Publishers Weekly
08/14/2023
Historian Bordewich (Congress at War) serves up a riveting chronicle of America’s Reconstruction-era campaign against the Ku Klux Klan. According to Bordewich, Reconstruction faltered after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination because his successor, President Andrew Johnson, was a blatant racist (“His racism was crude, and shocking even then”) who had no desire to enforce freed peoples’ rights. As a result, “white violence churned across the South,” with its most potent manifestation in the secretive and far-flung association known as the Ku Klux Klan. Most of the Klan’s members belonged to the “prewar elite,” and by 1867 it had become a “semi-military structure” with a clear hierarchy. Ex-Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest played a significant role; Bordewich asserts that Forrest “pioneered the organized application of terror” against freed Black people. After a resounding election victory in 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant ushered in the first of three Enforcement Acts in 1870 that empowered him to “sustain the provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment by force of arms” to ensure the voting rights of all citizens. Each Act targeted the Klan, enabling the use of military force and suspension of habeas corpus to detain tens of thousands of Klan members across the South. Drawing from his source material to devastating effect, Bordewich catalogs many appalling Klan atrocities. It’s an astute assessment of an often overlooked episode in American history. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"Best Books of 2023" - The New Yorker
"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 of The Cause of All Nations and Viva Lincoln
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-07-28
An award-winning historian digs into the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan.
Drawing on abundant archival sources, renowned American historian Bordewich offers a penetrating examination of the rise of the KKK, “the first organized terrorist movement in American history,” a paramilitary unit that arose in the vengeful South during Reconstruction. Engaging in murder, kidnapping, raping, castration, flogging, and burning, the Klan of the 1860s and 1870s bequeathed its sadistic tactics to later generations of white supremacists, such as the movement’s second wave in the early 20th century, incited in part by the release, in 1915, of the incendiary movie, The Birth of a Nation. With former Confederate officers at its helm and angry racists in its ranks, the Klan attacked not only Blacks, but also white sympathizers, including political officials. Until Ulysses Grant won the presidency in 1869, with Republicans taking both houses of Congress, there was no federal response to the atrocities. When Grant took office, “in nearly every southern state, the Klan was thriving,” targeting local office holders and community leaders, teachers, craftsmen, and former Union soldiers. Because the Klan aimed to put Democrats back in power, that political party did nothing to oppose the terrorist group whose shocking atrocities intensified with the passage of the 14th Amendment, which gave Blacks citizenship. Grant knew that ratification of the 15th Amendment, providing for the enfranchisement of freedman, would exacerbate the violence further. Although he had considered giving amnesty to former Confederates, intense opposition to that move came from southern states where Republican office holders testified to the Klan’s sadism. Instead, in 1871, Grant ordered the Army to take on the Klan. Aided by judges, prosecutors, and ordinary citizens, his war succeeded. By 1872, the Klan was in retreat. 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.
A critically important revisionist history.
