far from ideal, subduing the Klan required extreme measures. Several defense witnesses described pervasive Klan activity, corroborating the argument for insurrection in Alamance and Caswell.

Another area of contention involved the composition of Kirk’s militia. Prosecutors claimed that many militia members were either too young, too old, or not residents of North Carolina, which violated the state’s constitutional requirements: "All able-bodied male citizens of the State of North Carolina, between the ages of twenty-one and forty years, who are citizens of the United States, shall be liable to duty in the militia."

The defense countered that these statutory limitations only pertained to conscripted men, and “[did] not apply…to persons who volunteer [or] are willing to serve...whether the troops enlisted under Kirk were within or without the constitutional age, whether they were from Tennessee or North Carolina—wherever they may have come—when accepted by William Holden, they became and were part of the militia and could be used for any legitimate and proper service for which any other class of the militia could be used.”

Although tensions between Conservatives and Republicans ran high, courtroom decorum remained intact throughout the proceedings—except on February 16, when Josiah Turner Jr. took the stand. As reported in the Richmond Daily Dispatch: “Honorable Josiah Turner, editor of the Sentinel, was examined [in court], and quite a scene took place. Turner, when asked in regard to the truth of Holden’s allegations concerning him in his (Holden’s) answer to the articles of impeachment, replied that they were as false as malice could make them. Holden arose nervously and looked as if he was going to speak, but took his seat without doing anything. On being asked by respondent’s counsel what were the relations between him and the respondent, he replied: “Such as could exist between a good and a bad man.” Here the respondent arose, and said “he would not be insulted”…Holden then seized his hat and stalked out of the hall with a look of injured innocence.”

William Smith, chief counsel for the defense, delivered his closing arguments by reiterating that Holden’s actions fell squarely within the scope of state law and were solely motivated to protect the citizens of North Carolina. Lead prosecutor Thomas Bragg delivered with scathing rebuttal, contending that Holden had grossly exceeded his executive authority by imposing martial law, suspending habeas corpus, and authorizing the arrest of more than a hundred citizens without due process. He further argued that the militia campaign was both unnecessary and wasteful, resulting in the misuse of state funds and trampling of civil liberties.  

On March 22, 1871, the North Carolina State Senate convicted Holden on six of eight impeachment charges— the first two articles received a simple majority, but fell short of the required two-thirds threshold for conviction. The Senate subsequently passed a resolution that deposed Holden as governor and prohibited him from holding public office in North Carolina ever again. With the Legislature’s decision, Holden became the first governor in United States history to be removed through impeachment. 

GRANT (1:38:32) – Wow.

TIM (1:38:33) – So that whole campaign really backfired…

GRANT (1:38:38) – Wow.

TIM (1:38:39) – …in a way you would not expect.

GRANT (1:38:40) – No, that’s crazy. That is a crazy end to that saga, like…wow. Wow.

TIM (1:38:52) – In August 1872, interim governor Caldwell faced off against Conservative Judge Augustus S. Merrimon during that year’s gubernatorial election. Bolstered by their sweeping success in 1870, Democrats were confident of another victory. As one conservative pundit proclaimed, "Caldwell is the easiest to beat of any man in their party in the State…To the rash spirit of Holden, he adds the sourness of a cynic and the inflexibility of a steel bar.”

However, Caldwell managed to eke out a narrow victory, winning by fewer than 2,000 votes out of nearly 200,000 cast. Merrimon’s supporters tried to contest the outcome, but the Republican press reacted vigorously: “We care not what action the Legislature may take in the matter, the Republicans will resist any attempt to seat Judge Merrimon,” proclaimed the Greensboro Patriot. “We are satisfied that Caldwell received a majority of the legal votes cast, and we hope he will maintain his rights in the premises, by moderate means at first—at the point of the bayonet, if necessary—Republicans will not submit to be Ku Kluxed out of their victory.” The election results were ultimately accepted; however, this was the last time a Republican candidate won an outright majority until 1972.

GRANT (1:40:04) – After the Civil Rights Act. That’s when…wow. What an interesting little piece of history. A lot of layers to this one, too. This was fascinating, and I—what I really like about this episode in particular was this was really…just like one person’s governorship or one, you know—one in a really hairy time in history. And, you know, as he said, I think—I think the fact that there was a trial for his impeachment, almost just sounds—seems like a litigation of, you know…Something had to be done. Nobody was doing their job. He did the best he could, but he did make mistakes and there were times where he waffled. And—at the end of the day, though—we can’t gloss over the fact that the Klan was being terrible and needed to be stopped. At the same time, he was a bit inconsistent. He made some blunders—especially the money, you know? Like it’s just…the art of governing, man. It’s just—it’s messy. I think it’s just a real testament to how messy these things get. And I loved the legal analyses, too. This was a really good episode, man. I really liked this one.

TIM (1:41:27) - Well Grant, Halloween is approaching—a season when ghost stories haunt the imagination and supernatural creatures parade through the night. But beneath the masks and playful frights, a more unsettling truth lurks in the darkness. Monsters are not figments of our imagination. They walk among us, sometimes in plain sight; their grotesqueness camouflaged behind a veneer of normalcy. They say, “better the devil you know than the devil you don't.” Well, this warning proved prophetic for one sadistic predator who exploited innocence for his own psychopathic pleasure, leaving a nightmarish—and almost incomprehensible—hellscape in his wake. Join us as we dive deep into the annals of American infamy and dissect the life and crimes of one of the nation’s most depraved serial killers—next time on The American Narrative: Histories of a Nation. 

RESOURCES

1. Bauch, Clare T. "Holden and Pearson: A Study in the Reconstruction History of North Carolina." Fordham University. 1949.

2. Brisson, Jim D. “‘Civil Government Was Crumbling Around Me’: The Kirk-Holden War of 1870.” The North Carolina Historical Review 88, no. 2 (2011): 123–63.

3. Chen, Zirui J., and Stephanie McCurry. "The Great North Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials." (2023).

4. Dailey, Douglass C. “THE ELECTIONS OF 1872 IN NORTH CAROLINA.” The North Carolina Historical Review 40, no. 3 (1963): 338–60.

5. Gordon, Cornelia J. "No Justice Within The Law: The Murder Of Wyatt Outlaw And Its Absence From The Legal-Historical Record."

6. Harris, William C. “William Woods Holden: In Search of Vindication.” The North Carolina Historical Review 59, no. 4 (1982): 354–72.

7. Massengill, Stephen E. “The Detectives of William W. Holden, 1869-1870.” The North Carolina Historical Review 62, no. 4 (1985): 448–87.

8. McGuire, Samuel B. “‘Rally Union Men in Defence of Your State!’: Appalachian Militiamen in the Kirk-Holden War, 1870.” Appalachian Journal 39, no. 3/4 (2012): 294–323.

9. McGuire, Samuel B. “The Making of a Black Militia Company: New Bern Troops in the Kirk-Holden War, 1870.” The North Carolina Historical Review 91, no. 3 (2014): 288–322.

10. Troxler, Carole W. “‘To Look More Closely at the Man’: Wyatt Outlaw, a Nexus of National, Local, and Personal History.” The North Carolina Historical Review 77, no. 4 (2000): 403–33.

LINKS

• https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/holden-william-woods

• https://historynet.com/remarkable-william-woods-holden/

• https://cwnc.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/exhibits/show/rebelgovernor/governorholden

• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/united-states-governor-impeached-for-cracking-down-kkk

• https://www.carolana.com/NC/Governors/wwholden.html

• https://downfalldictionary.blogspot.com/2012/04/william-woods-holden-divided-legacy.html