Red Strings - Activities

Activities

"The best developed of the peace societies, the Order of the Heroes of America, may have been organized as early as Dec. 1861, though by whom and where is uncertain. Active in North Carolina, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Tennessee, the Heroes protected deserters, aided spies and escaped prisoners, and supplied Federal authorities with information about Confederate troop movements and strength to bring about a Confederate defeat. Brig. Gen. John Echols, who investigated the order in Virginia when it was discovered there in 1864, believed it had been formed at the suggestion of Federal authorities. Union civilian and military officials cooperated with the order by assuring its members safe passage through the lines and by offering them exemption from military service if they deserted, protection for their property, and a share or confiscated Confederate estates after the war. In addition to their signs and passwords, the Heroes identified themselves by wearing a red string on their lapels and thus were nicknamed the Red Strings” and the ‘Red-String Band.'"

In addition to the organized opposition groups such as the Red Strings and Heroes of America, there were other groups that were closer to bandits. Known as “Buffaloes,” these men and some women were a mixture of Confederate deserters, draft-dodgers, pro-Union men, escaped slaves and other men escaping the noose such as barn burners, rapists and murderers. Living in small groups in the swamps of Eastern North Carolina or the woods of central and western NC, they attacked isolated homes, often with impunity, since many of the men were away at war, and there was no protection from their lawlessness. "The correspondents in the war records seem unaware that North Carolina, like all Gaul, was divided into three parts- the Confederate, the Yankee and the Buffalo. It was easier to let the Yankee garrison the strip of coast and keep him there than have the expense of it ourselves, but it is amusing to read of “The Rebels Invading North Carolina.”

The “Red Strings” were also interested in forming blacks into soldiers and having them fight for the Union as well. There are miscellaneous accounts of these black companies being formed during the war, as are mentioned in Elizabeth Lee Battle’s autobiography, “Forget-Me-Nots of the Civil War.”

After the war, they actively opposed the Ku Klux Klan. “One of the main causes for the organization of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina was to combat the influence of the Union League. Governor William Woods Holden was the first president of the League in North Carolina, and James H. Harris, a Negro, was Vice-president. “ Prof. Lefler later recounts: “If there had been no Loyal League in North Carolina, there would have been no Ku Klux Klan, or clubbing together of the white people there… Still the negroes operate upon each other, so that one dare not depart from the ranks; they are arrayed yet in a solid phalanx…” He later quotes from a Congressional investigation into the origins of the KKK in North Carolina: “It was at a time when the republican party had three secret organizations in operation in the state, the Union League, the Heroes of America, and the Red Strings. They had a paper called the Red String, printed at Greensorough, edited by Mr. Tourgee (Albion W. Tourgée). Our friends thought it proper to organize a secret society for the purpose of counteracting that influence.- Ku Klux reports, North Carolina Testimony, pp. 8, 309-310, 318, 363.”