A Fool's Errand was Tourgee's first successful novel, published in 1879. It was immensely popular in the North, roundly criticized in the South. There are two threads of plot. One is historical, the reason for failure of Reconstruction (the Fool's Errand). The second is a romantic plot between the protagonist's daughter, Lily, and the son of a Confederate general, Mel Gurney.

The protagonist is Col. Comfort Servosse, modeled after Sgt. Tourgee himself, but a puffed up Tourgee. Many of the incidents are directly based on Tourgee's experience as a judge in Greenboro, NC. In the most melodramatic scene in the story, Col. Servosse has been invited to Judge Denton's home, but is warned by a messenger that the KKK is about to visit the "supreme penalty" on Judge Denton and will take out Servosse while they're at it. Lily saddles up "Young Lollard," a very spirited horse and races toward Glenville in hope of arriving there before the train. On the way, she comes to a crossroads and isn't sure of which way to go. She sees a Ku Kluxer and hears others coming, and hides in a grove of trees near the road. As she waits, others arrive and have a meeting at the crossroads. They have learned that Col. Servosse will be with Judge Denton and decide to "visit the extreme penalty" on him as well as Denton. There is one vote against killing Servosse and he will turn out to be John Burleson. To Lily's advantage, they mention which road leads to Glenville and that it is four miles. They will take another route that is five or six miles.

Lily takes an opportunity to break out of the trees at a full run of her horse, but meets a KKK sentry as she starts up the road. She fires her gun, and he chases her a couple of miles before dropping back to rejoin his Ku Klux mission. Lily reaches the train station in time to stop Judge Denton and her father. The KKK party is left in lurch at the bridge between there and Judge Denton's home.

In the morning, everyone in Glenville knows of the plot and Lily is considered a hero. John Burleson returns to town with Lily's hat and with Mel Gurney. The latter was the sentinel shot in the arm by Lily. Gurney had recognized Lily and let her get away. He brought back to the KKK a tale about being startled by a rabbit that made his horse run to throw them off her track. He arranges with Gurney to take Lily's hat back to her himself. Gurney publicly confesses to being a Klansman, followed by Gurney. Col. Servosse invites Judge Denton to go home with him for a few days and invites Gurney and Burleson to come too. Eventually we also find out that the anonymous bearer of the message to Lily was Mel's young brother.

In a famous critique of Sartre's first novel, Nausea, Albert Camus began with a statement that every novel is philosophy, but when the philosophy is too obvious it spoils the novel. This is the case with A Fool's Errand. It is a didactic novel, and the omniscient narrators lessons about the failure of Reconstruction often overshadow the plot. Even with that, I found it a good read, but the particular lesson is very dated, and the novel is consequently little read nowadays. It was, nevertheless, an overwhelming success in the years following its publication. So much so that Thomas Dixon, Jr., felt the need to write his Reconstruction Trilogy with tthe white supremacist's point of view.… (plus d'informations)