White Capping, White Caps ??

[MWood1841]

Going back through some older compiled records of descendants and stumbled across this obituary for my 3rd great uncle. He was a Private with the Charlottesville Light Artillery. Evidently he suffered a beat down and was roughed up pretty bad by local 'White Caps' (??). The write up in the 1903 newspaper Daily Progress (Albemarle County) suggests he succumbed from medical issues resulting from the previous physical assault he endured. Are these the same as Klansman? I've briefly canvassed online and have seen several different descriptions explained on White Cap groups. Some suggest thugs like Klans who were also a form of wh*te suprem*st. Others I've seen suggest they were an informal group of 'regulators' who ensured law, order and that enforced local customs and "morales" (I use that term loosely) amongst the community. First I have heard of that term used to describe yet another group of thugs derived post war during Reconstruction. Enclosed picture is post war of my uncle and his daughter in-law.

 

[MWood1841]

And before the rise of the second Klan you had the vigilante White Caps, who originated north of the Ohio River in southern Indiana decades before they became a phenomenon of the racialized South. They also had a Hoosier governor in their ranks.

Did a search and saw @SWS post about this group in a recent thread. When I read 'White Cap' I was under impression just another name used for Klan.

 

[RedRover]

The White caps were just another spate of lawlessness masked, literally and figuratively, as "regulators." They wore masks like the klux. From 1891:

From Alabama:

From Texas;

From Indiana, 1888:

From Illinois:

From Tennessee:

Relative to Tennessee, a history of the White Cap doings and suppression in Sevier County, Tennessee:

The White-caps : a history of the organization in Sevier County / E.W. Crozier, publisher

Evidently like many such groups, a criminal gang, which appealed to the public, and certain benefactors, by openly attacking the politically incorrect and unpopular, and claiming to be simple regulators/vigilantes.

Anyone who got in their way, of whatever stamp, however, could be targetted... And of course anyone any of their leaders declared should be subject to attack.

Mr. Crozier opines in his history, above, that the White Caps leadership encouraged party divisions among the people of Sevier, and thus confounded the legal authorities, so their version of law and order would hold sway. Says once the people were fed up, and voted the RIGHT men in as Sheriffs and deputies, irrespective of their party affiliations, the white caps were put on the run...

in consequence the influential "regulator" white cap gang, engaged in its actions, against a group of similarly organized "moderator" gangs, like the Blue Bills in Sevier County, TN:

Mr Crozier of Tennessee, noted:

An Indiana detective perhaps explained how it was the White Caps came to be filled with the lawless element of the community... viz.
they would come to monopolize crime in their community, by running off all that didn't abide them; then principally recruited men with criminal history, suggesting they were turning a new leaf and doing good on behalf of the leadership... Thus any man who tried to break with them would be exposed as a criminal, and subjected to their mode of discipline, etc., or perhaps even legal arrest, etc.

 

[R. Porter]

Now if someone could explain, from the first news article, the phrase, "cutting wood in an outhouse." Is this a euphemism for going to the bathroom or was the outhouse something like a woodshed?

 

[RedRover]

Now if someone could explain, from the first news article, the phrase, "cutting wood in an outhouse." Is this a euphemism for going to the bathroom or was the outhouse something like a woodshed?

I would think so. Webster's 1828 dictionary just gives an outhouse as a generic name for a building exterior to a dwelling;

Like perhaps a wood shed evidently...

or,

 

[MWood1841]

Thanks @RedRover for the deeper dive. Craziness for sure. I wonder if these gangs or groups had members who maintained close association from previous time spent in civil war regiments together? I've read were klan groups had and these others groups - white caps and blue bills, they all seem like vigilante's torn from the same cloth. Or at least likeminded with their ambitions and tactics