"Brownlow says he will bring his militia down here and get us.  I say, let him fetch 'em, and you boys be ready to receive 'em." ---  KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest

The Arkansas Ku Klux Klan exchanges volleys with the Carpetbagger Militia in a Skirmish at Center Point, Arkansas.

....... The application of martial law was now being pressed more rigorously than ever, and a condition bordering on civil war soon developed in some sections between the state troops on one side and the Ku Klux and their sympathizers on the other.  'Clayton's Militia' became an epithet in the mouths of the people antagonistic to the carpetbagger state government; and the depredations of the militia, white and negro, stirred the Ku Klux to new degrees of boldness in their activities.

    When martial law was declared and the militia began assembling at their appointed places of rendezvous in the different sections of the State, the Ku Klux prepared boldly to meet and oppose the troops in an organized way.  As the militia assembled at Murfreesboro under General Catterson and Major Denby, the Ku Klux gathered a force of two hundred men at near-by Center Point, and soon had five hundred more men on the march headed that way.  The military organization of the state troops, however, proved superior to the loose discipline of the Ku Klux; and when the soldiers moved on Center Point the Klan retreated after the exchange of a few volleys.  The militia occupied a building in the upper story of which they found the Ku Klux uniforms stored, and also captured several members of the order.  So afraid of the dread 'Clayton's Militia' were the people that most of the citizens abandoned their homes and camped out during the troops' occupation of the town.  The Klansmen continued their opposition as long as the militia remained in that section, but their efforts at open, armed warfare were abandoned.

    The militia, however, did not stay their hand.  They roamed the country, destroying property and indiscriminately taking prisoners, whom they mistreated and tortured.  In January, 1869, a news item in a Memphis paper from Selma in Drew County related that 'On Friday night about twenty of Catterson's thieves entered this place and completely gutted the town, 'stealing merchandise from the stores to the value of six thousand and eight hundred dollars.  Hamburg in Ashley County and Warren in Bradley County, it was stated, 'have been sacked in a similar manner by Catterson's cut-throats.'   In Selma, it was said, the militiamen broke down the stores' doors with axes; and when a frightened storekeeper heard the racket at his door and called out: 'Who is there?' he was answered: 'The State Guard, God damn you.'  On the same night they also robbed two stores at Monticello; and the newspaper correspondent concluded his story by saying: 'Catterson and his thieves are on their way to Little Rock, where they ought to be --- in the penitentiary.'

    The operations of Clayton's Militia degenerated into such an orgy of bloodshed and disorder that the Governor himself later felt impelled to attempt to explain and make apology for it.  'Some evils have resulted from the occupancy of counties by martial law,' he admitted, .............................

Pages 257 - 259

Quote from the book: INVISIBLE EMPIRE - The Story of the Ku Klux Klan 1866-1871