THE GREAT HANGING

Stephen Harrigan has written a new book entitled Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas. Excerpts of Harrigan's book are in the September edition of Texas Monthly. Harrigan's approach to Texas's history is udifferent from what I've read in the past. The thoroughness of his research from a fresh perspective will likely captivate any reader brave enough to read all 900+ pages.

As I read one of the sections, I almost fell out of my chair from astonishment upon learning something new about one of my ancestors. My great,great grandfather, Colonel William Young, moved from Tennessee to Red River County as a young man in 1837. In 1844, Sam Houston appointed Young as the district attorney.  Young also led expeditions against the Indians and served as a Colonel in the Mexican War. Beginning in 1851, he practiced law in Grayson County. The Texas Legislature honored his service by naming a new county after him in 1856. Jefferson Davis appointed him Commander of a unit charged with exterminating Indians in Oklahoma to secure Texas from future Indian invasions. Young became ill while chasing Indians and returned home, only to become involved in the Great Hanging in Gainesville.

Reading the Texas Monthly article taught me more than I ever knew about Texas in my high school history class. There were Union loyalists in Texas, notably in the towns populated by Germans. 96% of the vote in Fredericksburg was against seceding from the Union. Most Germans were against slavery. Friedrich Schenck, a member of a utopian community of freethinkers called the Forty, frequently wrote to his mother in Germany. Many letters contained poetic words to describe the beauty of the Hill Country. Schenck wrote in another letter, "this happy picture of Texan farm life is also disturbed below by the curse of slavery…the feelings of the Germans bristle against such practice, as it is contrary to the holiest right of man – freedom!" A group of men formed the militant German Unionists. As they fled Texas and headed to Mexico, Confederate cavalry and state militia pursued and eventually killed most of them. A few survived and were able to find freedom in Mexico.

Texas Confederates feared Texans loyal to the Union would collaborate with Indians, Kansas abolitionists, or freed enslaved people against the Confederacy. Colonel Bourland, an old colleague of Young's, captured 150 men in North Texas suspected of being Union sympathizers. There were only a few enslavers in North Texas, and Colonel Young was one. Young handpicked a jury of enslavers to try seven of them in Gainesville. The suspected Unionists were condemned and hung one by one outside town. A mob formed during the proceedings stormed the courtroom and lynched fourteen more Union sympathizers.

Our family thought Indians had killed Colonel Young. According to Harrigan, he was probably bushwhacked and murdered by Union partisans the week following the trial. In all likelihood, Jim Young was in a vengeful mood. Colonel Young's son, Jim, presided over the trial of 19 more suspected Unionists. All 19 were found guilty and hung at a steady rate of two per hour. Gravediggers buried the bodies in shallow graves and undoubtedly knew that rooting animals would likely disturb the graves. A girl recounted seeing a hog carrying something in its jaws down a Gainesville street. It was her stepfather's arm. A local minister remarked that "reason had left its throne" in what came to be known as the Great Hanging.

When I tell the story of my great grandfather in the future, I now have some unpleasant facts to add to the story. Here's a man who enslaved African Americans, and killed Mexicans, Indians, and Unionists. Yeah, I know; the Indians killed each other in addition to white settlers, the Mexicans killed the Texians, and the Unionists killed the Confederates. Human beings are a violent sort. And, so it goes.