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Re: Duff's Partisan Rangers, 33rd Calvery Texas

From my forthcoming book on "Camp Verde: Texas Frontier Defense 1732-1882" to be published by The History Press next April 2012:

Captain Duff and Martial Law in Kerr County

On April 28, 1862, Confederate General Hamilton Bee declared martial law, posting to Gillespie and Kerr counties a detachment of Partisan Rangers. Captain James Duff was in command, given authority to do whatever was necessary to end the resistance of Unionists.

The martial law order required all males over sixteen to register with provost marshals and take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Captain Duff ordered all men in the Hill Country to report to him within six days and take the required oath. Duff declared himself provost, then stated in a letter, "The God damn Dutchmen are Unionists to a man…I will hang all I suspect of being anti-Confederates". Duff arrested several local citizens and hung two German immigrants that he considered troublemakers. These incidents caused many Unionists to decide to flee to Mexico.

Hangings were, in fact, frequent. Letters from German residents of Fredericksburg attest that many of them would leave their homes at sundown and hide in the surrounding woods in fear of "night riders” who snatched young men from their beds, hanged their parents, and burned their homes for avoiding conscription.

Capt. Henry T. Davis established Camp Davis on White Oak Creek in 1862 (30°11.617’N x 99°7.211’W). This was a major Confederate camp throughout the Civil War. Also operating out of Camp Davis were "Minutemen" irregulars under the command of Major James M. Hunter, as well as Captain Duff’s forces. Later, a squad from William Quantrill's Raiders, led by Bill Paul, arrived at Camp Davis, fresh from Kansas atrocities. James P. Waltrip, of Fredericksburg, emboldened by the Quantrill men, organized his friends and the Quantrill men into the infamous “hangerbande” (the hanging band or gang) that conducted terrorist raids throughout the area. The Black Flag of Quantrill’s Partisan Rangers meant "no quarter" for prisoners and was the most feared Confederate battle flag to Union soldiers. These troops became the core of Duff’s counter-insurgency forces.

Duff used torture. To obtain information, his soldiers sometimes resorted to bullwhips; other times they would hang a person by the neck and then release their victim just before strangulation, repeating the process until either the interrogation had been successful or the suspect was dead – not unlike modern-day “water boarding”. Duff is credited with killing over fifty men in the Hill Country. Some 2,000 local residents took to the hills to escape Duff's reign of terror.

Guido Ransleben's 1954 book - A Hundred Years of Comfort in Texas – includes a letter written in 1908 from Howard Henderson to J. W. Sansom that says, in part,
I know that J. W. Duff and his company of murderers killed many of my neighbors and friends. My uncle and cousins, Schram Henderson, my wife's father and brother, Turknette, were murdered; Duff and his gang butchered all my neighbors, Hiram Nelson, Frank Scott and his father, Parson Johnson and old man Scott. Rocks were tied to their feet and they were thrown into Spring Creek." Their crime was failure to come in and pledge loyalty to the Confederacy within three days.

Among those hung in this incident was Gus Tegener, brother of Fritz Tegener. Unknown “bandits” hanged the third Tegener brother, William, and threw his body over a 50-75 foot bluff into the Guadalupe River below.

SOURCES:

Baulch, J. (1997). The Dogs of War Unleashed. Lubbock, Texas: West Texas Historical Association, Texas Tech University. http://digital.library.schreiner.edu/sldl/pdfs/Baulch.pdf Accessed 12.30.2010.

“Duff, The Rebel Butcher of Western Texas” in San Antonio Daily Express, 08.03.1869.

Caldwell, Clifford R. A Day’s Ride From Here: Noxville. The History Press. Pp. 30.

Banta, William and J.W. Coldwell. Twenty-Seven Years on the Texas Frontier. 1893. Reprinted by L. G. Park, 1933.

“Duff, The Rebel Butcher of Western Texas” in San Antonio Daily Express, 08.03.1869.

Ransleben, G. A Hundred Years of Comfort in Texas. San Antonio: Naylor. 1954.

Underwood, Rodman L. Death on the Nueces: German Texans, Treue der Union. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2000.

Luther, Joseph. “Captain Duff’s Campaign of Terror: Counter-Insurgency Warfare in the Hill Country. Kerrville Daily Times.” 4 February 2011.

Schwethelm, H. J.). "I Was a Survivor of the Nueces Battle" (As told to Albert Schutze). San Antonio Press - Frontier Times Section. 08.31.1924

Williams, R. H. and John W. Sansom. Massacre on the Nueces River; Story of a Civil War Tragedy. Book, n.d.; digital images, http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2409 Accessed December 31, 2010.

Treue Der Union (Loyalty to the Union), Texas State History Marker No. 15; National Register Listing No. 78002966;

Shook, Robert W. "DUFF, JAMES," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fdu06), accessed April 16, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Underwood, Rodman L. Death on the Nueces: German Texans, Treue der Union. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2000.

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