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Summary
Summary
"This is a powerful, vitally important story, and Lane brings it to life with not only vast amounts of research but with a remarkable gift for storytelling that makes the pages fly by." --Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt and Hero of the Empire
Freedom's Detective reveals the untold story of the Reconstruction-era United States Secret Service and their battle against the Ku Klux Klan, through the career of its controversial chief, Hiram C. Whitley
In the years following the Civil War, a new battle began. Newly freed African American men had gained their voting rights and would soon have a chance to transform Southern politics. Former Confederates and other white supremacists mobilized to stop them. Thus, the KKK was born.
After the first political assassination carried out by the Klan, Washington power brokers looked for help in breaking the growing movement. They found it in Hiram C. Whitley. He became head of the Secret Service, which had previously focused on catching counterfeiters and was at the time the government's only intelligence organization. Whitley and his agents led the covert war against the nascent KKK and were the first to use undercover work in mass crime--what we now call terrorism--investigations.
Like many spymasters before and since, Whitley also had a dark side. His penchant for skulduggery and dirty tricks ultimately led to his involvement in a conspiracy that would bring an end to his career and transform the Secret Service.
Populated by intriguing historical characters--from President Grant to brave Southerners, both black and white, who stood up to the Klan--and told in a brisk narrative style, Freedom's Detective reveals the story of this complex hero and his central role in a long-lost chapter of American history.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lane (The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction) provides the definitive look at the federal government's efforts to counter the threat posed by the KKK during Ulysses S. Grant's presidency in this well-written and carefully researched account. When Grant entered the White House in 1869, hopes were raised that the Republican party platform of "equal rights, regardless of race or caste, for every man in every state" would extend to the South. But that agenda was violently opposed by the Klan, leading to the assassination of George Ashburn, a member of Georgia's convention responsible for drafting a new constitution. Federal authorities dispatched Hiram Whitley, a veteran investigator, to Columbus, Ga., to crack the case, and he obtained evidence against 12 men, including a member of the U.S. Army. That achievement led to Whitley's continuing to campaign against the Klan as the head of the Secret Service. Parallels between what Lane calls the first war on terror and the current one-both featured "military commissions, selective suspensions of habeas corpus, isolated interrogation centers, and torture against terrorists"-make clear why this lesser-known chapter in American law enforcement merits attention. American history buffs won't want to miss this one. Agent: Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The story of the second head of the Secret Service, whose relentless efforts at criminal apprehension paved the way for today's controversial domestic terrorism operations.Lane (Stay of Execution: Saving the Death Penalty from Itself, 2010, etc.)a Washington Post board member and op-ed columnist and a former foreign correspondent and editor of the New Republic (1997-1999)follows the intensive, though short-lived career of Hiram C. Whitley, a daring impresario with steady nerves who, during the Ulysses S. Grant administrations, served as the newly minted chief of the Treasury Department's Secret Service Division. Tracking down counterfeiters was Whitley's main focus, but he also served as a key detective in domestic surveillance during this time of Reconstruction, when the defeated Southern states were determined not to accept the various Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress in 1867 as well as the 14th Amendment. These events contributed to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. A spy, saboteur, and detective with little experience outside of living by his own wits, Whitley managed to build a small but capable "semiclandestine national police bureaucracy" that was unprecedented at the time, featuring "its own system of ranks and promotions, and full autonomy to recruit, pay, and supervise informants within the civilian population." In short order, Whitley began to use questionable methods of stealth and entrapment to achieve his aims. Moreover, a botched entrapment operation that the press called "The Washington Safe Burglary Case," along with a switch in political winds, ensured the end of Whitley's government career in the mid-1870s. Though the narrative is occasionally convoluted, Lane, in addition to providing a welcome biography of a somewhat forgotten figure, methodically pursues how "the dilemmas of a permanent federal covert apparatus are with us still" in the form of CIA and FBI "excesses in the war on terror.' "A detail-laden, arduously researched chronicle that delineates an important early era of the Secret Service. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Lane (Stay of Execution, 2010) tells the fascinating story Hiram Whitley, who became head of the Secret Service in the wake of the Civil War. The organization switched from routine criminal investigations, including Whitley's work battling Southern moonshiners, to addressing new forms of violence and terror during Reconstruction as Southern whites reacted to the election of African Americans to government offices in conjunction with the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Whitley proves to be an intriguing figure as he is called upon to investigate the murder of a white Radical Republican by members of the new white supremacist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan, for his support for African American voting rights. Lane's well-researched book portrays a complex lawman with questionable ethics, who long pursued shady businesses yet made his mark fighting the Klan as it gathered strength in many Southern states and threatened to grow ever larger. This is an important, highly readable, and timely study of a key historical period, the origins of the KKK, and one man's battle against its campaign of hatred and bloodshed.--Amy Lewontin Copyright 2019 Booklist
Table of Contents
| Prologue: Patrick County, Virginia, 1869 | p. 13 |
| 1 "Something terrible floats on the breeze." | p. 20 |
| 2 "You will all be blown to bell in short order." | p. 37 |
| 3 "He has worked his way through the labyrinth of lies." | p. 63 |
| 4 "A powerful instrument for good or evil." | p. 96 |
| 5 "The government secret agents were everywhere upon their track." | p. 144 |
| 6 "I am radically opposed to any organized system of espionage." | p. 208 |
| 7 "Suspicions come from Heaven." | p. 248 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 275 |
| Selected Bibliography | p. 279 |
| Notes | p. 293 |
| Index | p. 337 |
