Война Кирка-Гольдена: расправы над «Курицей» Степенса и императив маршала в Северной Каролине

During the Reconstruction Period of the Southern United States, John Walter Stephens, a resident of Caswell County, North Carolina gained status as one of the primary Republican leaders of the Piedmont region. The Conservative newspapers in Raleigh called him “Chicken” Stephens. A native of Guilford County, Stephens had become a prominent tobacco trader and had worked as an agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau and joined the Union League in which he had become very active in his association with the black residents of Caswell County. Prior to the War Between the States, Caswell County had several large plantations that retained large numbers of Negros as slaves to maintain the agricultural economy of the region. The black population at the time outnumbered those white’s living in the county. Stephens, whose work with the Bureau brought him in close contact with the black population, realized the potential political power this group of people could bring to the post-war South and promoted their voting registration for the Republican Party. In 1868 Stephens ran against former United States Senator Bedford Brown for a state senate seat in which he won. Brown, a Jacksonian Democrat, had been a popular politician during the prewar years but his power as a political leader had begun to wane as Stephens political star seemed to brighten but dimmed rather quickly after his election when the general population began to realize that he was “a political and racial moderate.” The white population, struggling to recover from the war and living under the occupying power of a Reconstruction government had little tolerance for his political philosophy. It became increasingly clear that the local people had little tolerance for those persons they considered to be “Carpetbaggers” and “Scalawags.” With his support of the Republican Party and his close work with the black population, Stephen’s popularity began to tarnish and dislike for him grew tremendously. He became so ostracized that even his own Methodist church expelled him from membership. Threats against his life compelled him to fortify his home for greater safety and he began to carry two pistols anticipating violent acts against him. The threats against Stephens finally came to fruition in May of 1870 as the Conservative [Democrat] leadership of Caswell County gathered for a convention at the courthouse in Yanceyville. Sometime during the convention Stephens was lured into the courthouse basement by Frank Wiley. Wiley, a member of the Conservative Party, had served as a sheriff in the county before the war. Now Stephens was urging Wiley to accept the nomination for sheriff once again, this time as a member of the Republican Party. When Stephens entered the basement Wiley and a group of men belonging to the local Ku Klux Klan who were lying in wait in an adjoining room seized and bound him. One or more of the Klansmen stabbed Stephens and placed his body on a woodpile in the room; they locked the door and fled the courthouse. As they rode out of the town one of the Klansmen tossed the key to the locked room in a nearby creek. When the body of Stephens was discovered news of the killing spread quickly and an investigation by the federal authorities ensued. Large numbers of people were questioned including many who had participated in the act who were seen at the courthouse on the day of the killing. The identity of the actual killer(s) was never established. The men involved in the incident as members of the Klan swore oaths of secrecy and revealed nothing to anyone. It would be sixty-five years before new information surfaced when the last member of the group of participants had died. Before his death he was persuaded to write his memoirs of the incident, whereupon the papers were sealed and stored in the North Carolina State Archives for the remainder of his life. The lynching of the mixed race African American cabinet maker and town commissioner Wyatt Outlaw, in Graham in February 1870, and the murder of “Chicken” Stephens caused alarm in the state capitol of Raleigh where Governor William Woods Holden moved swiftly to head off any other potential acts of violence. Holden had considered Stephens a loyal supporter and leader of his Republican administration and he feared the turning political fortunes of the state’s population away from the controlling Republican Party. In June 1870 he issued proclamation condemning the actions of the Klan and their involvement in murder and terrorism. Holden sent a militia to Alamance and Caswell counties declaring martial law attempting to control the growing unrest. The militia was commanded by Colonel George W. Kirk, a native of Jonesboro, Tennessee. Kirk had been a member of the Confederate army during the war. Before the war ended, he had deserted and joined the Union Army as a commander of a unit leading raids through western North Carolina. Holden’s choice of Kirk could not have been well accepted by the people of Alamance and Caswell Counties, especially by those former soldiers who had served in the Confederacy as soldiers. With a group of mostly untrained men under his command “ranging in age from fifteen to seventy,” Kirk moved his small force into the counties and began arresting several of the men, many who were prominent local citizens, including newspaper editor Josiah Turner, Jr. of Hillsborough. This began the brief historical episode known as the “Kirk-Holden War” of 1870. The series of conflicts in the brief war with the support of the Governor led to the political defeat of the Republican Party and the impeachment of Governor Holden in December of 1870 and his March 1871 conviction. Note: Wyatt Outlaw is likely the “Wright Outlaw” who served in the 2nd Regiment U.S. Colored Calvary, 1863-1866. Also, in 1866 he was a cofounder of the Loyal Republican League in Alamance County. Visit the Linda Vernon Genealogy Room, Madison-Mayodan Library, 611 Burton St., Madison, NC and the Gypsy Hollingsworth History Room, Danbury Library, Main St Danbury, NC. For research information contact: Genealogical Society of Rockingham & Stokes Counties, NC, P. O. Box 152, Mayodan, NC 27027-0152. You can visit the society website at gsrsnc.com. Elvin Perkins, Jr., GSRS member; Email: [email protected]