Carpetbaggers, Cavalry, and the Ku Klux Klan - (American Crisis Series: Books on the Civil War Era) by J Michael Martinez

About the Book

This is the story of the rise and fall of the Reconstruction-era Klan, focusing especially on Major Merrill and the Seventh Cavalry's efforts to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan to the light of day.

Book Synopsis

In some places, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a social fraternity whose members enjoyed sophomoric hijinks and homemade liquor. In other areas, the KKK was a paramilitary group intent on keeping former slaves away from white women and Republicans away from ballot boxes. South Carolina saw the worst Klan violence and, in 1871, President Grant sent federal troops under the command of Major Lewis Merrill to restore law and order. Merrill did not eradicate the Klan, but they arguably did more than any other person or entity to expose the identity of the Invisible Empire as a group of hooded, brutish, homegrown terrorists. In compiling evidence to prosecute the leading Klansmen and by restoring at least a semblance of order to South Carolina, Merrill and his men demonstrated that the portrayal of the KKK as a chivalric organization was at best a myth, and at worst a lie.

This is the story of the rise and fall of the Reconstruction-era Klan, focusing especially on Major Merrill and the Seventh Cavalry's efforts to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan to the light of day.

Review Quotes

"Michael Martinez provides a highly readable account of the Reconstruction Klan in South Carolina, based on a wide array of sources. Particularly interesting is his account of Major Lewis Merrill, who was central to bringing the South Carolina Klan to bay in 1871." --Allen W. Trelease, author of White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction

"Offers an exploratory study into the hidden world of the Klan and the men who attempted to bring it down. . . . A highly readable introduction to the making of the Klan. Recommended." --Choice Reviews

"Martinez's book is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship that presents the human face of this gallant and arduous era of experimentation and progress." --Civil War History

"A well researched account of the attempt to counter the Ku Klux Klan in post-Civil War South Carolina that provides an object lesson on the difficulty of an indecisive government in countering a popularly supported insurgency, and the efforts of a dedicated U.S. cavalry officer who tried." --David Chalmers, author of Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan

A well researched account of the attempt to counter the Ku Klux Klan in post-Civil War South Carolina that provides an object lesson on the difficulty of an indecisive government in countering a popularly supported insurgency, and the efforts of a dedicated U.S. cavalry officer who tried.

Martinez's book is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship that presents the human face of this gallant and arduous era of experimentation and progress.

Michael Martinez provides a highly readable account of the Reconstruction Klan in South Carolina, based on a wide array of sources. Particularly interesting is his account of Major Lewis Merrill, who was central to bringing the South Carolina Klan to bay in 1871.

Offers an exploratory study into the hidden world of the Klan and the men who attempted to bring it down. . . . A highly readable introduction to the making of the Klan. Recommended.

About the Author

J. Michael Martinez works as a corporate attorney and teaches political science as a part-time faculty member at Kennesaw State University. His most recent book, Life and Death in Civil War Prisons, traces the parallel lives of two Civil War prisoners. Martinez lives in Monroe, Georgia, with his wife and family.