Texans and War: New Interpretations of the State's Military History

9. The Prolonged War: Texans Struggle to Win the Civil War during Reconstruction

9 The Prolonged War Texans Struggle to Win the Civil War during Reconstruction Kenneth W. Howell TRADITIONALLY, HISTORIANS have viewed the American Civil War (1861–65) and the Reconstruction era (1865–77) as two distinct and separate periods in US history. Though this approach provides a convenient way to understand two very complex eras, it tends to skew the general understanding of the violence that remained commonplace in the South during Reconstruction. Scholarly celebrations of the Union victory in the Civil War tend to ignore the fact that the US government ultimately failed to rehabilitate southern society in the decades following the war. A more constructive way to study these two periods is to examine them as two distinct phases of a continuous conflict between the northern and southern states lasting from 1861 to 1877. In the first phase of the war (1861–65), the US and Confederate governments used conventional military forces to achieve their respective goals: Federal troops fought to preserve the Union, and after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, to end slavery. The Confederate military fought to win southern independence and to preserve the institution of slavery. The larger population, greater industrial capabilities, and naval superiority of the northern states dictated almost from the very beginning that the Union would win what became a war of attrition. During the second phase of the war (1865–77), sometimes referred to as the War of Reconstruction, whites organized terrorist groups and initiated a prolonged guerrilla war against Republican governments in the southern states that sought to force political and social change. Given that Radical Republicans supported federal and state legislation that would guarantee African Americans suffrage rights and other freedoms, white southerners became concerned about potential changes to their political institutions. THE PROLONGED WAR 197 They believed that suffrage for former slaves would ultimately lead to complete social and political equality for southern blacks. Perhaps more than any other southern state, Texas became a bloody battleground during this second phase of the struggle between North and South. Shortly after the fall of the Confederacy, most Texas unionists hoped to cooperate with federal authorities and bring positive change to their state. They believed cooperation was the only way to escape punitive actions such as treason trials, martial law, and a lengthy period of military occupation. On July 17, 1865, a group of North Texas unionists met in convention at Paris, in Lamar County, to swear loyalty to the national government and to vow their willingness to follow the law. The delegates elected W. B. Gray of Titus County as their president; T. G. Wright of Red River County Thomas Nast, Worse Than Slavery. Reproduced from Harper’s Weekly, 1874. 198 Kenneth W. Howell as their vice president; and E. L. Dohoney of Lamar County as their secretary. Gray impressed upon all the importance of cooperating with the US government. He told his fellow delegates that such cooperation might eliminate the need for military occupation and for coercive legislation. Being a realist, he counseled obedience and submission for the good of Texas. Shortly afterward, Rice Maxey motioned that the convention should create a resolutions committee to draft a document to explain their views and that copies of such a statement should be forwarded to Washington. Additionally, Maxey suggested that they should distribute copies to newspapers and to the public. The delegates agreed and voted in favor of the motion; Gray appointed Maxey as chair of the committee . Other committeemen included R. H. Taylor and Sam G. Galbraith of Fannin County; William M. Ewing, L. A. Lollar, and Joseph Smith of Hopkins County; Hardin Hart and M. H. Wright of Hunt County; Henry Jones of Titus County; and W. H. Johnson, G. W. Wright, and E. W. Miner of Lamar County. The committee produced a document stating that military rule was accepted until such time that the provisional governor was satisfied that Texans would “give evidence of their loyal dispositions to the Government of the United States, and a willingness to yield obedience to the Constitution and laws there of.”1 It was probably fitting that such a proclamation came out of Northeast Texas, where a majority of the citizens of many counties had voted against secession. But the unionists’ dreams of a peaceful reconciliation with the federal government proved to be just that—dreams. The plan of those men was the best hope for an...