by Charles Lane
“Miner the Counterfeiter,” New York Sun, Dec. 16, 1871.
“Counterfeiting Annihilated,” New York Dispatch, Oct. 29, 1871.
“Counterfeiters Seized,” New York Sun, Oct. 27, 1871.
“Counterfeiting Annihilated,” New York Dispatch, Oct. 29, 1871.
Whitley, In It, 233.
“The Alleged Head Centre of the Counterfeiters,” New York Herald, Dec. 12, 1871.
Custom House Hearings, 733 (Testimony of Hiram C. Whitley).
“The Alleged Head Centre of the Counterfeiters,” New York Herald, Dec. 12, 1871.
“Counterfeiting: Continuation of the Trial of Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter,” New York Herald, Dec. 14, 1871.
“Counterfeiting: The Trial of Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter,” New York Herald, Dec. 16, 1871.
Details of Abraham Beatty’s career, as well as his involvement with Joshua D. Miner’s legal team and his falling-out with Hiram C. Whitley, are derived from the following sources: Custom House Hearings, 609–33 (Testimony of Abraham Beatty), 687–736 (Testimony of Hiram C. Whitley); “The Custom House Frauds,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 9, 1872; “Whitley’s Subordinates,” New York Sun, Feb. 10, 1872.
For the history of moieties and their eventual abolition, see Nicholas Parrillo, Against the Profit Motive: The Salary Revolution in American Government, 1780–1940 (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 221–54.
“The Diamond Smuggling Case,” New York Herald, May 27, 1871.
Custom House Hearings, 726 (Testimony of Hiram C. Whitley).
Ibid., 692–93.
Ibid., 625–26 (Testimony of Abraham Beatty).
“The Twenty Dollar Counterfeit,” New York Herald, Oct. 18, 1870.
For details of William Kennoch’s illicit activities prior to joining the Secret Service, see “Counterfeiting: Continuation of the Trial of Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter,” New York Herald, Dec. 14, 1871; James J. Brooks to R. C. McCormick, Sept. 26, 1877, U.S. Secret Service Archives, Washington DC.
“Counterfeiting: Continuation of the Trial of Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter,” New York Herald, Dec. 14, 1871.
“Counterfeiting: Trial of Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter; Cross-Examination of Colonel Whitley, Chief of the Secret Service Division,” New York Herald, Dec. 19, 1871.
“Counterfeiting: The Trial of Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter,” New York Herald, Dec. 20, 1871.
“The Miner Case: Judge Pierrepont’s Argument for the Prosecution,” New York Evening Post, Dec. 27, 1871.
“Judge C.L. Benedict to Resign,” New York Times, Jan. 22, 1895.
“Counterfeiting: Trial of J.D. Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter,” New York Herald, Dec. 28, 1871.
Custom House Hearing, 733.
Details of the scene on the last day of the Miner trial are from “Joshua D. Miner: Wealthy Tammany Contractor,” New York Sunday Dispatch, Dec. 31, 1871; “Counterfeiting: Trial of J.D. Miner, the Alleged Counterfeiter,” New York Herald, Dec. 28, 1871.
“Chief Detective Whitley,” Daily Sun (Columbus GA), Feb. 13, 1872. Whitley’s penciled-in comments are visible on a clipping of this article contained in the Hiram C. Whitley Scrapbooks, Lyon County History Center, Emporia KS.
Hiram C. Whitley to Everett C. Banfield, Oct. 19, 1871, Whitley Official Correspondence.
Hiram C. Whitley to James J. Fitzpatrick, Aug. 8, 1871, Whitley Official Correspondence.
Custom House Hearing, 733 (Testimony of Hiram C. Whitley).
“Counterfeiting: Letter to the People by the Chief of the U.S. Secret Service,” Pamphlet, Hiram C. Whitley (New York: n.p., 1872). For an example of how the press reprinted the pamphlet, see “Counterfeiting: Letter to the People,” Cleveland Leader, Jan. 17, 1872.
“Counterfeiting and Its Antidote,” Boston Times, Jan. 14, 1872; “A Defense of Detectives,” Pittsburgh Chronicle, Jan. 16, 1872.
Hiram C. Whitley to Everett C. Banfield, Feb. 9, 1872, Whitley Official Correspondence.
Custom House Hearings, 696 (Testimony of Hiram C. Whitley).
“The Custom House Gang,” New York World, Feb. 8, 1872.
“Whitley’s Subordinates,” New York Sun, Feb. 10, 1872.
“Joshua D. Miner: Wealthy Tammany Contractor,” New York Sunday Dispatch, Dec. 31, 1871.
Roderick Henry Burnham, The Burnham Family: Or, Genealogical Records of the Descendants of the Four Emigrants of the Name (Hartford: Lockwood & Brainard, 1869), 238; Emelyn Rude, “The Forgotten History of the Hen Fever,” National Geographic, Aug. 5, 2015, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/the-plate/2015/08/05/the-forgotten-history-of-hen-fever/.
Burnham, Memoirs, 13–41.
Ibid., 434.
By the end of his tenure, Whitley had accumulated roughly two hundred fifty photographs of counterfeiters and other criminals, some in their prison garb, others in the formal suit and tie men customarily donned for portrait sittings in that era. “National Rogues Gallery,” New York Sunday News, Feb. 1, 1874.
Jens Jaeger, “Photography: A Means of Surveillance? Judicial Photography, 1850–1900,” Crime, History & Societies 5, no. 1 (2001), 32–35.
“Coincident Indictments: Miner Not to Be Tried Twice for the Same Offense,” New York Tribune, Mar. 12, 1874.
“The Secret Service: The Charge of Judge Nixon, of New Jersey,” National Republican, Apr. 22, 1873; Johnson, Illegal Tender, 157–59.
Burnham, Memoirs, 44.
Chapter 5
Trelease, White Terror, 117; Link, Atlanta, 108; Conway, Georgia, 168–70.
For these and other cases of white supremacist terrorism in the South between 1868 and 1871, see Trelease, White Terror, passim.
Nathan Bedford Forrest claimed in an August 1868 interview that there were forty thousand Klansmen in Tennessee and five hundred fifty thousand in the South as a whole. See “An Oracle of the South: Interesting Interview with General N. B. Forrest,” New York Herald, Sept. 3, 1868.
“The Ku-Klux,” Harper’s Weekly, Apr. 1, 1871.
Robert J. Kaczorowski, The Politics of Judicial Interpretation: The Federal Courts, Department of Justice, and Civil Rights, 1866–1876 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 64.
This measure was known as the Enforcement Act of 1870, U.S. Statutes at Large, 16: 140–46.
For details of the attempted crackdown on the Klan under Governor William Woods Holden in North Carolina, see Trelease, White Terror, 208–25; Mark L. Bradley, Bluecoats and Tar Heels: Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina (Lexington KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2009), 217–34; Jim D. Brisson, “The Kirk-Holden War of 1870 and the Failure of Reconstruction in North Carolina” (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, 2010), passim.
Stephen E. Massengill, “The Detectives of William W. Holden, 1869–1870,” North Carolina Historical Review 62, no. 4 (Oct. 1985), 448–87.
U.S. Congress, Sen. Ex. Doc., 41st Cong., 3d sess., no. 16, “Outrages Committed by Disloyal Persons in North Carolina and other Southern States.”
Grant Papers, Vol. 21, 246.
Congressional Globe, Apr. 4, 1871, 441–51.
The provision was Section 6 of the Enforcement Act of 1870, which made it a crime for two or more persons to “band or conspire together, or go in disguise upon the public highway, or upon the premises of another, with intent to violate any provision of this act, or to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having exercised the same.” U.S. Statutes at Large, 16: 140. By comparison, the North Carolina law, enacted Apr. 12, 1869, criminalized “wearing any mask or any other device for the concealment of the f
ace or person with intent to terrify or frighten any citizen or the community.” Public laws of the State of North Carolina, Passed by the General Assembly, 1868–1869, Ch. 267, 613.
Amos T. Akerman to Cornelius Cole, Jan. 23, 1871, Letters Sent by the Department of Justice, General and Miscellaneous, 1818–1904, Microfilm Publication M699, Vol. I, Roll 14, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD. See also Homer Cummings and Carl McFarland, Federal Justice: Chapters in the History of Justice and the Federal Executive (New York: MacMillan, 1937), 231.
Biographical information for Amos T. Akerman comes from the following sources: William S. McFeely, “Amos T. Akerman: The Lawyer and Racial Justice,” in J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson, eds., Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 395–415; Lois Neal Hamilton, “Amos T. Akerman and His Role in American Politics” (M.A thesis, Columbia University, 1939); “Death of Amos T. Akerman,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Dec. 23, 1880; “The Capital: Hon. Amos T. Akerman the Choice,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 17, 1870; “From New Hampshire,” Boston Journal, June 25, 1870; “Amos. T. Akerman,” Newport (RI) Mercury, June 25, 1870; “The Georgia Press on Mr. Akerman: What a Southern Political Enemy Says,” New York Tribune, June 22, 1870; “A Grant Elector Ostracized in Georgia,” Boston Journal, Oct. 31, 1868.
McFeely, “The Lawyer,” 411.
Amos T. Akerman to Cornelius Cole, Jan. 23, 1871, Letters Sent by the Department of Justice, General and Miscellaneous, 1818–1904, Microfilm Publication M699, Vol. I, Roll 14, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD.
U.S. Statutes at Large, 16: 495, 497 (Mar. 3, 1871).
John Pool to Amos T. Akerman, Mar. 31, 1871 (forwarding Tod R. Caldwell to John Pool, Mar. 29, 1871), Letters Received from the Senate, 1871–1884, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD.
“The Irrepressible Conflict Still in Progress in North Carolina,” New York Times, July 20, 1871; “A Shabby Trick,” Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Aug. 3, 1871.
U.S. Statutes at Large, 17: 6 (Apr. 19, 1871).
KKK Hearings, Vol. 2 (North Carolina), 13–19 (Testimony of Joseph G. Hester).
Biographical information for Joseph G. Hester derives from the following sources: KKK Hearings, Vol. 2 (North Carolina), 19 (Testimony of Joseph G. Hester); U.S. Congress, House Reports, 43d Cong., 2d sess., no. 262, “Affairs in Alabama,” Vol. 3 (Hereafter cited as “Affairs in Alabama”), 1007–29 (Testimony of Joseph G. Hester); U.S. Naval War Records Office, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. 1, 508–509, 688–90; Series I, Vol. 15, 563–64; Series II, Vol. 3, 582–83, 616–17, 857–58, 860; “The Ku-Klux in Alabama,” National Republican, Oct. 16, 1874; “Captain J.G. Hester,” National Republican, July 21, 1875; “Hester’s History,” Indiana State Sentinel (Indianapolis IN), Feb. 16, 1876; Grant Papers, Vol. 27, 328–29.
Details of President Grant’s encounter with Joseph G. Hester and related correspondence are derived from “Affairs in Alabama,” 1021 (Testimony of Joseph G. Hester); Grant Papers, Vol. 22, 11–13.
William T. Blain, “Challenge to the Lawless: The Mississippi Secret Service, 1870–1871,” Mississippi Quarterly, 40, no. 2 (May 1978), 119–31. Mississippi budgeted $40,000 for state detectives in 1870, according to Sen. Adelbert Ames. Congressional Globe, Mar. 21, 1871, 196.
“Crime Against the Government,” New York Herald, Mar. 9, 1871.
Amos T. Akerman to Hiram C. Whitley, June 28, 1871, Letters Sent from the Department of Justice, General and Miscellaneous, 1818–1904, Microfilm Publication M699, Vol. I, Roll 14, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD.
Congressional Globe, Mar. 9, 1866, 1294.
Hiram C. Whitley to Amos T. Akerman, June 30, 1871, Letters Received from the Department of Treasury, 1871–1884, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD.
Nation’s Peril, 117.
Safe Burglary Hearings, 275 (Testimony of Michael G. Bauer).
Joseph G. Hester, “Weekly Report to the Department of Justice for Month Ending June 30,” July 20, 1871, Letters Received by the Department of Justice from North Carolina, 1871–1884, Microfilm Publication M1345, Roll 1, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD.
Ibid.
For the exchange between Hiram C. Whitley and Joseph G. Hester, as well as details of their meeting, see Joseph G. Hester, “Weekly Report to the Department of Justice for First Six Days of July,” July 25, 1871, Letters Received by the Department of Justice from North Carolina, 1871–1884, Microfilm Publication M1345, Roll 1, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD.
Amos T. Akerman to Benjamin F. Butler, Aug. 9, 1871, in Lois Neal Hamilton, “Amos T. Akerman and His Role in American Politics” (M.A thesis, Columbia University, 1939), 71–72.
Biographical information for John A. Campbell, and the account of Joseph G. Hester’s operation in Moore County derive from the following sources: Hiram C. Whitley to Amos T. Akerman, Sept. 29, 1871, Letters Received from the Department of Treasury, 1871–1884, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD (Hereafter cited as “Whitley KKK Report I”); “Arrival of Ku Klux in Our Midst,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Aug. 12, 1871; N. R. Bryan, Letter to the Editor, Raleigh Sentinel, Aug. 12, 1871; National Republican, Sept. 9, 1871; “How Radical Thunder Is Manufactured,” Wilmington (NC) Journal, Oct. 6, 1871; “To the Public: A Card and an Affidavit,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Dec. 28, 1871; “The Ku Klux in Alabama,” National Republican, Oct. 16, 1874; Manly Wade Wellman, The County of Moore, 1847–1947: A North Carolina Region’s Second Hundred Years (Southern Pines NC: Moore County Historical Association, 1962), 77–80; KKK Hearings, Vol. 2 (North Carolina), 75 (Testimony of Elias Bryan).
“No Revolution! Convention Defeated!” Carolina Era (Raleigh NC), Aug. 10, 1871.
The following account of the atrocity against Sally Gilmore and her family derives from: Whitley KKK Report I; Nation’s Peril, 79–83.
“Arrival of Ku Klux in Our Midst,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Aug. 12, 1871.
KKK Hearings, Vol. 2 (North Carolina), 316 (Testimony of Plato Durham).
“Arrival of Ku Klux in Our Midst,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Aug. 12, 1871.
“How Radical Thunder Is Manufactured,” Wilmington (NC) Journal, Oct. 6, 1871.
“The Ku Klux Klan,” National Republican, Sept. 9, 1871. The widely circulated broadside was titled “Plan of the Contemplated Murder of John Campbell,” and included both the woodcut and a brief account of Joseph G. Hester’s action. Possibly the only surviving print of the actual photograph is on file in the archives of the Union League of Philadelphia. A handwritten notation on the reverse indicated it was deposited by a descendant of Capt. Fred G. Smith, commander of the 4th Artillery Regiment Company that helped Hester capture the Klansmen. See VI.4.7.001, Photograph, “A Ku Klux Party, 1871,” The Union League of Philadelphia Archives, Courtesy of The Abraham Lincoln Foundation of The Union League of Philadelphia.
“Sally Gilmore,” Raleigh Sentinel, Aug. 12, 1871; “The Ku Klux,” Wilmington (NC) Journal, Oct. 6, 1871.
“Horried Sight,” Raleigh Sentinel, Aug. 12, 1871.
“Arrests and Infamous Despotism,” Fayetteville (NC) Eagle, Aug. 24, 1871.
“Planning Murder: Wrong Man Caught,” Raleigh Semi-Weekly Sentinel, Nov. 1, 1871.
Wicker’s affidavit is transcribed in Whitley KKK Report I.
Bryan’s affidavit is transcribed in Whitley KKK Report I.
Ibid.
Detail
s of the Ferguson family’s ordeal are derived from Whitley KKK Report I; Nation’s Peril, 51–65; “Punishing Witnesses—Another Outrage,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Sept. 28, 1871; “Another Ku-Klux Outrage,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Oct. 19, 1871.
“Kitty Furgerson [sic],” Raleigh Sentinel, Sept. 25, 1871; Nation’s Peril, 63.
“The Kuklux,” New York Times, Oct. 7, 1871.
Amos T. Akerman to Ulysses S. Grant, Oct. 16, 1871, Grant Papers, Vol. 22, 179.
U.S. Congress, Sen. Ex. Doc., 42d Cong., 3d sess., no. 55, “Letter of the Attorney General,” 10; Hiram C. Whitley to the Attorney General, Jan. 15, 1872, Letters Received from the Department of Treasury, 1871–1884, Records of the Department of Justice, Record Group 60, National Archives, College Park MD (Hereafter cited as “Whitley KKK Report II”).
Whitley KKK Report II; “Hester and Keith Bagged ’Em,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Dec. 7, 1871. For details of the crime for which Hester arrested these Klansmen, the murder of Menas Herring in Sampson County, see Edward Cantwell, Letter to the Editor, Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Sept. 30, 1871.
Joseph G. Hester, “To the Public: A Card and an Affidavit,” Tri-Weekly Era (Raleigh NC), Dec. 28, 1871.
“The Troubles in Alabama,” Chicago Tribune, July 23, 1870; Trelease, White Terror, 269–70.
The account of George W. Carter’s infiltration of the Calhoun County Ku Klux Klan and participation in the atrocity against William F. Fletcher derives from: Whitley KKK Report II; Nation’s Peril, 85–88; Safe Burglary Hearings, 136–51 (Testimony of George W. Carter).
Whitley KKK Report I.
Carter biographical data are derived from: 1870 U.S. Census for Brooklyn Ward 22, Kings County, NY; Safe Burglary Hearings, 149 (Testimony of George W. Carter).
John A. Minnis to Hiram C. Whitley, Jan. 2, 1872, Whitley KKK Report II.
Ibid.
Whitley KKK Report I.
Ibid.
U.S. Congress, Sen. Ex. Doc., 42d Cong., 3d sess., no. 32, “Annual Report of the Attorney General for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1871 through June 30, 1872.” See also Trelease, White Terror, 406–407.
