Talk:Texas in the American Civil War

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[edit] Hill Country and Secession

Hi. Since there's a fight going on over whether the hill country was anti-secession let's look at some of the facts that are pertinent. We can evaluate these counties by their delegates to the secession convention and by their votes in the secession referendum. Here are the counties that had delegates who opposed secession:

Lamar County: 3 out of 3 delegates Titus County: 1 out of 3 delegates Williamson County: 1 out of 2 delegates Wood County: 2 out of 2 delegates

The results of the referendum can be seen at this map: http://www.texasalmanac.com/politics/secession.html

Again, there are a handful of anti-secession counties including a small cluster around Austin in the Hill Country, but the overwhelming majority of counties were for secession, as were 75% of the state's voters. So yes there was unionist support in some counties, but it was a very small number compared to the counties that supported secession. -- DickDowling 18:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

don't mix up secession vote and opposition to the war. The Texans were afraid of massive resistance--that's why they lynched so many antiwar people and kept 2/3 of their army inside Texas. Rjensen 18:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Your history is uninformed. You treat the Gainesville hangings as if they were some intentional statewide conspiracy to strike fear into the hearts of unionists, but they weren't. They were a localized mob event at the climax of tensions that had been going on in that region of the state since the late 1850's. There had been skirmishing with abolitionists there for years, including a particularly nasty episode of arson and well poisonings in the summer of 1860. Unfortunately the war provided a pretext for mob action. It started as a military trial of a core group of suspected unionist organizers, who in all probability were guilty of sabotage acts and other insurrectionist activities. But the mobs got involved very quickly and lynched some of the accused while the military court was in recess. It was a random mob occurrence - not a conspiracy out of Austin. Things only went down hill from there when the unionists struck back and assassinated the prosecutor from the military court, prompting the largest of the hangings. -- DickDowling 18:51, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The same thing happened all over the state - for example, in the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, slaves and abolitionists were hung, and abolitionists were also driven out of town. The overwhelming majority of the state was pro-secessionist, as in most other Southern states. --Stallions2010 19:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

>>On a related topic here, it is important to remember that, in Texas, neither a vote against secession nor the term "Unionist" was necessarily synonymous with being a Northern sympathizer. In fact, with very few exceptions, unionists in the South stood four-square for Southern rights...they simply believed those rights could best be secured in the Union as it existed and that secession would be "rash action." Sam Houston himself once assured his fellow Texans that he would personally lead the state out of the Union if the Lincoln administration were to overtly threaten Southern rights.

>>As was mentioned in the article, in addition the the German population in the Hill Country, the other area of pro-Union feeling was in a few counties of North Texas where the majority of settlers were from the Upper South (states which themselves rejected secession until the incident at Ft. Sumter forced a choice). In any event however, when war came, the vast majority of those who opposed secession accepted the verdict and became loyal Confederates. Houston, in fact, even though he refused to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, wrote to a friend that "The time has come a man's section is his country. I stand with mine....I was a conservative citizen of the United States. I am now a conservative citizen of the Southern Confederacy." TexasReb 20:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Collapse of Confederate Authority Section

Many thanks to Scott Mingus for the rewrite of this section. If anyone else has the article in the SHQ around, perhaps they'd like to take a stab at the flight of Confederate authorities to Mexico (including Shelby's role both reestablishing order and plundering stores along the way)? We could also use more detail on the month of June, and the role of the Federal authorities in occupying Texas, reestablishing order, and Juneteenth. -Ben 18:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Secession convention section

This section seems more appropriate for an article on 19th century TX politics. It goes into way too much detail for an article on the Civil War. I recommend deletion.Verklempt 02:58, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

>>And I vote to keep it. While it might be a bit lengthy, I can -- if others think so too -- to do some editing and shorten it some. But the main reason for adding a seperate section on the topic of secession and the Confederacy is that, heretofore, the article gave very little detail to the sentiment in Texas prior to secession, and the details of secession itself and of the state being a belated charter member of the Confederacy.

>>On the other hand, a large section was devoted to opposition to the same. That is, an emphasis on "Unionist" activity in Texas, and downplay the documented historical fact that Texans overwhelmingly supported secession and the Confederacy for practical and noble reasons. That is what the addition is intended to balance. TexasReb 23:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• • I have no problem with the amount of detail. I wish all state articles on the Civil War would provide details of the state's actions in the decade leading up to the decision to secede or not. Having said that, this section has no source information whatsoever. I would think the best way to provide "balance" would be to hit the books and cite some sources, but that seems to be a problem with the entire article and not just this section. Perhaps the article should be tagged for lack of sources. Tom (North Shoreman) 17:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

>>No problem. I can do that (provide sources, that is, although Lubbock's quotations and info is mentioned). But anyway, you have a good point about lack of citation and/or mention of sources within the section itself, and to be listed in the portion of the article reserved for the same. Much of the research is not directly accesible on line, however, the sources themselves are printed classics of history, and can be mentioned and cited (such as Lubbock's memoirs, and Ernest Wallace's "Turmoil In Texas"). I will take care of that soon. TexasReb 23:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)