The Night Daniel Webster Fought the Klan

American history is filled with Ku Klux Klan atrocities, making accounts in which their intended victims successfully fought back comparatively rare. This isn’t meant to diminish the horrors endured by innocent people, but rather to highlight one extraordinary incident in which a victim defended himself and inflicted more damage than his attackers could have imagined.

Daniel Webster of Gate City

In 1885, Daniel Webster, an eccentric and unpopular figure in Gate City, Virginia, found himself at odds with the local community after suing a man considered a respected pillar of society.

The details of the lawsuit, including the man’s name and the charges involved, have been lost to time. Whatever the dispute concerned, the suit earned Webster the ire of many people in the community, including members of the local Ku Klux Klan.

Webster wasn’t entirely surprised when, on a cold December night, he was jolted awake by large rocks striking his house.

Looking through the window, he saw a crowd of Klansmen in white robes gathered in his yard.

Webster Fights Back

Determined not to go down without a fight, Webster grabbed a revolver from his desk and opened the window.

With calm precision, he shot one Klansman after another as they stood on his lawn.

After emptying his revolver, Webster called out:

“Get me the other gun!”

There was no other gun.

The Klansmen didn’t know that.

The bluff worked. Believing Webster was about to continue firing, the robed attackers scattered into the night.

The Morning After

The following morning, several men around Gate City were mysteriously nursing gunshot wounds.

One man had been shot through the hip. Another had lost part of his chin. Yet another was bedridden.

No great mystery surrounded what had happened to them.

More importantly for Daniel Webster, the warning apparently worked.

The “white caps” never bothered him again.