Events commemorate Great Hanging

Local News

Hanging a bleak chapter in Cooke County's history

By STEVE GORDON, Special to the Register

Between late 1858 and early 1861, the Butterfield Stage Line came through Gainesville weekly. The stage line attracted others to settle in the community.
And the new arrivals and local citizens became suspicious of one another, creating tension.
On April 12, 1861, the Civil War began. The Union Army pulled its troops out of North Texas leaving Cooke County unprotected. Undesirables living along the Red River caused anxiety and fear. By the spring of 1862, Cooke County was feeling the effects of the war. A Union blockade had closed the Gulf, the economy was crippled by war taxes, many basic materials were no longer available, many of the men were off fighting the war and there was fear of an invasion of the North Texas border by Union troops and unfriendly Indians.
On April 16, 1862, the Confederate government passed the Conscription Act, requiring all white males between ages 18 and 25, to register for military service. Within five months, the maximum age was raised to 45. Thirty men signed a petition protesting the military draft which was forwarded to the Confederate Congress. Rumblings of discontent were heard in Cooke County.
In early September, a local farmer, Ephraim Chiles, while drinking in a Gainesville hotel bar divulged details about a secret society known as the Peace Party to J.P. McCurley, a mailman. Mr. McCurley reported the conversation to Confederate authorities who sent Newton Chance to infiltrate the group. Chance convinced Ephraim’s brother Henry that he wanted to be a member. He received the degrees of initiation with the secret sign, grip and password along with the list of the membership. Newton Chance’s brother Joseph was sent as a second witness to confirm the organization’s existence.
Cooke County leaders asked Governor Lubbock to send troops to Gainesville. The governor requested the troops from State Confederate Commander General Herbert. The general refused as he needed all of his troops to defend the Gulf Coast. However, he did approve the temporary activation of Gen. Hudson’s district militia into Confederate service.
On Oct. 1, the Texas troops arrested over 150 men suspected as members of the Peace Party. A citizen’s court of 12 jurors was assembled. A majority vote would determine guilt. On Oct. 2, Henry and Ephraim Childs were found guilty and hanged. Within the next eight days, Henry Field, M.D. Harper, Jacob Lock, William W. Morris, and Edward Hampton were found guilty and hanged. These seven men were considered ringleaders of the peace party.
When the jury decided on a two-thirds vote for conviction the remaining prisoners were found not guilty and were to be released in a week to allow time for an angry mob to “cool down.” The mob, discovering the plan of the jury, threatened to kill all remaining prisoners unless 20 men were released to them. Once the mob received the complete list, they settled on 14 prisoners who were hanged over the next two days. The remainder of the detainees was to be released in a week per the original plan.
During the following week, a Gainesville citizen was ambushed and killed while hunting on the Red River. And the trial’s prosecuting attorney, while investigating the killing, was also shot and killed. When the jury reconvened, three of the original members did not show up and three replacement jurors were chosen. Presumably pressured by the angry mob, 19 of the prisoners had their earlier decisions reversed, were sentenced to death and hanged the following day. The remaining prisoners were then released. A total of 40 men had been hanged.
For more information on “October’s Reign of Terror,” visit www.greathangingevent.org.

Related Photos

Sunlight falls on crosses arranged near the site of the Great Hanging, a Civil War era event in which 42 men were executed as Union sympathsizers. File photo

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October 2, 2012

Events commemorate Great Hanging

By GREG RUSSELL, Register Staff Writer Gainesville Daily Register The Daily Register Tue Oct 02, 2012, 09:14 AM CDT

Gainesville — Cooke County historians have planned special commentorative events this month to mark the 150th anniversary of Gainesville’s Great Hanging, which was Monday.

Observances began with Saturday’s presentation of “October Morning,” a play reading in which local participants re-enacted key elements of the October 1862 incident through narration.

Another key tribute is set for 9 a.m. Oct. 13, at Gainesville Civic Center. Organized by descendants of the hanged Nathaniel Clark, the event is called “Remembering Our Past, Embracing Our Future” and will feature speakers, a catered luncheon and a Color Guard ceremony.

Saturday’s show, presented by Morton Museum of Cooke County, was written by Dr. Pat Ledbetter and selected from existing historical documents.

Morton Museum President Steve Gordon said such presentations are important to maintain annually in Gainesville, since the Great Hanging is the area’s single notable Civil War-era incident.

“Because there are no transcripts, nobody knows exactly what happened,” Gordon said Monday. “The jurors? They all went to their graves keeping their mouths shut. Fifteen jurors went to the grave and wouldn’t talk. I don’t know if their consciences bothered them, or what. But there’s good people and bad people in this mess.”

The hanging occurred after the Texas Militia arrested more than 200 suspected Unionists in late 1862. On Oct. 1, vigilantes in Gainesville executed 42 of these men, following convictions on charges of conspiracy to commit treason against the Confederacy and fomenting an insurrection. Research suggests few of the hanged men had actually plotted to insurrect against the Confederacy; many of them were apparently innocent of the charges. But this mattered little to their captors, whose allies also conducted lynchings in nearby counties.

Stories of the Great Hanging inched through the following decades in a low key, since little documentation could be found.

Extensive details didn’t proliferate locally until the late 1980s, when University of Texas scholar Richard McCaslin created a 625-page book intended as a dissertation.

And Gordon added that during the past decade, commemorations of the Great Hanging have been an annual fixture but have been difficult to mount.

In late August, organizers were forced to cancel an elaborate two-day event set for October, due to lack of support.

The Civic Center ceremony on Oct. 13 is intended as a substitute, but Gordon said civic interest in the Great Hanging is apparently waning.

“I’ve been pushing this for years, but I’ve been getting my head beaten in about it,” he said Monday.

“The town does not want to know about it. The connotation of hanging sounds terrible. ... Gainesville wants to gloss it over. But it’s a Civil War-era event and we just can’t overlook that.”

The museum president added that Gainesville has received national notoriety for more positive reasons, such as the “Most Patriotic City” award received in July, and these are to the city’s credit.

But historians continue to feel that the legacy of the Great Hanging, however troublesome, is fascinating local history that merits attention from new audiences.

“We need something to get people off the highway,” he said. “Gainesville should take advantage of that event.”

For more information about the ceremony on Oct. 13, you may e-mail NathanielClarkfamilyreunion@gmail.com or call (817) 999-9551. Registration for participants of the event is open through Friday.

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