The 11th Texas Cavalry & the Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas Forty suspected Unionists in Confederate Texas were hanged at Gainesville in October 1862. Two others were shot as they tried to escape. Although the affair reached its climax in Cooke County, men were killed in neighboring Grayson, Wise, and Denton counties. Most were accused of treason or insurrection, but evidently few had actually conspired against the Confederacy, and many were innocent of the abolitionist sentiments for which they were tried. The Great Hanging was the result of several years of building tension. The completion of the Butterfield Overland Mail route from St. Louis through Gainesville brought many new people from the upper South and Midwest into Cooke County. By 1860 fewer than 10 percent of the heads of households owned slaves. The slaveholders increasingly feared the influence of Kansas abolitionists in every unrest. In the summer of 1860 several slaves and a northern Methodist minister were lynched in North Texas. Cooke and the surrounding counties voted against secession and thus focused the fears of planters on the non-slaveholders in the region. Rumors of Unionist alliances with Kansas Jayhawkers and Indians along the Red River, together with the petition of E. Junius Foster, editor of the Sherman Patriot, to separate North Texas as a new free state, brought emotions to a fever pitch. Actual opposition to the Confederacy in Cooke County began with the Conscription Acts of April 1862. Thirty men signed a petition protesting the exemption of large slaveholders from the draft and sent it to the Congress at Richmond. Brig. Gen. William Hudson, commander of the militia district around Gainesville, exiled their leader, but others who remained used the petition to enlist a nucleus for a Union League in Cooke and nearby counties. The members were not highly unified, and their purposes differed with each clique. Most joined to resist the draft and provide common defense against roving Indians and renegades. Rumors began to circulate, however, of a membership of over 1,700 and of plans for an assault when the group had recruited enough men. Fearing that the stories of Unionist plots to storm the militia arsenals at Gainesville and Sherman might prove to be true, Hudson activated the state troops in North Texas in late September 1862 and ordered the arrest of all able-bodied men who did not report for duty. Texas state troops led by Col. James G. Bourland arrested more than 150 men on the morning of October 1. In Gainesville he and Col. William C. Young of the Eleventh Texas Cavalry, home on sick leave, supervised the collection of a "citizen's court" of twelve jurors. Bourland and Young together owned nearly a fourth of the slaves in Cooke County, and seven of the jurors chosen were slaveholders. Their decision to convict on a majority vote was a bad omen for the prisoners, all of whom were accused of insurrection or treason and none of whom owned slaves. The military achieved its goal of eliminating the leadership of the Union League in Cooke County when the jury condemned seven influential Unionists, but an angry mob took matters into its own hands and lynched fourteen more before the jurors recessed. Violence in Gainesville peaked the next week when unknown assassins killed Young and James Dickson. The decision already made to release the rest of the prisoners was reversed, and many were tried again. Nineteen more men were convicted and hanged. Their execution was supervised by Capt. Jim Young, Colonel Young's son. Brig. Gen. James W. Throckmorton prevented the execution of all but five men in Sherman, but in Decatur, Capt. John Hale supervised a committee that hanged five suspects. A Southern partisan shot a prisoner in Denton. Texas newspapers generally applauded the hangings, disparaged the Unionists as traitors and common thieves, and insisted they had material support from Kansas abolitionists and the Lincoln administration. The state government condoned the affair. Gov. Francis Richard Lubbock, an ardent Confederate, praised Hudson for his actions, and the legislature paid the expenses of the troops in Gainesville. Articles from the Texas press were reprinted across the South. President Jefferson Davis, embarrassed, abandoned his demand for an inquiry into a similar incident involving northern troops in Palmyra, Missouri, and dismissed Gen. Paul Octave Hébert as military commander of Texas for his improper use of martial law in several instances, including the hangings. The northern press heralded the story as another example of Rebel barbarism. Andrew Jackson Hamilton, a former congressman from Texas and a Unionist, had been speaking in the North warning of the danger to loyal citizens in Texas. Reports of the Great Hanging and other incidents lent support to his campaign and led to his appointment as military governor of Texas and the disastrous Red River campaign of 1864. The unrest did not end with the hangings in North Texas. Albert Pike, Confederate brigadier general in charge of Indian Territory, was implicated in testimony and arrested. Although later released, Pike continued to be regarded with suspicion and served the rest of the war in civilian offices. Capt. Jim Young killed E. Junius Foster for applauding the death of his father. He also tracked down Dan Welch, the man he believed to be his father's assassin, then returned with him to Cooke County and had him lynched by some of the family slaves. The Union League was powerless to exact revenge; many members fled along with the families of the slain prisoners, leaving bodies unclaimed for burial in a mass grave. A North Texas company of Confederate soldiers in Arkansas learned of the executions and almost mutinied, but tempers were defused by Brig. Gen. Joseph O. Shelby, their commander. Several men later deserted to return home, but Shelby prevented a mass assault on Gainesville. The half-hearted prosecution of those responsible for the hangings after the war, resulting in the conviction of only one man in Denton, increased resentment among the remaining Unionists in North Texas, but the failure of a Union League march on Decatur indicated the futility of further attempts at retaliation. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Hanna Acheson and Julia Ann Hudson O'Connell, eds., George Washington Diamond's Account of the Great Hanging at Gainesville, 1862 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1963). Thomas Barrett, The Great Hanging at Gainesville (Gainesville, Texas, 1885; rpt., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1961). L. D. Clark, A Bright Tragic Thing (El Paso: Cinco Punto Press, 1992). L. D. Clark, ed., Civil War Recollections of James Lemuel Clark (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1984). Michael Collins, Cooke County, Texas: Where the South and West Meet (Gainesville, Texas: Cooke County Heritage Society, 1981). Richard B. McCaslin, Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1988). James Smallwood, "Disaffection in Confederate Texas: The Great Hanging at Gainesville," Civil War History 22 (December 1976).
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WITH THE ELEVENTH TEXAS CAVALRY
Confederate Veterans Magazine
Jan, 1920; Vol. XXVIII
1st Cpl. George B. Dean, of Detroit, Texas enlisted in the Confederate service at the age of nineteen with the first company from his native county. This was made Company E, of the 11th Texas Cavalry (the Red River Dixie Boys), which saw active service first through the Indian Territory and Kansas and then back into Arkansas near Fayetteville. Captain Dean says of his command:
"We were supposed to go into winter quarters; but as the enemy was pressing General Price out of Missouri, our regiment was ordered to join General McCulloch and served under him in continuous scout duty, engaging in the battle of Elk Horn, or Pea Ridge, where General McCulloch was killed.
"We were then ordered to Des Arc, Ark. There we were dismounted. Our horses were sent back to Texas, and we were put aboard a little boat and sent to Memphis, Tenn., from there to Corinth, Miss., but too late for the battle of Shiloh. After engaging with the enemy in a few rounds near Corinth and Farmington, we were sent to Mobile, Ala., and from there to Chattanooga, Tenn., where we rested, drilled, and prepared for more active duties.
"About the latter part of August, or early in September 1862, with five days' cooked rations, a musket, and forty rounds of ammunition, we flanked the Federal General Morgan, crossed the mountain, and occupied the gap on the Kentucky side, thus preventing his escape. Our wagon train, having to make a more circuitous route, was greatly delayed, and the boys drew heavily upon their haversacks and were soon out of provisions; but out of a near-by cornfield and apple orchard we did well until the wagons arrived.
"Then began the march under Gen. E. Kirby Smith through the blue-grass regions of Kentucky, with nothing to molest or make us afraid until we reached the town of Richmond, where the Federal Generals Davis and Nelson said we should go no farther; but before the setting of the sun that day we had their entire army, except the killed and wounded, rounded up and were giving them paroles. The part taken in this battle by our regiment is well described in the following song, which was composed by one of our boys while waiting for his wounds to heal in a hospital at Richmond:
Early one morning in 1862,
The gallant sons of Texas, with hearts brave and true,
Marched forth to meet the Yankees just at the break of day
On the green fields of Richmond in battle's dread array.
We marched along in silence until the sun arose;
We heard the boom of cannon alike of friends and foes;
We stopped awhile at Kingston, a village by the way,
To wait for further orders and listen to McCray.
Then we were ordered forward to turn the Yankees' right;
We marched through lane and cornfield until we came in sight;
We saw the broken columns—they had begun to flee
Away from our Southerners, the sons of Tennessee.
Then we were ordered to charge them, and they began to get away
A little faster than we ever saw them yet.
They ran about two miles before they stopped to rest,
Then took a strong position, resolved to do their best.
There was no one to oppose them but our small brigade,
And yet we were undaunted, for no one was afraid.
Their Minnie balls and bombshells incessantly did roar,
And many noble Texans there fell to rise no more.'
"General Smith marched his little army up and in sight of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Ky., then hastened to join General Bragg at Perryville, but too late. The battle had just ended when we arrived. Thence we went back through Cumberland Gap into Tennessee to await the oncoming of the battle of Murfreesboro.
"After engaging in this hard-fought battle, in which our lamented Col. John C. Burks was mortally wounded, his dying request that his 11th Texas Cavalry be remounted was granted by the War Department, and we were ordered to report to Brig. Gen. John A. Wharton, commanding a brigade under General Wheeler. Our brigade consisted of the 8th and 11th Texas, 4th Tennessee, and the 3d Arkansas, commanded by Col. Tom Harrison, in which we served during the remainder of the war, engaging in all scouts and battles pertaining to the Army of Tennessee under Joseph E. Johnston. In opposing General Sherman through Georgia and the Carolinas I was waylaid and captured on March 3, 1865, while on duty as a messenger, and sent to Point Lookout, where I remained until the close."
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Corporal George B. Dean and his twin grandsons, Paul and David Dean, of Tulsa, Okla., who were In training at Norman, Okla., for the World War when the armistice was signed. They were discharged on December 21, 1918.
Two other grandsons were in the service; Robert Hugh Easley, In training at Fort Worth and G. M. Dean, of New York City, an officer In the navy.
See 1st Cpl Dean’s Service Record under Co. E, pg 2, this website.
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Johnston's Last Volley - A Veteran Describes His Experiences in Durham at the Close of the War
From the New Orleans Picayune
November 9, 1902
A Baltimore correspondent of the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, writes as follows:
Mr. David M. Sadler, who lives at 907 Arlington avenue, in this city, claims that he was one of those who fired the last volley of Johnston's army, and he also tells of a daring project of General Joe Wheeler's at the close of the Civil war. Sadler is an Arkansas man, and was in the first battle at Wilson creek, Mo., August 10, 1861. From that time he served continuously to the end of the struggle, having had but one twelve-hour leave, and never having missed a day from the service.
He was with Wheeler on his last raid in Tennessee, and followed the trail of Sherman's march to the sea. The Eleventh Texas, of which he was a member, was, he says, on rear guard at Branchville, S. C., and at Raleigh, ending its career at what was then known as Durham's Station.
The last shot, as described by Mr. Sadler, was fired in North Carolina, near Durham, after the preliminaries for the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston to General William T. Sherman had been arranged. The Eleventh Texas was a part of General Harrison's Brigade, and had dwindled from a full regiment down to only 105. Describing his experience at Durham, Mr. Sadler says:
"We had been on rear guard for three or four days and nights, and on the morning of April 26, 1865, just at dawn of day, a scout came into camp. They had found a barrel which contained some gallons of apple jack and had put some in a water bucket and the balance in a wash tub.
"We had camped along a hedge row, into which we had crawled to sleep. We were not up when the scout came in and called out "Apple Jack!" but we were very soon out, and before the cups had gone around the outer pickets fired. Of course, we could not pour the jack out; it was too rich for Yanks. So we drank it in a hurry, and mounted our horses. The enemy was on us, and the scrap began. We divided our command into two squadrons - about fifty men each. The squadron next to the enemy would stay in line until the enemy would charge. Each man would empty one six-shooter, then fall back behind the other squadron and take a position. We were more or less exhilarated - probably more than less. The enemy came up vigorously, swift, and strong, in charge after charge - for we did not have to wait long for them. Business was good.
"In the course of an hour there developed a third squadron, which was more than exhilarated, fairly lubricated; for, when a squadron would fire, which would always check the enemy, the lubricated squadron would countercharge, and sometimes in close six-shooter range. The enemy came in right along, seemed to be looking for business, and we did not have to wait long at any time until ten or eleven o'clock.
"My squadron took a position behind a small field on the left-hand side of the road - the field was, say 150 or 200 yards wide. We were on a hillside, six miles from Chapel Hill. We had waited longer than usual, when a Yank hallooed on the other side of the field:
"'Hello, Johnny; don't shoot! We want to make peace with you.'
"We hallooed back: 'All right.'
"Then he rode out in the fence corner in plain view and hallooed: 'Johnny, what command is that?'
"The Eleventh Texas.'
"He hallooed back: 'What is the matter with you boys this morning?'
"'We are drunk and reckless, and if you want to fight come over!'
"'I thought there was something the matter, for we never saw you boys so lively before; go into camp, the war is over for to-day.'
"He turned and went away.
"In a few minutes we turned out of line and went back. Soon we came to General Wheeler and other officers, and went into camp on a hillside among small trees. Towards night word came that General Johnston had surrendered and that in the morning we would have to stack arms. Our camp was turned into a camp of mourning; men and officers mingled their tears together. Old, weather-beaten and battle-scarred soldiers who had prided themselves on their six-shooters, horses, and valor as soldiers, threw their belts aside as something to get rid of, and wept like whipped children.
"The colonel came out and made a speech. Among other things he said; 'Napoleon boasted that his Old Guard had been under fire a hundred times, but he could boast of this regiment as having been under fire in battles and skirmishes more than three hundred times.'"
But Mr. Sadler has an even more interesting reminiscence than this, and one that I have never seen in any history - nothing less than a proposal by General Joe Wheeler to recapture President Jefferson Davis, rush him rapidly through Texas, and place him on Mexican soil, where he would be safe from harm.
Mr. Sadler says that on the day of Johnston's surrender the news spread through the camp at Durham that General Wheeler wanted volunteers to escort Mr. Davis to Mexico. War-worn as were these old veterans, he could have secured all of them if necessary. But he chose only 151, most of them from the Eleventh Texas. The speech of General Wheeler to this little band of followers Mr. Sadler quotes as follows:
"The Confederate Government for the present is powerless to act, but its head is alive an shall not die. We will take President Davis across the Mississippi river and carry on guerrilla warfare; make raids back across the river, in the spring visit our old stamping-grounds, strew flowers on the graves of our fallen comrades and gather supplies for a winter campaign and skirmish on the prairies of Texas with rifle artillery, and, if we have to, will cross the Rio Grande into Mexico, for the enemy shall never have the head of the Confederacy."
HAMPTON'S WORDS - the 11th makes an attempt to rescue Jefferson Davis, and an insight as to why less than 50 of the 11th actually surrendered at Bennet's House
Mr. Sadler says this band, traveling in a direct line, would have crossed the Catawba river at Beatty's Ferry, but in the night they took the road to Beatty;s Ford, which delayed them a day or two. They saw Wade Hampton in Yorkville, S. C. When they mounted their horses to go he was standing in the door of a broad granary and said: "May God speed and bless you on your errand, and my prayers are that you may be successful in your undertaking."
"We went on towards Washington," said Mr. Sadler, "and on the morning of May 3d, about 10 o'clock, were within three miles of the place. Men were going in every direction; some paroled, some were not, but each one was making for home. Everybody inquired of everybody for news, and we were fairly well posted as to movements, etc., and from them we learned that President Davis had left Washington nearly two days before and gone in a southerly direction, and that the enemy came the previous day about 3 P. M. We turned into a woods, along a fence, into what seemed a swamp in wet weather. We fed our horses and ate something ourselves. We had gotten some paroles from the soldiers. Writing material was gotten out, and several men went to writing or copying paroles. each man got one. General Wheeler took parole as Lieutenant Sharp of Company C, Eleventh Georgia. He was mounted on a spotted stud that was captured from General Kilpatrick near Fayetteville, on the Cape Fear river, North Carolina.
"Then General Wheeler gave us a few parting words, in which he said that we no longer owed allegiance to the Confederacy; that we were free to go and shift for ourselves; that our cause for the present was lost. Look for the worst, but hope for the best.
"Then camp began to break up; probably one man would shake hands with a few chums, mount his horse and go, or probably six, eight or ten would go together. In my squad there were seventeen, and, after we got away from camp, we held a counsel of war. We determined to go south Washington and scout around and try to find President Davis. But we got no trace of him.
"Once we thought we were on his trail. We learned that there was some high official with several wagons and ambulances southwest of us. It proved to be General Braxton Bragg. We inquired of him, but he knew nothing of Mr. Davis. We went on past him on the rover road to a bridge. We could see the bridge for a mile or more. When we got within a few hundred yards of the bridge we halted and held a counsel as to what to do, for there was a Yankee picket on the far end of the bridge. Whilst we were talking as to what was best to do, General Bragg's wagons came up and turned into the woods and went into camp. The picket was watching us. All at once he turned his horse and galloped away. We galloped down and across the bridge and left the road. When we got on high ground we could see the Yanks in Bragg's camp."
Then they abandoned the pursuit of Mr. Davis and headed for Texas.
This reminiscence of Mr. Sadler gives us a new light on the character and daring of that little Alabamian who has been fighting from the time he put on long pants and hasn't stopped it yet. He was the inspiration of the army in Cuba, and a prominent officer said not long ago that he believed if it had not been for Wheeler, Shafter would have been badly beaten at Santiago.
What a life that little General has led! His biography, told in the plainest language, would make the average romance seem common-place
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Shannon's Scouts — U.S. General Kilpatrick.
Confederate Veteran
Volume14 , Number 11, Page 511-12
November 1906
By J. C. Witcher, Bells, Texas
No other motive than a desire to have the truth made public prompts this article. From time to time I have noticed erroneous statements concerning the capture of General Kilpatrick's horses, one of which was the well known spotted horse. In the VETERAN of July is an article altogether misleading.
The facts are: General Wheeler personally, with Shannon's scouts, reconnoitered Kilpatrick's camp and located routes of approach and made other necessary discoveries leading to the attack the same night of the surprise. At this time, as on other occasions, General Wheeler was known by his scouts, at his request, as "Sergeant Johnson." The attack was thoroughly planned and carried out in detail except for a few minutes' unavoidable delay of part of the command in passing a marshy place. But for this, neither Kilpatrick nor his command had escaped. It was one of the several brilliant affairs which coupled Wheeler and Shannon in the historic days of the sixties, and I am unwilling that it be less than "honor to whom honor is due."
Some months ago I wrote my grand old commander, A. M. Shannon, of Galveston, Tex., concerning this and other matters, and I herewith give his reply:
I see so many accounts of things that transpired during the stormy days of 1861 to 1865 which are described so differently from the way I saw or remember them that sometimes I am forced to the conclusion that I must not have been there or else the other fellow was not, but to undertake a correction of such errors is a bigger task than I care to tackle. General Wheeler some years ago wrote me of errors in General Hampton's book that gave to others credit for what he was pleased to term acts of gallantry that belonged to myself and my noble, brave followers, but I have never had a desire to fly into print and get up controversies over matters that are so long past. I did my duty as I understood it from start to finish, and never, so far as I ever heard, was accused of standing back or shirking a duty, no matter how unpleasant or hazardous. I am almost blind (was for some months totally so), have undergone two operations, but can never hope for more sight than I now have, and will be thankful if I can retain what little I have until called hence. I am always glad to hear from you or any of the noble, brave men I had the honor to command.
And now as to who captured the spotted horse, who gave him to General Wheeler, and how long he kept him, I shall let General Wheeler speak over his own signature, and this ought to settle the matter. Here is General Wheeler's letter, which was written to Maj. J. B. Puryear:
"It gave me great pleasure to hear from you. The 11th Texas was one of the grandest regiments of the Confederacy. I remember the morning of March 10, 1865, very well indeed. I had my command in four columns. I had spent the night in examining the enemy's bivouac, and just before day, at the head of the left hand column, I crossed the stream and charged in upon the sleeping enemy. The other three columns crossed the stream and charged into the enemy's bivouac probably two minutes later. The delay was caused by failure to receive the order in time. You recall how thoroughly we defeated the enemy. We captured some four hundred prisoners and all of the horses of Kilpatrick and his staff and many other horses. Shannon's scouts brought out Kilpatrick's spotted horse, and by vote of the organization made it a present to me, and I retained it until after the war. It always gives me pleasure to hear from my brave old comrades, and I thank you for your letter. Remember me to my old comrades."
As a last word, it will be seen from General Wheeler's letter above that he received the spotted horse as a gift from Shannon's scouts, and kept him till the war was over. Therefore he did not give a pair of pistols boot in trade for him, nor did he return him to Kilpatrick under flag of truce.
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