National Archives Microfilm Publications Microcopy No. 666
Letters received by the office of the Adjutant General
(Record Group 94)

(MAIN SERIES) 1871 -1880
Roll 67, 1872

Papers relating to crimes committed by the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, 1869 – 1879

Huntsville, Alabama
July 30, 1869

Mulligan, E. M.
School Teacher

Makes affidavit in regard to violence of “Ku Klux Klan” near New Market, Madison Co., Ala.
July 26, 1869

The State of Alabama
County of Madison

Before me Jas. Bone, clerk of the city court of Huntsville, County and State aforesaid, personally appeared E. M. Mulligan, who being duly sworn says that he was employed to teach a colored school near New Market in said County of Madison, and that he opened said school Monday 26 July 1864, that about 8 o’clock Wednesday night following, he while sitting in the house with the family with whom he was boarding, he heard a noise as if some one was blowing a whistle, and remarked to them, don’t that sound like a Ku Klux whistle and stepped to the door and saw about four or five disguised men ride up to the gate in front of the door (they had three or four colored men with them as prisoners) the disguised men dismounted holding pistols in their hands pointed towards me and walked up to the door cursing and swearing and demanding all the guns or pistols in the house.

I said we have no arms, they said God d-d you, you have arms, we will kill every God d-d one in the house if we did not give them up instanter, that they expected to kill three or four Negroes and whip as many more to death before morning, they swore that Saturday night before they whipped a white man nearly to death, they then ordered me to go with them cursing me all the time, saying we will make tell where your pistols are, or we will break your neck and stop your damd school, we do not intend that any schools shall be organized, or allow any school teachers to stay or live in this portion of the country. They took me and the three other men about three quarters of a mile to the residence of Coleman Kelley and there demanded all arms he had, saying if he did not deliver them up instanter they would kill him, one of the women at Kelley’s said that there was no arms there, they ordered her not to speak again or they would give her five hundred lashes, the woman then slipped out of the house, as soon as the disguised men missed her from the room, they demanded to know of said Kelley where the woman had gone, he answered and said I do not know, they then told Kelly he was a God d-d liar and we will whip you to death if you do not tell us where she has gone, they then striped the clothes from Kelley’s person and force him down on his belly and beat him on the bare back with a gun rod, said rod was lipped, they then turned to me and said come up here you God d-d school teacher, it is your turn next. I then sprang away from them and as I ran they fired two shots at me, the shot and bullet passing over my head but near me, they also said that there was fifty men only a short distance in the rear.

(signed) E. M. Mulligan

Sworn and subscribed to before me this 30th July A. D. 1869
(signed) Jas. A. Bone
Clerk

A true copy
James Miller
1st Lieut. 2nd Infantry
Post Adjutant