Chronicles the story of the Reconstruction-era Secret Service and its battle against the KKK's effort to suppress the emancipated African-American vote, sharing particular insights into the career of controversial Secret Service chief, Hiram C. Whitley. In the years following the Civil War, a new battle began. Newly freed African American men had gained their voting rights and would soon have a chance to transform Southern politics. Former Confederates...

"An examination of the history of the author's family and its ties to white supremacist movements."-- Sifting through family lore about "our Klansman" as well as public and private records, Ball reconstructs the story of his great-great grandfather, Constant Lecorgne. A white French Creole, father of five, and working class ship carpenter, Lecorgne had a career in white terror of notable and bloody completeness: massacres, night riding, masked marches,...

"A stunning history of the first national anti-terrorist campaign waged on American soil-when Ulysses S. Grant wielded the power of the federal government in an attempt to dismantle the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan, which celebrated historian Fergus Bordewich defines as 'the first organized terrorist movement in American history,' rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members,...