Klan war Ulysses S. Grant and the battle to save Reconstruction

In this new book about the fits and starts of post--Civil War Reconstruction, Bordewich details the shocking depredations of the Ku Klux Klan, a then newly formed terrorist organization under the general leadership of the charismatic Nathan Bedford Forrest, a wealthy former slave trader in Memphis. By dint of murdering not just formerly enslaved people, but also Republican politicians and staffers of the Freedmen's Bureau, white Southerners sought to recreate the conditions of slavery in all but name. After receiving a report detailing how Black people were being intimidated, tortured, and murdered by their erstwhile enslavers, General Ulysses S. Grant spent his two terms as president fiercely dedicated to ensuring full civil rights for the recently emancipated. But only continued Federal troop presence could prevent undermining the plain intents of the newly passed post--Civil War constitutional amendments. Bordewich introduces readers to Black leaders and white supremacist ideologues, sparing no fact, however grim, in his devastating history of how domestic terrorism tore apart the social, political, and other promises of emancipation. By documenting what really happened in the bloody and vicious post--Civil War South and how it nullified official government policy, this history resonates on many levels.

Historian Bordewich (Congress at War) serves up a riveting chronicle of America's Reconstruction-era campaign against the Ku Klux Klan. According to Bordewich, Reconstruction faltered after Abraham Lincoln's assassination because his successor, President Andrew Johnson, was a blatant racist ("His racism was crude, and shocking even then") who had no desire to enforce freed peoples' rights. As a result, "white violence churned across the South," with its most potent manifestation in the secretive and far-flung association known as the Ku Klux Klan. Most of the Klan's members belonged to the "prewar elite," and by 1867 it had become a "semi-military structure" with a clear hierarchy. Ex-Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest played a significant role; Bordewich asserts that Forrest "pioneered the organized application of terror" against freed Black people. After a resounding election victory in 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant ushered in the first of three Enforcement Acts in 1870 that empowered him to "sustain the provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment by force of arms" to ensure the voting rights of all citizens. Each Act targeted the Klan, enabling the use of military force and suspension of habeas corpus to detain tens of thousands of Klan members across the South. Drawing from his source material to devastating effect, Bordewich catalogs many appalling Klan atrocities. It's an astute assessment of an often overlooked episode in American history. (Oct.)

An award-winning historian digs into the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan. Drawing on abundant archival sources, renowned American historian Bordewich offers a penetrating examination of the rise of the KKK, "the first organized terrorist movement in American history," a paramilitary unit that arose in the vengeful South during Reconstruction. Engaging in murder, kidnapping, raping, castration, flogging, and burning, the Klan of the 1860s and 1870s bequeathed its sadistic tactics to later generations of white supremacists, such as the movement's second wave in the early 20th century, incited in part by the release, in 1915, of the incendiary movie, The Birth of a Nation. With former Confederate officers at its helm and angry racists in its ranks, the Klan attacked not only Blacks, but also white sympathizers, including political officials. Until Ulysses Grant won the presidency in 1869, with Republicans taking both houses of Congress, there was no federal response to the atrocities. When Grant took office, "in nearly every southern state, the Klan was thriving," targeting local office holders and community leaders, teachers, craftsmen, and former Union soldiers. Because the Klan aimed to put Democrats back in power, that political party did nothing to oppose the terrorist group whose shocking atrocities intensified with the passage of the 14th Amendment, which gave Blacks citizenship. Grant knew that ratification of the 15th Amendment, providing for the enfranchisement of freedman, would exacerbate the violence further. Although he had considered giving amnesty to former Confederates, intense opposition to that move came from southern states where Republican office holders testified to the Klan's sadism. Instead, in 1871, Grant ordered the Army to take on the Klan. Aided by judges, prosecutors, and ordinary citizens, his war succeeded. By 1872, the Klan was in retreat. For Bordewich, Grant's decisive move proved that "forceful political action can prevail over violent extremism." Yet, as he makes clear in this significant work of scholarship, it did not stop the future systematic stripping away of Blacks' civil rights. A critically important revisionist history. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.