For the last 145 years, Gainesville residents have not wanted to speak of the horror that happened in their city during the Civil War. It's not the kind of thing a city could be proud of. In October 1862, Gainesville was the sight of the largest mass lynchings in America's history.
Gainesville is the county seat of Cooke County. When Texas voted to secede from the United States during the Civil War, Cooke County was one of 5 Red River counties that voted not to secede. These counties voted by 61-70% margins to stay in the Union.
Over 90% of the Cooke County residents were not slave-owners. When the Confederacy began to conscript soldiers, these men were angry that the 10% who were wealthy slave-owners were exempted from the draft. Many of those who had voted to stay in the Union formed a Peace Party, angering Texans sympathetic to the Confederacy.
A couple of Colonels in the Confederate Army (and slave-owners) arrested around 150 Union sympathizers and began holding "trials", in which a majority of 7 jurors (all slave-owners) could find the men guilty. Before a stop was put to it, around 41 men had been hanged (fourteen of them in one night by an angry lynch mob), and another had been shot.
Last Friday, Gainesville moved publically to finally exorcise their secret demon. A public park with 42 crosses was dedicated to remember the 1862 deaths. I am happy that this has happened. It is time for Gainesville to remember and bury its past.
Although I was not born there, I lived and worked in Gainesville for years, and learned to love the city. Both of my children were born while we lived there, and I would love to return there when I finally retire. It's a beautiful city.
That's why I'm happy that Gainesville is finally facing its past.
NOTE - The above postcard picture is of the Cooke County Courthouse in 1878.
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