“…From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean…”
In hot pursuit of my next “book”, I continue to plough through a great stack of readings, all about the German migration into Texas in the mid-19th century. Yes there is a great story there, of which practically no one outside Texas has ever heard, and given any sort of encouragement I will bore you rigid with all sorts of trivia. Like, for instance, the aristocratic patrons of the Society for the Protection of German Emigrants to Texas fell, hook, line, sinker and obscene amounts of cash to two of the biggest land swindles ever known. Three words “Fisher-Miller Grant”. That little fiasco was right on par with the sale of Manhattan Island, by a tribe that didn’t even own it. Ah, but it came out all right in the end… if the aristocratic members of the Society had possessed business acumen on par with their ambitions… well, let’s just say if that had been so, the second language of the state of Texas would not be Spanish. And it might not have joined the Union at all, but continued as an independent entity or quasi-German colony, which would have pleased a whole constellation of German princes and nobles, but really have annoyed the Confederate States, and deprived a great many Southern generals in the “late unpleasantness” circa 1861-65 of a great portion of their fire-eating, romping-stomping cavalry.
Texas joined the secession, to the heartbreak of Sam Houston, and enthusiastically entered into the whole spirit of the Confederacy… to be expected, since the Anglo (read American) settlers were mostly from southern states, and of that Scots-Irish breed of whom it has been oft-acknowledged that they were “born fighting”; Indians, British, the French or each other, whichever were most convenient at the moment. To read of the enthusiasm with which Texans volunteered to fight for the Confederacy is to wonder if it was just that they were spoiling for a fight, and the issues which impelled the secession were a minor bagatelle.
But this was not true of the considerable district around the German-settled areas around Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, all through the rolling lime-stone hills between San Antonio and Austin. This was the high country, the less-good land of hard-working farmers and small cattle ranches, solidly opposed to chattel slavery and who had opposed secession from the very beginning. They may have settled in Texas relatively recently, but they were a cohesive block, had put down deep roots, knew their rights and were prepared as stubborn and stiff-necked Americans to insist on them. If the Hill Country had been geographically contiguous with the Union at any point, doing a “West Virginia” and seceeding from the Secession would have met with solid approval.
As it was, the Hill Country Germans pretty much stood apart from the fray until a year into the war, in the spring of 1862, when the tide began to subtly shift against the Confederacy, to those who had the strategic sense to see the long picture. New Orleans was taken by the Union, whose forces began a slow progression up the Mississippi, slicing the Confederacy into two portions. Those who had been opposed to the whole secession thing were confirmed in their judgment, and those who had wavered began to wobble in the direction of loosing confidence… while the die-hard Confederates began to see the skull-grimace of death and defeat grinning at them from the corners.
Texas was put under martial law, and the supreme military commander was a foppish and overbearing little martinet named Hebert, who did much to make himself detestable to even supporters of the Confederacy. But what ignited resistance in the Hill Country, and farther north, around present-day Dallas, was the institution of conscription. Texas had poured 25,000 volunteers into the Confederate Army during the first year of the war. But volunteers were not enough, and in the spring of 1862 legislation passed which authorized the drafting of every Anglo (white) male between the age of 18 and 34… shortly thereafter, it was changed to 17 through 50. Resistance was instant and furious among Unionists. A party of 65 Unionist men from the Hill Country attempted to flee across the Rio Grande; they were ridden down by Confederate troops along the Nueces River, and half were killed outright or executed out of hand. In following weeks, another fifty men in Gillespie County, around Fredericksburg, were executed… many of them by Confederate vigilante gangs. It was said bitterly for decades afterwards, that more were killed in the Hill Country by such gangs during the Civil War than were ever killed by Indians, during the war or after it. A footnote in the history books, if even noted to begin with.
The experience of the Civil War had, I think, the effect of drawing the Texas German colonies into themselves, and emphasizing their distinct character, rather than diffusing amongst their neighbors as similar German enclaves did in the northern states. For they were long in forgetting what had been done to them, by their neighbors, and fellow Texans.
More about the German settlers, here and here, from the archives.
Has your research told you about Comfort, and the ones who were persecuted there for not joining the Glorious Cause? I have a very vague memory of reading that there was a massacre, and my very vague memory wants to insist that it was in/around Comfort. Could I be confusing that with the Gillespie county stuff you’re relating?
I’ve not lived in TX for over 5 years, now, and whatever I had read would have been even longer ago than that, which is my excuse for the incredibly vague memories. (Hope it’s an acceptable excuse)
Yes, that was the same incident; but it happened on the Nueces. The Confederates left them unburied, after the massacre, and after the war, the families and survivors brought the remains to Comfort and set up the memorial.
You might have already read this, but I’m just starting off on Elmer Kelton’s Lone Star Rising trilogy about the Texas Rangers. It’s got some of this stuff about the CW in it, at least in the early chapters I’ve read.
Boy, that seems unhelpful. But I love this stuff.
Here’s an excerpt from a memoir by my 1st cousin 3 times removed about feelings in central Texas about secession:
My Father was a strong Union man and stood with General Sam Houston, then Governor of the State of Texas. One of my uncles, J.A. Davenport, was a Union man. Most of our neighbors, or quite a number were for secession. Our home was then in Coryell County, Texas, where we had lived since 1854 having moved from Campbell County, Georgia, to that county. There was a deep feeling on the part of the people and it was very unpopular and unsafe to too strongly advocate the Union cause. The bitterest feeling was expressed against the Black Republican Party. Lincoln was regarded by many as one of the worst of men and enemy to the South. Little was then known of him, except that he advocated the freeing of the Negroes.
In the south, it was the belief that each state had the right to withdraw from the Union if the majority of the people of the state so said by their votes. So contended our orators. This belief had but very few opponents. The right to withdraw from the Union peaceably was contended and almost universally believed at the time in the South, especially in Texas.
There was great bitterness against what was termed the Black Republican Party everywhere in the South. Agitation and fear of the rising of the Negroes against their Masters was feared. There was much agitation and attempts were made by some in the North to incite the Negroes to rise against their Masters.
John Brown had gone into the State of Virginia with armed men to incite the Negroes to rise; then followed later by the call for soldiers to repel the invaders, and a feeling of bitterness toward men who were from the North. Some idea may be thus conveyed of the conditions in Texas at that time. Then followed the firing on Fort Sumter; the call for secession, the vote for secession, the retirement of General Sam Houston from the Governor’s office; and the State under a new administration. The call for soldiers, the recruiting camps, drills and enlistments all followed in rapid order. This was before I was 16 years old.
My father, after the vote to secede, although a Union man and against the secession, was obedient to the call of the State, believing that the majority should rule and that the State had only exercised its rights. Therefore he was one of the first to enlist for the service of the State and the South.
Jason
It sounds like a wonderful series, Scott… but I’m extremely hesitant to read any fictional works that deal with the time and place that I am trying to write about: first off, because it might be so great that I am too embarrassed to continue with my own efforts, and second because it would be too easy to plagerize, even unconsciously.
My original instinct was to just immerse myself in non-fiction about it all: memoirs, contemporary accounts, historical accounts of various aspects. I knew there were things that would resonate, and give me an idea for a character, or an incident… or even a conversation between two characters. It is working out beautifully, but I can’t take the chance of duplicating someone elses fictional take. Another writer and I might very well have our creativity tweaked by the same incident or account… but this way, I can be sure that my rendering of it will be entirely out of my own imagination!
(I will look them up, when I am done with my story, though!)
Jason, your forebear sounds like an honorable man. Texas, at least, even had an explicit right to secede – it’s detailed in their annexation agreement. To my knowledge, TX is the only state in the union that is legally allowed to separate itself from the U.S. It’s also the only state whose flag is allowed to fly at the same height as the U.S. flag, rather than below it. In both cases, I’m told, it’s because TX was first the Republic of Texas, a sovreign country in its own right before annexation.
Texas does not and never had a right of secession. There was no annexation agreement – Texas was annexed by a Joint Resolution of Congress. Neither the resolution, nor the proposed treaty of annexation (rejected by the Senate) had a secession clause. There was a clause permitting Texas to divide into five states.