Hiram C Whitley

Colonel Hiram C. Whitley was born on August 6, 1834, in Camden, Maine, to Dr. William Whitley and Hannah D. McCoombs. His family moved to Ohio in 1840, where he attended Western Reserve Teachers' Seminary until age fifteen when he became a drover. He later worked in the fishing industry in Massachusetts, married Catherine Bates in 1856, and had two daughters. The family moved to Kansas and then Colorado during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush before settling in New Orleans, where Whitley worked on steamboats. During the Civil War, from April 1861 to April 1862, he sympathized with the Confederacy but saw no active service. After the Starlight was seized by Confederates, Whitley and two others stole a yawl to reach New Orleans. He reported to General B.F. Butler, who referred him to Colonel Jonas H. French as a detective. Declining a captaincy in the Fifth Louisiana Regiment, he became a Major in the Seventh. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Whitley Chief of the Secret Service, where he introduced criminal files, a Code of Conduct, and official badges. He successfully arrested Klansmen in Georgia and used detectives to infiltrate KKK units in North Carolina and Alabama. Despite efforts, they couldn't penetrate the main KKK activity in South Carolina. Grant sent troops, and after their withdrawal, Whitley's agents found KKK members lying low. This led to martial law being declared, resulting in 500 arrests, with others fleeing or surrendering. Whitley resigned as Chief in 1874 due to a conspiracy ...