During the referendum, Cooke County voted 221 to 137 against secession. Most citizens of the county accepted the results of the referendum. However, tensions aroused when the Confederate Congress passed the Conscription laws exempting certain slaveholders and overseers from service. Unionist feared “they might be forced to die for a cause they did not believe in while some slaveholders would not even have to fear the draft.” Smallwood argues that due to the continuing controversy over the “Great Hanging at Gainesville,” a re-examination is required. The controversy stems from the differing accounts (published and unpublished) of those participating in the events leading up to the “citizens court,” and the actions carried out by vigilante mob or citizens’ group. Smallwood utilizes memoirs from key individuals who published accounts of the events occurring before, during, and after the hangings. The primary research material includes a juror of the “citizens court” Thomas Barrett, and George Washington Diamond. Secondary research material comes from town citizens Joe T. Roff, Lillian Gunter, J. E. Wheeler, Fern Suydam, and relative of one victim, L.D. Clark. John Diamond and other participants who “assisted in arresting members of the Union League” requested George (brother of John) “to write an account of the affair and was given all records pertaining to the …show more content…
One of the foremost scholars who adds to the historiography on this subject is Richard B. McCaslin. His book, Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas 1862, presents a more detailed analysis than those introduced by Smallwood’s article. His research material utilizes the primary works identified by Smallwood, above. Plus, he analyzes editorials and the census and land records of the victims and their executioners. He provides a background history that cultivated an atmosphere of hysteria among the slaveholders in the area. Providing the political and social status of the victims, the jurors on the “citizens court,” and the vigilantes. McCaslin asserts that repercussions continued to affect the counties and Texas well after the event and the end of the Civil