William
Clark Quantrill was known as vicious
guerrilla who enlisted in a
Confederate military unit in Oklahoma
for six months, serving two tours
of duty. Quantrill's Guerrillas
claimed to support the Confederate
cause while ignoring the rules of
warfare.
Quantrill's Guerrillas
wintered at their headquarters in
Grayson County, Texas called Camp
Lookout which was located near
Gordonville. Their reputation was
known
and felt far and wide which was enough
to restrain criminal activity
for fear of retribution.
Citizens of Sherman, Texas
respected
and/or feared them. There were very
few violators of the law because
those who might contemplate crime
feared punishment by the guerrillas.
pg. 15
Source
Tyler
Morning Telegraph
Sunday,
December 15. 2013
Written by EMILY GUEVARA
Civil War
guerrilla earns reputation for brutality
Almost
150
years ago, a triple hanging took place in a
small grove of trees
off West Erwin Street near its intersection
with Confederate Avenue. Although
largely forgotten, the incident shed light on
the violence going on at
the time and how the Civil War played out on
the local landscape.
It
was
the 1860s and “Texas began to shape its image
as a haven for
outlaws, gunmen and desperadoes,” according to
the book, “A Civil War
Tragedy: Quantrill’s Guerrillas and the 1864
Triple Hanging in Tyler,
Texas.”
William Clarke
Quantrill was a Civil War guerrilla leader who
came to Texas in 1863 in
part to winter here, but also to escape
payback for several of his
previous attacks, according to The Handbook of
Texas online. The
man
had earned quite a reputation for brutality.
In August 1863, he and
his posse looted Lawrence, Kan., shooting
about 180 men and boys in the
process, according to the online
handbook. While
on
their way to Texas, they attacked and killed
80 men and wounded 18
in the Baxter Springs (Kansas) Massacre. He
and his men murdered many
people after they surrendered, according to
the handbook. Still,
the
man managed to make friends when he came to
this state, partly
because he provided defense and protection for
some communities. He and
his men possibly acted as police against
cattle thieves. In
addition,
“with Confederate deserters, as well as
conscription dodgers,
hiding in the thickets of northern East Texas
and often preying on
people, Quantrill’s arrival was welcomed in
some communities
because they hoped his presence would bring
peace to the region,”
according to “A Civil War Tragedy.” He
is
credited with preventing violence on some
occasions, such as when he
and his men ended a “near-riot of county ‘war
widows’ who were
convinced the Confederate commissary in
Sherman was withholding” the
good stuff from them, such as coffee, tea and
sugar, according to the
online handbook.
But where the story of Quantrill ties
with Tyler starts with the murder of John
Lackey.
Lackey
was at home one day in 1863 when brothers from
the Calhoun family,
believed to be associates of Quantrill, came
to his house in Millwood
in Collin County and demanded his
money. When
he
said he had none, they tortured him. And when
Lackey still denied
having money, they ransacked his house, killed
him in front of his wife
and abused her, according to “A Civil War
Tragedy.” One
of
Lackey’s neighbors, James McReynolds, a former
Collin County chief
justice, convinced the county sheriff that the
Calhoun brothers
committed the crime.
Sheriff
James Read investigated it, found it to be
true and learned that the
brothers planned to kill “old man McReynolds”
next. So, instead of
waiting for the killing to happen, Read acted
first. On
December 29, 1863, he and a group of trusted
men followed the Calhoun
brothers and killed two of them. A third one
escaped and a fourth
apparently wasn’t involved, according to “A
Civil War Tragedy.” More
than
a month later, Read was arrested on murder
charges. However, at
the trial he was found not guilty of killing
David and James Calhoun. That
didn’t
stop associates of the Calhouns from fighting
back. A group of
raiders came into McKinney and engaged in a
half-day gun battle with
Read, McReynolds and their allies, according
to “A Civil War Tragedy.” It
was
during this fight that Read and McReynolds
escaped, and with Read’s
family, fled to Four Mile Prairie, a
settlement west of Canton,
according to the book. While
there,
they were seized by “enrollers,” Van Zandt
County and Henderson
County men who tracked down Confederate
deserters, absentees from the
war and “jayhawkers,” also described as
“freebooting guerrillas,”
according to the book. The
enrollers also took Joseph E. Holcomb, Read’s
brother-in-law. After
being
brought before several Confederate and county
officials, the men
were brought to enrolling official James M.
Taylor in Tyler. Taylor
told
them to take the men to Camp Ford for the
night and come back in
the morning so he could inspect their
papers. The
next
day, Taylor found that the men weren’t
“subject to military arrest
in the first place” nor to conscription as
soldiers in the Confederate
Army, according to “A Civil War
Tragedy.”
He said if they
were guilty of any civil offense, they
should be handed over to civil authorities,
according to the book. A crowd reportedly
stormed the enrollment office building that
afternoon, demanding the men. When they got
them, they tied them up, carried them
downstairs and left the Tyler square headed
west toward Canton. They had four men —
Read, McReynolds, Holcomb and Jeff Davis,
who also had been arrested. The mob stopped
less than a mile down the road near the
intersection of West Erwin Street and
Confederate Avenue. There, they conducted a
mock trial where they asked the men to plead
guilty or not guilty. They
then hung Read, McReynolds and Holcomb, but
let Davis go after a man in
the crowd vouched for his Army service and
said he wasn’t associated
with the other three.
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