Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, 1862 by Richard B. McCaslin remains one of the most thorough treatments of this violent effort to bring in and subdue draft dodgers and perceived Unionists in an area of Texas that was teetering on anarchy. Or, at least, that’s what the advocates of the Great Hanging thought.

By the fall of 1862, some men from Gainesville resisted Confederate conscription. Not because they were opposed to Confederate service, necessarily, and certainly not because they were abolitionists or Union sympathizers – but because they did not wish to leave their homes. Gainesville was not far from Indian Territory. Union armies had made incursions into Arkansas, and the free state of Kansas, full of veteran jayhawkers, was close enough to be a threat. Any man would be a fool to voluntarily abandon his family and property when Indians, guerrillas, and Yankee devils lay in wait just over the borders.

Militia general William R. Hudson mustered his troops. Many men were missing from the ranks. When men of Cooke County chose to hide out in rough terrain, the roundup began. By the time it was over, at least 44 men had been hanged.

How this work relates to Milliken’s Bend:

I first decided to explore the Great Hanging simply by way of background. I figured that any Texas troops would have heard about these events, and that they might have colored the way Texas soldiers viewed the war, the homefront, and the “abolition menace.” I was stunned, however, to find there were far more closer connections to the Milliken’s Bend story than just a simple “notable Texas event.”

The first connection I saw was that portions of Henry McCulloch’s Brigade came from this very region of the state. Two companies of the 16th Texas Cavalry came from Cooke and Collin Counties, for instance. Surely anxious letters from their wives, sisters, and sweethearts must have described the situation in Gainesville, and caused great concern.

Not far into McCaslin’s book, I learned that Gen. Paul Octave Hebert was in charge of the Department of Texas at the time of the hangings. And, as a result of his poor handling of the situation and the imposition of martial law – he was removed from his position and sent to Monroe, Louisiana. He would still be serving at that location by the time of Milliken’s Bend.

And finally, Henry McCulloch has his connection to Gainesville, as well. At the time of Texas’s secession, he led a regiment of state troops into North Texas, including near the vicinity of Cooke County, and seized Federal outposts. After his service at Milliken’s Bend, leading a brigade of Confederates, he was returned to Texas where he became commander of the Northern Sub-District, an area which included Gainesville. One of his primary missions became enforcement of conscription, which he apparently entered into with relish. By the spring of 1864, he encouraged one of his subordinates to “kill or capture” troublemakers, adding, “Better kill than capture them.”

I found that the story of Gainesville, as related by Richard McCaslin, bore some important connections to Milliken’s Bend. Not only was it important to examine and understand the context and cultural background of the Texas troops that fought on the levee, but noticing that some of the same commanders were involved in both events made it even more important to learn about the Great Hanging. It provided an opportunity to examine the evidence more closely for hints of attitudes and actions taken by McCulloch and Hebert at both events.