Mr. Furguson was known as being favorable to the Republicans, and had voted in the interest of the principles of the party of that name, whenever opportunity had offered. He had educated his children in a love of the Union, and taught them the blessings of civil and religious liberty with their evening prayers, and had succeeded in imbuing them with his own opinions to such an extent that the family became noted throughout Chatham county as Unionists and Radicals. At the breaking out of the war, Furguson determined to remain a non-combatant, seeking as far as possible not to render himself obnoxious to his neighbors, but resolving at the same time to maintain a neutral position. In this, however, he was doomed to a bitter disappointment, being conscripted into the rebel army and sent to the front. He was taken prisoner at Fort Caswell, N. C., and was sent to Elmira, N. Y., where he died, never having seen his family from the night he was so rudely torn from their embrace, and compelled to serve in the army of the rebellion. Neither this great calamity, nor the numerous other hardships suffered by this family for opinion's sake, could shake their firm adherence to the Union cause. The daughter was a beautiful girl, of great natural intelligence, but who had been wholly without the advantages of an education. She was attached to her father with a rare devotion, and believed it to be a filial duty, which she owed to his memory, to continue to enunciate the principles in which he had so thoroughly instructed her. His conscription had strengthened rather than weakened these sentiments, and she publicly spoke of his death as chargeable to the wicked designs of the men who had endeavored to overturn and destroy the country. At the time of the organization of the first Camp of the "Constitutional Union Guards," or Ku Klux Klan, in Chatham county, Susan Furguson was in her eighteenth year. Her case was the first one brought to the consideration of the Camp; but no special action was taken thereon until it was observed that the sons were following in the footsteps of the father, and were advocating the same principles of Unionism and Republicanism that he had taught them. They also learned that Miss Furguson lost no opportunity to express her convictions to the colored people with whom she came in contact, and in their eyes her course became intolerable. During the October of 1870, the case of the Furguson family was again brought before the Camp as a flagrant violation of the principles of the white man's government, and it was resolved that an example should be made of them. A warning was sent to the family to renounce their political faith, and cease the promulgation of their opinions, or leave the country. To this, and subsequent warnings of a similar character, no attention was paid, and an edict was finally issued by the Commander of the Camp, to have some, if not all the members of the family, scourged.