In 1871, one of the worst waves of white supremacist violence in South Carolina history unfolded in Union County. During two raids in January and February of that year, twelve Black men were forcibly taken from the jail by the Ku Klux Klan while awaiting trial. Most were members of the South Carolina militia accused of killing a white man. Eleven men are known to have been killed in the two attacks or soon after, and the fate of the other is unknown. National press called the lynchings outrages and inhumane barbarities. These murders and other acts of intimidation and violence aimed at disenfranchising Blacks led President Ulysses S. Grant to declare a state of rebellion in Union and eight other South Carolina counties. Danger and inequities led some Black families to leave Union County, while others remained and built community institutions.