GAINESVILLE — No one disputes that something horrific happened here during the Civil War: 40 local residents, labeled Union sympathizers, were hanged and two more were shot over a three-week period in an incident known as the Great Hanging.
But it’s taken 152 years of fits and starts for the community to permanently commemorate the tragedy. On Saturday, the latest effort will be unveiled: a monument listing the names of the dead and detailing what happened when neighbor turned against neighbor.
But Saturday’s dedication doesn't mean history has been settled in this town of 16,000 located 70 miles north of Dallas.
The Great Hanging “still is a controversial item here in Cooke County,” County Judge John Roane said. “You have people on both sides. … I try to play just as closely as I can to the middle.”
Gainesville Mayor Jim Goldsworthy said the memorial is a non-issue for most residents, who don’t have family ties to the incident. Last year no one opposed the motion to place the privately funded monument at a city park, and the council passed it unanimously.
But descendants of the victims, “those closer to that fire,” as Goldsworthy said, “are more passionate about it.”
An unpleasant topic
Colleen Clark Carri is one of the impassioned ones. Her great-great-grandfather, Nathaniel Clark, was hanged Oct. 13, 1862, while his son, James, was serving in the Confederate Army. After his father’s execution, James deserted his unit and later joined the Union side, Carri said.
Unlike many families, the Clarks recovered Nathaniel’s body and remained in the area.
For Carri, whose family still maintains the cemetery where he’s buried, the memorial is long overdue.
She said she’s puzzled by Gainesville’s lack of enthusiasm for marking the incident. The city website’s local history section devotes a few lines to the hanging, calling it “one of those normal events in an abnormal era.” The local history museum offers a book for sale but little other information. The president of the local heritage society declined comment.
Goldsworthy said locals are aware of the history and “I don’t think it’s a question of shame. I think what push back, if there were any push back, … was because a lot of folks, including myself, do not want to promote from a tourism standpoint this tragic wartime event.”
Carri, a founder of the Great Hanging Memorial Foundation, which raised $20,000 for the monument, said, “We just want them to be remembered.”
Though the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans does not oppose the monument, some members worry their ancestors may be maligned by memorializing the Great Hanging.
“They call the Confederate soldiers — who were following orders — murderers,” said Joe White, fourth brigade commander for the statewide group.
“There were atrocities committed on both sides,” White said. “It is history. It happened. It cannot be changed.”
But “people that view this got to think of it at the time period. They cannot look at it through today’s standards.”
Richard McCaslin, history department chairman at the University of North Texas, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the subject, which evolved into a book, Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas 1862.
He said the community is not so much uninterested or opposed, but simply unwilling to address an unpleasant topic.
“Have you heard the [Southern] expression, ‘Let’s not talk about that right now?’” asks the native Georgian. “It’s not like you’re crushing it. It’s not like you’re saying it didn’t happen. … You’re just saying ‘let’s not talk about it right now.’ It’s embarrassing.”
Three weeks of killing
What happened in Cooke County has been pieced together through a handful of surviving accounts — but not everyone interprets events the same way. Some call the Great Hanging one of the largest examples of vigilante violence in American history. Others say the actions were necessary to ensure public safety in wartime.
In 1861, Cooke County was one of 18 Texas counties to vote against secession. Fewer than 10 percent of area residents owned slaves. So the presence of Northern sympathizers in the area was no surprise.
When the Confederacy started a military draft a year later, 30 local men protested the exemption clause for large slaveholders — fanning fears among Confederates about rising resistance.
The formation of a “Peace Party” and rumors of plans to assault militia armories prompted the local provost marshal to order the arrest of all able-bodied men who did not report for duty.
On Oct. 1, more than 150 men were rounded up and a “citizens’ court” was convened to hear their cases. More than half the 12 jurors were slaveholders. Verdicts required a simple majority vote.
The jury condemned seven men, those generally regarded as leaders of the Union sympathizers. On Oct. 4, they were loaded onto a wagon driven by a slave and taken to an elm tree near Pecan Creek, near downtown Gainesville.
Nooses were placed around their necks, and each man was hanged — one and sometimes two at a time. Two men were shot while trying to escape.
Marvin Chiles’ great-great-grandfather, Ephraim, was among the first to die. The Oklahoma City resident said he’s proud of the pro-Union stand Ephraim took.
“I want to be there to see this monument standing,” said Chiles, who plans to attend the dedication. “What they stood for is exactly who I am.”
After the initial round of hangings, jurors decided a two-thirds majority for verdicts was more appropriate. That resulted in the acquittal of the other defendants. Plans were made to release them, but restless members of a mob demanded their names. The next day, the vigilantes hanged 14 men.
The following week, the decision to release the remaining prisoners was reversed. Many were tried again with a reorganized jury and this time 19 more were convicted and hanged.
About eight victims penned last statements, McCaslin said, which he found on file in the courthouse. Sometimes they left instructions to family members; sometimes they proclaimed their innocence.
The Clark family used words from Nathaniel’s last note on his tombstone: “Prepare yourself to live and die. I hope to meet in a better world God bless you all.”
Though most of Carri’s ancestors fought for the Confederacy, she has pushed for the memorial for years because she wants Nathaniel Clark and other victims to be remembered for their patriotism.
“You should be proud of these men for being loyal to the United States of America,” she said.
But David Moore, first lieutenant commander of the Texas division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, takes a different point of view.
Texas was part of the Confederacy at the time, so local militia members were simply dealing with a threat to the public.
“There was some vigilante aspects of it,” he said, “but the overall thing was that they were traitors.”
Moore, who said he, too, is related to the Chiles family, said a monument to Union sympathizers is “glorifying people who really were committing acts of treason.”
Memorial efforts
The new monument is the latest of several attempts to memorialize the events of 1862.
The first effort came in 1916 when a Massachusetts congressman tried and failed to obtain federal funding. Then in 1964, a small marker was erected by the Texas Historical Commission. Descendants of the victims say that monument is incomplete, however, in light of further scholarship.
Thirty-five years later, former Mayor Margaret Parx Hays, a descendant of one of the jurors, pushed through plans for an elaborate memorial. But the blueprints were shelved when funding failed to materialize.
Since then, various observances have been held: In 2007 a man who grew up in the area erected 42 wooden crosses, a bell was rung and names of the dead were read; last year North Central Texas College added a dramatic reading of a play called October Mourning by history professor Pat Ledbetter.
Carri has participated in all of the recent efforts. But Saturday’s dedication marks the end of the long push to honor her ancestor.
If her great-great-grandfather could comment on the effort, “I think Nathaniel would say simply ‘thank you,’” she said.
IF YOU GO: Memorial dedication
What: Dedication of the Great Hanging memorial
Where: Georgia Davis Bass Park, 729 E. Main, Gainesville
When: 3 p.m. Saturday
Prior to the ceremony, a dramatic reading of October Mourning will be held at the Center for the Performing Arts at North Central Texas College from 1 to 2:30 p.m.
For more information: greathanging1862.comgreathanging1862.com
