Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, 1862

Rating:
Summary: An unsettling story of what can happen in a power vacuum
Review: Books like this should be required reading for libertarians who think that if you just removed government from peoples' lives, that everything would just sort of work itself out for the best. This would also be good reading for any Southern apologists who would argue that the Confederacy just wanted to be left in peace and that the war was all about Yankee aggression.

The story of this book is what happens when central authority breaks down and people are left to their own devices. When people take the law into their own hands, they tend to do what furthers their own interests. In this case, the interests lay primarily with the Confederate sympathizers in the Gainesville region of Texas, who proceeded to take about 40 Unionists and execute them during October 1862. Not coincidentally, many of the Unionists and Confederates had other bones of contention between them, and these hangings settled a number of scores unrelated to Civil War itself. Some men faced reprisals, but in large part most of those who participated never were brought to any sort of justice.

This is a cautionary tale, especially in these times when civil liberties seem to discarded all too easily in favor of national security. The Unionists, though few had actually spoken out against the Confederacy (some were not even Unionists!), were charged with treason & conspiracy to insurrection. Under the guise of protecting the security of the region, the suspects were rushed to justice & summarily executed. These were all people, on both sides, who had been model citizens for the most part only a few years previously.

Events like this were not restricted to North Texas. Out in frontier communities, a lot of people took advantage of the breakdown of authority to settle scores with their enemies, often under the guise of protecting the security of their region. After reading a book such as this, one is left with a very unsettled view of man's capacity for lawlessness, even among the most respectable of citizens, if given a chance to break the law without consequence. It has happened before, and it could happen again.

Rating:
Summary: An unsettling story of what can happen in a power vacuum
Review: Books like this should be required reading for libertarians who think that if you just removed government from peoples' lives, that everything would just sort of work itself out for the best. This would also be good reading for any Southern apologists who would argue that the Confederacy just wanted to be left in peace and that the war was all about Yankee aggression.

The story of this book is what happens when central authority breaks down and people are left to their own devices. When people take the law into their own hands, they tend to do what furthers their own interests. In this case, the interests lay primarily with the Confederate sympathizers in the Gainesville region of Texas, who proceeded to take about 40 Unionists and execute them during October 1862. Not coincidentally, many of the Unionists and Confederates had other bones of contention between them, and these hangings settled a number of scores unrelated to Civil War itself. Some men faced reprisals, but in large part most of those who participated never were brought to any sort of justice.

This is a cautionary tale, especially in these times when civil liberties seem to discarded all too easily in favor of national security. The Unionists, though few had actually spoken out against the Confederacy (some were not even Unionists!), were charged with treason & conspiracy to insurrection. Under the guise of protecting the security of the region, the suspects were rushed to justice & summarily executed. These were all people, on both sides, who had been model citizens for the most part only a few years previously.

Events like this were not restricted to North Texas. Out in frontier communities, a lot of people took advantage of the breakdown of authority to settle scores with their enemies, often under the guise of protecting the security of their region. After reading a book such as this, one is left with a very unsettled view of man's capacity for lawlessness, even among the most respectable of citizens, if given a chance to break the law without consequence. It has happened before, and it could happen again.

Rating:
Summary: One of History's Mysteries
Review: When I was a young boy growing up in Oklahoma, I was told of my great-great grandfather being hung in Texas during the Civil War. I never knew much about the circumstances surrounding the event other than that, except that his name was Nathaniel Miles Clark, and that I was named for one of his sons, James Lemuel.

While looking up ancestors, I came across Mr. McCaslin's historical account about a mass hanging in Gainesville Texas in 1862. Believing that this could be an account of the event about which I had been told, I ordered the book, and read it through in one day. It was a most enlightening account.

Since then I have read accounts from other sources of the same events, but Mr. McCaslin's well documented study is the most complete and impartial account that I have read of the entire episode. Mr. McCaslin does much to reduce the historical obscurity of the circumstances surrounding the Great Gainesville Hangings, especially to the descendants of the victims of that episode, which by now must be a great number of people.

I would like to see a movie made based on this event.

Rating:
Summary: One of History's Mysteries
Review: When I was a young boy growing up in Oklahoma, I was told of my great-great grandfather being hung in Texas during the Civil War. I never knew much about the circumstances surrounding the event other than that, except that his name was Nathaniel Miles Clark, and that I was named for one of his sons, James Lemuel.

While looking up ancestors, I came across Mr. McCaslin's historical account about a mass hanging in Gainesville Texas in 1862. Believing that this could be an account of the event about which I had been told, I ordered the book, and read it through in one day. It was a most enlightening account.

Since then I have read accounts from other sources of the same events, but Mr. McCaslin's well documented study is the most complete and impartial account that I have read of the entire episode. Mr. McCaslin does much to reduce the historical obscurity of the circumstances surrounding the Great Gainesville Hangings, especially to the descendants of the victims of that episode, which by now must be a great number of people.

I would like to see a movie made based on this event.