Klu Kluxers in Northeastern Spartanburg: the situation before the war

On January 31, 1872 at 3:20 pm, a train carrying a highly unusual cargo arrived in Charleston, South Carolina. Escorted by thirteen army soldiers were forty-nine Ku Kluxers who were being sent to prison. Approximately half of the them were to be imprisoned in the Charleston jail, while the rest were being sent by ship to the federal prison in Albany, New York.

The fact that these men were facing imprisonment for Ku Klux activities was the outcome of extraordinary efforts by the federal government. Traditionally, responding to criminal violence is the responsibility of state governments, but the government of South Carolina (as well as many other governments in the south) had shown itself incapable of effectively curbing the Ku Klux Klan. Congress, with the support of President Grant, responded by passed new legislation to enable the federal government to act. Only nine months earlier, the president had signed into law the Reconstruction Acts which enabled the Justice Department to prosecute people who denied citizens the right to vote. The idea was that this would allow the Justice Department to prosecute Ku Kluxers without encroaching on the authority of state governments. The prosecution of South Carolina Ku Kluxers was an early test case of the new law, and the imprisonment of the forty-nine Ku Kluxers was a major success.

After they disembarked from the train, the Ku Kluxers were marched under army escort through the city. They attracted a great deal of attention. For years, Americans had heard horrifying and fantastic stories of the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. In South Carolina, Ku Kluxers had terrorized the Upcountry for much of the previous year. In popular imagination, Ku Kluxers were demonic figures who, disguised in elaborate costumes, attacked freed slaves in the dead of night and then disappeared before law enforcement could react. The ex-Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest, claimed the Ku Klux Klan formed a paramilitary force half a million strong that served in defense of white Southerners. For most residents of Charleston, this was their first chance to see a Ku Kluxer.

What did Charleston residents see? A very different sight than the mental image they had formed. A reporter for the Charleston News described the Ku Kluxers as follows:

a more forlorn woe-begone looking crew could hardly be got together. Many were imperfectly clad, some had gaping shoes, and their persons and clothing seemed to have declared eternal war with such domestic appliances as soap and water.

In an upcoming series of blogposts, I will take a look at these Ku Kluxers. I will focus on the men who were from Spartanburg County. While the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan has been the subject of a great deal of study, the focus has largely been on Union County. There is good reason for this. Union County was the site of some of the most ambitious Ku Klux Klan actions: two jail raids that resulted in the murder of twelve Black men who served in the state militia. The Ku Klux Klan did not pull off any comparable operations in Spartanburg, but they were a powerful force that left Black families in many parts of the county paralyzed with fear. 

Northeastern Spartanburg

Let's begin by taking a look at the part of Spartanburg where the Ku Kluxer were active. The 1872 convicts were from two townships: Limestone Springs and Cherokee. This region is now part of Cherokee County. It lies in the Upstate, along the border with North Carolina. The population center is the town of Gaffney, then the small village of Limestone Springs.

Map showing the location of the town of Gaffney
Google Maps

Northern Spartanburg has been populated since the 1700s. The Battle of Cowpens, an important Revolutionary War battle, was fought there. Despite its long history, the area was largely underdeveloped at the outbreak of the Civil War. The village of Limestone Springs was the only population center. The village originally was a resort town which planters from the Lowcounty would visit during the summer to escape the punishing coastal heat and enjoy nearby mineral springs. By the time the Civil War broke out, the village's most prominent feature was the Limestone Springs Female High School. This was a private woman's college run by the Englishman Thomas Curtis. The student body of approximately one-hundred students was a large presence. Beyond their numbers, the students brought a level of culture and sophistication to what was otherwise primitive country backwoods. Most of the students had come from other parts of the South Carolina, although a few were from other southern states, and one student (Elena N. Booth) had come all the way from Cuba. The village also supported a small number of people in the professional and commercial classes, a doctor, a few merchants, a shoemaker, and so forth.

Life was very different away from the village. One freedman described the area as a "pretty wild country." Approximately four-thousand people lived in the area, with somewhat more than had living in Limestone township and the rest living in Cherokee township. The area supported iron manufacturing, but the industry's local impact was limited. The ironworks were largely run by enslaved labor and owned by men living in Spartanburg village. Most people in the area were famers.

Like all of South Carolina, Cherokee and Limestone Springs were slave societies, but the slave population was relatively small, perhaps a quarter of the population. The typical enslaver was not a wealthy planter with a large workforce but rather a small farmer who enslaved a single family. No more than twenty residents had gained planter status by enslaving a large workforce. The largest enslaver was D. B. Ross, a farmer in Limestone Springs who enslaved approximately sixty people. He was exceptional. Most of the planters only enslaved twenty-some people, putting them on the bottom rung of planter society.

D. B. Ross ran a successful cotton farm, but most farmers grew little or no cotton. The planter with the second largest enslaved workforce (forty-two people), Lee Linder, grew no cotton and instead grew food provisions and raised sheep for wool. Others grew tobacco as a cash crop. Compared to planters in other parts of the state, the planers of northeastern Spartanburg were men of modest means, but they and other landowners wielded a great deal of influence. Many small famers were landless and rented land from planters, making them economically dependent on them. 

Life for small farmers was difficult. In other parts of the Upcountry, a farmer of modest means could hope improve his lot by growing cotton, but in northeastern Spartanburg cotton grew poorly and most people were subsistence farmers, growing corn and raising hogs. They could expect a lifetime of struggling to feed their family. 

Map showing the locations of the counties of Cherokee and Limestone in 1887
Spartanburg Public Library

When the war broke out, northeastern Spartanburg was cushioned from the impact by the area's impoverishment. Wartime conditions cut off access to international markets, so cotton growers struggled both to sell cotton and to purchase food provisions.In contrast, subsistence farmers in northeastern Spartanburg could lead lives during wartime that were largely the same as their lives during peace,  especially if their families members were able to avoid military service, 

Nevertheless, the community was presented with a tremendous challenge at the end of the Civil War. A quarter of the population was freed from bondage, and it was unclear how everyone would adjust to their new status. Much of the white male population had served in the Confederate army, and a number had been killed or permanently disabled. On top of this, the state government was being reformed after a few years of military government.

In the following series of blogposts, I will try to unpack what happened in the townships of Cherokee and Limestone in the years after the Civil War.  One thing is clear. Whatever happened, it was a disaster. In 1871, six years after the end of the Civil War, the region was plunged into barbarous violence. Virtually every Black family was subject to horrific violence, most often whippings but also sexual violence and mock executions. Many white families were implicated in the violence, and large numbers of people – including some of the most prominent and influential men – fled the area to escape law enforcement. Rather than recovering from the chaos of war, northeastern Spartanburg sunk further into poverty and disorder.

Map of the townships of Limestone and Cherokee, c. 1875
From South Carolinians Library

Source

1.  "The Convicted Ku Klux." The Anderson intelligencer., February 1, 1872, p. 1.

2. "Editorial Correspondence." Yorkville enquirer. [volume], July 26, 1860, Image 2

3. "Limestone Male Academy." The Carolina Spartan. [volume], December 20, 1866, Image 4