As a great-grandson of William Sawyer, who perished in the atrocity near Bandera at the hands of Major William Alexander's men (not all of them apparently went along with this lynching), learned that Alexander withdrew to Arkansas to evade prosecution. Apparently, he enjoyed a happy and successful life through his dealings in real estate, and as a physician. The record indicates that he passed away in 1910, or thereabouts, and was buried in Arkansas, having retired as a physician in Carlisle, Arkansas.

It gives me cold chills to think this man could have been someone's doctor. The murder and highway robbery of innocent men, and contradictory to comments about avoiding the conscription, I am pretty sure William J. Sawyer was home on furlough from the Confederate Army to attempt to put in a crop and support his hungry family.

I will hope to make a trip to Carlisle someday, to plant weeds on the grave of Alexander, as no bonnie plant should grow there.