Local indignation over the Klan's excesses caused Governor William W. Holden to declare Alamance and Caswell counties to be in a state of insurrection and invoked the Shoffner Act, and brought in Colonel George Kirk to restore order; the acts of Colonel Kirk's troops to end Klan terrorism came to be known as the Kirk-Holden War.[2]
Senator Shoffner was burned in effigy in several counties,[3] and the KKK unsuccessfully tried several times to kill him.[4] To escape revenge by Klansmen against him, he and his family fled to Hendricks County, Indiana.[5]