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Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 10, 2023
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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, no small number of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. And their mission was to obliterate the muscular democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable.
To repel the virulent tidal wave of violence, President Ulysses S. Grant waged a two-term battle against both armed Southern enemies of Reconstruction and Northern politicians seduced by visions of postwar conciliation, testing the limits of the federal government in determining the extent of states’ rights. In this book, Bordewich transports us to the front lines, in the hamlets of the former Confederate States and in the marble corridors of Congress, reviving an unsung generation of grassroots Black leaders and key figures such as crusading Missouri senator Carl Schurz, who sacrificed the rights of Black Americans in the name of political “reform,” and the ruthless former slave trader and Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Klan War is a bold and bracing record of America’s past that reveals the bloody, Reconstruction-era roots of present-day battles to protect the ballot box and stamp out resurgent white supremacist ideologies.
- Print length480 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherKnopf
- Publication dateOctober 10, 2023
- Dimensions6.65 x 1.6 x 9.53 inches
- ISBN-100593317815
- ISBN-13978-0593317815
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"Editor's Choice, 2023" - Booklist
"A vivid and sobering account of Grant’s efforts to crush the Klan in the South [that] gestures toward the fractured political landscape of the present day . . . Bordewich focuses on Grant’s antiterror policies, conveying the panoply of factors that led to their initial success and, later, to their tragic demise, [and] includes some heart-rending testimony from freedmen who were too terrified to go to the ballot box." —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
"[A] compelling chronicle [detailing] the astonishing brutality of the Klan . . . Bordewich is especially good on the origins of the Klan . . . [He] presents a convincing case that, left to their own devices, Southern whites were not about to confer real freedom on the freedmen. He is equally persuasive that by the end of Grant’s second term, Northerners were unwilling to commit the guns to police the South, much less the butter to rebuild it." —Roger Lowenstein, The Wall Street Journal
"This essential history details Ulysses S. Grant’s fight to dismantle the Ku Klux Klan during the course of his Presidency . . . Though his efforts were later gutted by a series of disastrous Supreme Court decisions, Grant’s victory, Bordewich argues, serves as a potent reminder that 'forceful political action can prevail over violent extremism.'" —The New Yorker
"Bordewich brings to life in painstaking detail the reign of terror that the Klan wrought. . . adds greatly to the growing literature on the Civil War’s aftermath. . . . a sobering reminder that rights gained can be easily taken away." —Riley Sullivan, The Civil War Monitor
"The first large-scale attempt to restore Grant’s presidency to a position of nobility for his campaign to suppress the Klan. It joins the shelf of Bordewich’s political histories, which have made him one of the outstanding independent scholars of American history. But Klan War outdoes them all, in terms of both the depth of its research and the passionate pace of its vivid storytelling . . . Bordewich’s Grant is determined, idealistic, and generous, and on those terms, it would not be too much to describe him as the first civil rights president." —Washington Monthly, Allen C. Guelzo
"Klan War is deftly written, and its pages are alight with rich details drawn from original sources. The book tells a heroic American story and reminds us, as Bordewich observes, that 'barbarism may lie only a small distance beneath the skin of a civilization.'" —Kevin R. Kosar, National Review
“[A] gripping account . . . Bordewich’s book should serve as a cautionary tale to keep us alert to the modern incarnation of the KKK, which has traded its bed sheets and hoods for coats and ties.” —Mark I. Pinsky, New York Journal of Books
“By documenting what really happened in the bloody and vicious post–Civil War South and how it nullified official government policy, this history resonates on many levels . . . Bordewich introduces readers to Black leaders and white supremacist ideologues, sparing no fact, however grim, in his devastating history of how domestic terrorism tore apart the social, political, and other promises of emancipation.” —Mark Knoblauch, Booklist (starred review)
"A critically important revisionist history . . . A penetrating examination of the rise of the KKK . . . For Bordewich, Grant's decisive move proved that 'forceful political action can prevail over violent extremism.' Yet, as he makes clear in this significant work of scholarship, it did not stop the future systematic stripping away of Blacks' civil rights." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[Bordewich] has found literary gold in his many primary sources . . . [He]s the master of the telling quotation, the appropriate anecdote." —John W. Davis, Decatur Daily
“Riveting . . . An astute assessment of an often overlooked episode in American history.” —Publishers Weekly
“A gripping, haunting story of how America’s original white supremacist movement used terrorism to crush multiracial democracy—and how, for a time, progressive elected officials in Washington allied with grassroots African Americans and their white allies to rout the reactionaries. This is history we need to vanquish violent intimidation in our own time, this time without quitting before the work is done.” —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains and Behind the Mask of Chivalry
"An urgent history, in which the conception and spawning of the Klan, its anti-Black atrocities and crimes against humanity, the evolution of a General and President, and the possibilities and limits of political power all come roaring to life. As searing as it is suspenseful, Klan War delivers an incisive angle into a horrific chapter in American history, one that requires knowing today." —Ilyon Woo, author of Master Slave Husband Wife
"Fergus Bordewich is an expert at turning momentous questions in American history into absorbing narratives. With insight and telling details, he reveals how Grant—by nature no crusader—directed federal resources against Klan attacks on African Americans, only to be undercut by political attempts to appease the hostile Liberal Republicans. A fascinating and foreboding book." —T.J. Stiles, author of Custer's Trials (winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
"Grippingly tells the essential story of the unsung heroes who throttled the Ku Klux Klan's murderous domestic terrorism after the Civil War, only to watch helplessly as a tragic loss of political will frittered away much of that triumph. The lessons for meeting today's challenges are unmistakable and chilling." —David O. Stewart, author of Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy
"Bordewich has done it again—this time, resurrecting an incredible American story of one man’s determination to secure civil rights, equality, and justice for millions of African Americans. Deeply researched and delivered through magnificent and gripping prose, Klan Wars reclaims Grant’s historic battle to build a unified nation in the face of a pernicious, hate-filled movement that waged a vicious grassroots campaign to reassert white supremacy. A must read!" —Kate Clifford Larson, author of Bound for the Promised Land
"One of the most talented historians of our times tells the riveting story of Civil War hero President Ulysses Grant's forgotten war on the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction in this marvelous book. The ultimate failure to curb domestic terrorism in the post-war south carries an important lesson for our fraught times when some appeal to political violence to overthrow the US experiment in interracial democracy. This book should be required reading for all American citizens." —Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition
"Klan War takes readers into the courageous struggle of the Grant administration to defeat an American domestic terrorist campaign to overthrow the achievements of Radical Reconstruction. Bordewich’s compelling narrative, by turns, frightening, bracing, and timely, will remind readers that today’s battle between white supremacy and human justice has a long history." —Don H. Doyle, author ofThe Cause of All Nations and Viva Lincoln
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Knopf (October 10, 2023)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 480 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593317815
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593317815
- Item Weight : 1.75 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.65 x 1.6 x 9.53 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #72,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
FERGUS M. BORDEWICH is the author of seven non-fiction books: The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (Simon & Schuster, 2016); America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union (Simon & Schuster, 2012); Washington: The Making of the American Capital (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2008); Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2005); My Mother's Ghost, a memoir (Doubleday, 2001); Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century (Doubleday, 1996); and Cathay: A Journey in Search of Old China (Prentice Hall Press, 1991).
In his newest book, The First Congress, Bordewich tells the story of the most momentous -- and most productive -- Congress in American history. When the members of the First Congress met in New York, in 1789, the new nation was still fragile, riven by sectional differences, hobbled by competing currencies, crushed by debt, and stitched together only tentatively by the Constitution. The Constitution provided a set of principles but offered few instructions about how the system should operate, leaving it to Congress and the president to create the machinery of government. A James Madison put it, "We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us." Had Congress failed in its work, the United States as we know it might not exist.
His previous book, America's Great Debate, tells an epic story of the nation's westward expansion, slavery and the Compromise of 1850, centering on the dramatic congressional debate of 1849-1850 - the longest in American history - when a gallery of extraordinary men including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Stephen A. Douglas, Jefferson Davis, William H. Seward, and others, fought to shape, and in the case of some to undermine, the future course of the Union.
He has also published an illustrated children's book, Peach Blossom Spring (Simon & Schuster, 1994), and wrote the script for a PBS documentary about Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson's University. He also edited an illustrated book of eyewitness accounts of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Children of the Dragon (Macmillan, 1990). He is a frequent book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He lives in San Francisco, California with his wife Jean.
In 2013, Bordewich was awarded the Los Angeles Book Prize for America's Great Debate, which the Times named the best work of history published in 2012. Bound for Canaan was selected as one of the American Booksellers Association's "ten best nonfiction books" in 2005; as the Great Lakes Booksellers' Association's "best non-fiction book" of 2005; as one of the Austin Public Library's Best Non-Fiction books of 2005; and as one of the New York Public Library's "ten books to remember" in 2005. Washington was named by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post as one of his "Best Books of 2008."
Bordewich was born in New York City in 1947, and grew up in Yonkers, New York. While growing up, he often traveled to Indian reservations around the United States with his mother, LaVerne Madigan Bordewich, the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, then the only independent advocacy organization for Native Americans. This early experience helped to shape his lifelong preoccupation with American history, the settlement of the continent, and issues of race, and political power. He holds degrees from the City College of New York and Columbia University.
He has been an independent writer and historian since the early 1970s. His articles have appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, American Heritage, Atlantic, Harper's, New York Magazine, GEO, Reader's Digest. As a journalist, he traveled extensively in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, writing on politics, economic issues, culture, and history, on subjects ranging from the civil war in Burma, religious repression in China, Islamic fundamentalism, German reunification, the Irish economy, Kenya's population crisis, among many others. He also served for brief periods as an editor and writer for the Tehran Journal in Iran, in 1972-1973, a press officer for the United Nations, in 1980-1982, and an advisor to the New China News Agency in Beijing, in 1982-1983, when that agency was embarking on its effort to switch from a propaganda model to a western-style journalistic one.
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I was particularly fascinated to learn the actual views of Horace Greeley, Hamilton Fish, and of course, the dastardly and faithless Carl Schurz. There's a six-part mini-series in the offing, one hopes, that will take us from Schurz's journey from the Rhine to Sleepy Hollow. And although I learned the term "carpetbaggers" in grade school, again it was the sheer volume of names and stories the author provided that made me understand how significant these people were, these purportedly effete Northerners from Ivy League schools who dared to think they could help the South recover.
The portrait of Grant that emerges in this book is wonderfully nuanced. I am not one of those who has read biographies of all the presidents, so following the arc of his life was a revelation. I am certainly glad he's been re-evaluated as not one of the worst presidents of all time. Surely we have quite a few others who can wear that crown.
Randomly, I also loved learning about the odd role of the Albany, NY jail in the Reconstruction, and the role of the NY Herald, which could always be counted on to say something vituperous, it seems.
Bordewich describes in thorough detail how the Klan gained power, the many violent acts they carried out, and the failures of various efforts to appease them. Grant had initially been reluctant to intervene, not least because the Congress was unwilling to provide resources to do so. But as time went on and the atrocities piled up, Grant gradually increased his efforts. Ultimately the Klan itself was beaten back, but the fearful attitudes of southern conservatives continued unabated, violence continued, and inequality was further baked into the political system. Some lasting progress was made, in the form of new constitutional amendments granting freedom from chattel slavery and the right to vote. But as the north lost interest, southern reactionaries found other ways to institute indentured slavery and white supremacy.
Bordewich is not a happy book, and many parts are quite painful to read. It's an important book in that it goes into depth about the motivations and pressures on the leaders and on common people who were embroiled in the conflict. It offers useful insight on why certain attitudes and fears persist, and how systemic racism comes into being and is perpetuated in spite of the efforts of well-meaning people.
For those who long for a follow-up book that picks up where this one leaves off, I'd recommend:
Joseph, Penial E. The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century. Basic Books, 2022. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PL4YT58/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00
The second book does a fast-forward to what the author describes as the "second reconstruction," the period from the Brown vs Board decision of 1954 to the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; and the "third reconstruction," from the 2008 election of Barack Obama to the present. In a way, Joseph's shorter book is a reward for persevering through Bordewich. It is much more positive, particularly about the Black Lives Matter Movement. Both books discuss how leaders responded to successes and failures in their early efforts, to try to be more effective going forward. Much has been learned and considerable progress has been made, even if not fast enough for many of us.