Report of the Joint select committee appointed to inquire into the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary states, so far as regards the execution of laws, and the safety of the lives and property of the citizens of the United States and Testimony taken.

1790 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.
A4nswer. Yes, sir; and he told them he would be a democrat as long as he lived.
That's what he told me he told them.?Question. What did Henry Dew say they whipped him for?
Answer. They didn't whip him; they just shot him; there never was any words
multiplied with him; he was just shot. He was called out and he stepped out and
stopped on the door-step, waiting to hear what they were going to say to him, and he
saw so many men out there, and disguised men, he could not tell who nor what, and
the thought struck him immediately that they were going to do something with him,
and he broke and run.
Question. They did not tell him why they wanted him out there?
Aihswer. No, sir; he says they only told him to get up and come out. He started to
run when he saw them; they shot him down as he was running.
Question. State any other cases of whipping that you have heard of.
Answer. Really, I cannot. There's a heap of things I have heard of, but I can't
recollect them to give a true statement like I want to when I tell.
Question. Have you heard of a good many colored people being whipped in Greene
County?
Answer. Yes, sir; I have heard of a good many.
Question. how long has this whipping of negroes been going on?
Answer. It has been going on now for the last four years. The first whipping I heard
of was about 1867.
Question. How long since you first heard of men going about in the night-time, disguised, with pistols, and with their horses covered with disguises?
Answ!er. That's what I mean. It has been about that, since along about 1867. I
lived part of the year in Pickens County. The first I heard of any such thing was il
Pickens County. I lived there in 1866, part of the year, and I moved back into Greene,
where I was raised, bred, and born. I lived in Pickens up to September, 1866.
Question. Did you hear of Ku-Klux in Pickens County?
Answer. Yes, sir; that was the first.
Question. Did you ever see one there?
Answer. I never saw one in Pickens, myself.
Question. What were they said to be riding over the county for?
Answer. According to what I understood they were riding for, sometimes a man
would have somebody on his place and would fall out with him, and want him whipped;
that is the way it has come up; and they would call them " the night owls," who
would catch them and whip them.
Question. Did you hear of many cases of that kind, in 1866, in Pickens County?
Answuer. Yes, sir; I heard of several cases not very far from where I lived.
Question. When you went back to Greene County, in 1867, did you hear of the KuKlux there?
Answcer. I don't think there was any in Greene County at that time, that I can recollect. The next year they broke out and commenced in Greene.
Question. In the year of the presidential election did you hear of thei?
Answer. The year General Grant was elected?
Question. Yes.
Answer. Before that.
Question. Before that election?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Qu-estion. What did you hear that they were doing in Greene County?
dnswer. They were at that time whipping men; I don't know for what. To tell you
the truth, some said one thing, and some said another; some said they wanted to make
them vote the democratic ticket; but by my not being interrupted myself, men have
talked to me a good deal about voting one way and another.
Question. White men?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. What did they say to you?
Answer. They told me how they thought I ought to vote; that they thought I ought
to vote with thenm. They called me a strong radical at the time, but nobody would
hardly ever say anything to me. I was a journeyman. About such things nobody
never pestered me.
Question. Did they ever tell you what would be done with the colored people if they
voted the radical ticket?
Answer. Yes, sir; one man did.
Question. What did he tell you?
Answer. He told me they were voting against the people off is country if they
voted the radical ticket; and if they did do it, they would turn against them, and they
would see what happened to them if they did that; that they would put them down;
they had all the advantages; and the way he was speaking to me was, they would give
us no work to do, and we would be bound to get a sight of bother, and would be obliged