One of the odder events one encounters in reading Southern newspapers of the Reconstruction Era is the propensity of elite whites to organize Medieval–style tournaments in which contestants pretending to be knights would fight each other with lances and broadswords. These were, I suppose, a sort of 19th Century RenFaire.
This 1867 “tournament” was held to benefit the Rose Hill Cemetery by raising funds to erect a Confederate statue honoring the dead. Rose Hill is in Columbia, Tn., the heart of Klan Country at the time. The Ku Klux Klan is believed to have been founded the previous year in Pulaski, Tn. and it was emerging as a feared terrorist group at the time. The presence of the Klan at this event, which was Grand Marshalled by prominent Confederate General Frank Cheatham, indicates their roots in the local community.
Daily Union and American
Sunday, Nov 10, 1867
Nashville, TN
Vol: 33
Page: 4
As you can see from the second to last paragraph, the Klansmen were masked, but they were anything but hidden. Many former Confederates in Tennessee accepted or even joined the Klan.
The “Radicals” referred to were the local Republicans, who opposed the Klan.
The Rose Hill Cemetery was the first whites-only cemetery in Columbia, Tn. It has 102 graves of Confederate dead. The Confederate memorial was dedicated in 1882. It depicts a Confederate soldier at Funeral Rest.
Note: Because of length, I did not reproduce the entire article.
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
