The Texas Monthly Terquasquicentennial Blog

How can any list of what made Texas what it is not include a stop at or near Gonzales.  With the first shot of the revolution and the Come and Take It flag, to 32 (plus about 12 more) answering the call of the Alamo, to Sam Houston receiving news of the fall of the Alamo from the only survivors, to the runaway scrape started by Sam Houston on the way to San Jacinto, Texas Monthly got lost on its road trip about Texas.

East bank of Pecan Creek, Gainesville | October 1, 1862

The Civil War revealed the divisions in late-nineteenth-century Texas politics. Many Texans wanted nothing to do with the Confederate cause, but they were shouted down by slaveholders and secessionists. In parts of North Texas, the region closest to the Union lines, the commencement of Confederate conscription in the spring of 1862 prompted a backlash. There was talk of resisting the draft. The commander of the local militia responded by rounding up dozens of the agitators. An ad hoc jury tried and convicted seven, who were quickly hanged in a field by Pecan Creek, between Main and California streets, and the executions inspired a mob to hang fourteen other prisoners. Nineteen more were hanged the following week. The “Great Hanging” was accompanied by extrajudicial killings in nearby communities, which suppressed displays of Union sentiment but did little to remedy the underlying rifts. —HWB

You for got the most important place of all - Washington on The Brazos - Independence Hall! Where it all began