The Great Hanging at Gainesville, 1862: The Accounts of Thomas Barrett and George Washington Diamond Introduction by Richard B. McCaslin, afterword by L. D. Clark (review)

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In 1885, twenty-three years after he had witnessed a horrific incident, Thomas Barrett wrote, “Tears fell like the rain drop, as tears fall from my eyes at even this distant day, while penning these lines. … I do thank God that I am not guilty of the death of any of those whose death I have just recorded” (39). The event that haunted Barrett is recounted in The Great Hanging at Gainesville, 1862. This republication of two contemporary records introduces readers to one of the darkest moments in Texas history. These accounts first published by the Texas State Historical Association in the 1960s, during the centennial of the American Civil War, are a timely addition to the 150th commemoration of that pivotal era.

The Great Hanging was the result of fear and suspicion on the Confederate home front. Rumors of abolitionist plots in the immediate pre-war period, heightened by John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and a series of mysterious fires around North Texas in July 1860 led to anxiety about home front security when the war came. Although a majority of Texans voted to secede from the United States, over sixty percent of Cooke County residents (Gainesville is the county seat) rejected the idea. When the slaveholding community leaders began hearing rumors of a Unionist uprising in the making, they acted. Militia units rounded up dozens of suspected Unionists and quickly organized a jury to decide the guilt and fate of the prisoners. Ultimately, the residents of Gainesville executed more than forty men accused of being part of the so-called “Peace Party.” The republished documents in this volume tell the story of the ensuing trial. Thomas Barrett served on the jury and helped save the lives of many of the accused while George Washington Diamond’s brother helped organize the jury. Diamond wrote his account after being provided with the records of the trial, which have since vanished.

The two accounts differ in tone and position. Barrett was outraged by the events he witnessed, writing, “The deepest and most intense excitement that I ever saw prevailed. Reason had left its throne. The mind of almost every man I saw seemd [sic] to be unhinged, and wild excitement reigned supreme” (28). Meanwhile, Diamond fully sustained the actions of the pro-Confederate residents, rejecting the accusation of mob rule and referring to the jurors as “high-toned gentlemen” who had “the confidence and esteem of the people” (109). One of the most powerful elements of this publication is the afterword written by L. D. Clark, a descendant of one of the Great Hanging’s victims.

General readers who are interested in the Great Hanging should first read Richard B. McCaslin’s Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, 1862 (Louisiana State University Press, 1997). McCaslin, who wrote the concise introduction to this volume, used both republished sources in writing his narrative.

Barrett’s and Diamond’s accounts will be of interest...