White House, a copy of which the operator delivered to Ben Cameron within an hour.

President Grant next morning issued a proclamation declaring the nine Scotch-Irish hill counties of South Carolina in a state of insurrection, ordered an army corps of five thousand men to report there for duty, pending the further necessity of martial law and the suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus.

F

CHAPTER VI

THE COUNTER STROKE

ROM the hour he had watched the capture of the

armory old Stoneman felt in the air a current

against him which was electric, as if the dead had heard the cry of the clansmen's greeting, risen and rallied to their pale ranks.

The daring campaign these men were waging took his breath. They were going not only to defeat his delegation to Congress, but send their own to take their seats, reinforced by the enormous power of a suppressed Negro vote. The blow was so sublime in its audacity, he laughed in secret admiration while he raved and cursed.

The army corps took possession of the hill counties, quartering from five to six hundred regulars at each courthouse; but the mischief was done. The state was on fire. The eighty thousand rifles with which the negroes had been armed were now in the hands of their foes. A white rifle-club was organised in every town, village, and hamlet. They attended the public meetings with their guns, drilled in front of the speakers' stands, yelled, hooted, hissed, cursed, and jeered at the orators who dared to champion or apologise for Negro rule. At night the hoof-beat of squadrons of pale horsemen and the crack

of their revolvers struck terror to the heart of every negro, carpet-bagger, and scalawag.

There was a momentary lull in the excitement, which Stoneman mistook for fear, at the appearance of the troops. He had the Governor appoint a white sheriff, a young scalawag from the mountains who was a noted moonshiner and desperado. He arrested over a hundred leading men in the county, charged them with complicity in the killing of the three members of the African Guard, and instructed the judge and clerk of the court to refuse bail and commit them to jail under military guard.

To his amazement, the prisoners came into Piedmont armed and mounted. They paid no attention to the deputy sheriffs who were supposed to have them in charge. They deliberately formed in line under Ben Cameron's direction and he led them in a parade through the streets.

The five hundred United States regulars who were camped on the river bank were Westerners. Ben led his squadron of armed prisoners in front of this camp and took them through the evolutions of cavalry with the precision of veterans. The soldiers dropped their games and gathered, laughing, to watch them. The drill ended with a double-rank charge at the river embankment. When they drew every horse on his haunches on the brink, firing a volley with a single crash, a wild cheer broke from the soldiers, and the officers rushed from their tents.

Ben wheeled his men, galloped in front of the camp, drew them up at dress parade, and saluted. A low word of command from a trooper, and the Westerners quickly

formed in ranks, returned the salute, and cheered. The officers rushed up, cursing, and drove the men back to their tents.

The horsemen laughed, fired a volley in the air, cheered, and galloped back to the court-house. The court was glad to get rid of them. There was no question raised over technicalities in making out bail-bonds. The clerk wrote the names of imaginary bondsmen as fast as his pen could fly, while the perspiration stood in beads on his red forehead.

Another telegram from old Stoneman to the White House, and the Writ of Habeas Corpus was suspended and Martial Law proclaimed.

Enraged beyond measure at the salute from the troops, he had two companies of negro regulars sent from Columbia, and they camped in the Court-House Square.

He determined to make a desperate effort to crush the fierce spirit before which his forces were being driven like chaff. He induced Bizzel to return from Cleveland with his negro wife and children. He was escorted to the City Hall and reinstalled as Mayor by the full force of seven hundred troops, and a negro guard placed around his house. Stoneman had Lynch run an excursion from the Black Belt, and brought a thousand negroes to attend a final rally at Piedmont. He placarded the town with posters on which were printed the Civil Rights Bill and the proclamation of the President declaring Martial Law.

Ben watched this day dawn with nervous dread. He had passed a sleepless night, riding in person to every

Den of the Klan and issuing positive orders that no white man should come to Piedmont.

A clash with the authority of the United States he had avoided from the first as a matter of principle. It was essential to his success that his men should commit no act of desperation which would imperil his plans. Above all, he wished to avoid a clash with old Stoneman personally.

The arrival of the big excursion was the signal for a revival of negro insolence which had been planned. The men brought from the Eastern part of the state were selected for the purpose. They marched over the town yelling and singing. A crowd of them, half drunk, formed themselves three abreast and rushed the sidewalks, pushing every white man, woman, and child into the

street.

They met Phil on his way to the hotel and pushed him into the gutter. He said nothing, crossed the street, bought a revolver, loaded it and put it in his pocket. He was not popular with the negroes, and he had been shot at twice on his way from the mills at night. The whole affair of this rally, over which his father meant to preside, filled him with disgust, and he was in an ugly mood.

Lynch's speech was bold, bitter, and incendiary, and at its close the drunken negro troopers from the local garrison began to slouch through the streets, two and two, looking for trouble.

At the close of the speaking, Stoneman called the officer in command of these troops, and said:

"Major, I wish this rally to-day to be a proclamation