John W. Stephens was an assassinated state senator from North Carolina. He was stabbed and garroted by the Ku Klux Klan on May 21, 1870. This killing began the Kirk–Holden war.

The Kirk–Holden war was a police operation taken against the white supremacist organization Ku Klux Klan by the government in the state of North Carolina in the United States in 1870. The Klan was using murder and intimidation to prevent recently freed slaves and members of the Republican Party from exercising their right to vote in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Following an increase in Klan activity in North Carolina—including the murder of a black town commissioner in Alamance County and the murder of a Republican state senator in Caswell County—Republican Governor of North Carolina William W. Holden declared both areas to be in a state of insurrection. In accordance with the Shoffner Act, Holden ordered a militia be raised to restore order in the counties and arrest Klansmen suspected of violence. This resulted in the creation of the 1st and 2nd North Carolina Troops, which Holden placed under the overall command of Colonel George Washington Kirk.