CAPTAIN DUFF’S CAMPAIGN OF TERROR
COUNTER-INSURGENCY WARFARE IN THE HILL COUNTRY
By Joseph Luther, Correspondent
Published in the Kerrville Daily Times
February 4, 2011
The God damn Dutchmen are Unionists to a man…
I will hang all I suspect of being anti-Confederates.
Capt. James W. Duff
During the Civil War, terrorism was a major weapon of Confederate counter-insurgency against the insurgent Unionists in the Texas Hill Country.
Kerr County was in conflict over secession in 1860, narrowly voting in favor of secession 76 to 57. Unionists from Kerr, Gillespie, and Kendall counties were among those who participated in the establishment of the Union League in the summer of 1861, and by the summer of 1862 formed militia companies to protect the frontier against Indians and their families against local Confederate forces.
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. 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.
In 1862, the Union Loyal League met on Bear Creek, above Comfort. Some 500 members took part in the gathering. Fritz Tegener, Kerr County Treasurer, was elected Major. All persons wanting to make a run for Mexico to escape further conscription were told to gather at Turtle Creek west of Kerrville. On August 1, 1862, sixty-eight men – sixty-three Germans, one Mexican, and four Anglos – heeded the call.
Lt. C.D. McRae was at Camp Pedernales (Morris Ranch) when he received orders from Captain Duff to wipe out any armed encampments in the area. McRae’s command included 94 men who were detached from Captain John Donnelson’s Company of the Second Texas Mounted Rifles, Duff’s Company of Texas Partisan Rangers, Captain Henry D. Davis’ Company of Texas State Troops, and Richard Taylor’s Eighth Texas Cavalry Battalion. Duff was emphatic in his directive of “no prisoners”.
The consequence of Duff’s order was the infamous "Battle of the Nueces" – conversely known as the “Nueces Massacre”. Unsuspecting, outnumbered and outgunned, approximately thirty of Tegener's men were killed in the fighting, and twenty were wounded, captured, and executed on the spot with a bullet in the back of the head. Six more were killed trying to escape across the Rio Grande. Of the twenty or so escapees who managed to flee for Mexico, seven or eight were killed by yet another patrolling Confederate force in October as they tried to cross the Rio Grande, and nine more were captured at various locations and executed out of hand.
Soon after the Nueces affair, Duff was promoted to Colonel and his unit was reorganized as the Thirty-third Texas Cavalry. After the war, he was indicted in Kendall County for lynching and later arrested for murder. Duff escaped to Colorado and later fled to England where he died.
Kerr County needs a Civil War memorial on the courthouse square. Camp Davis and Camp Pedernales deserve Texas Historical Markers. Not so deserving is Captain Duff, the Terror of the Texas Hill Country.
REFERENCES
• 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.
• 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.
• Luther, Joseph. Civil War Trails in Kerr County, Texas. 11.06.2009. http://kerrvilletx.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/civil-war-trails-in-kerr-county-tx
• Ransleben, G. A Hundred Years of Comfort in Texas. San Antonio: Naylor. 1954.
• 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
• Schultz, R. G. (nd). "The Nueces Massacre, also Known as the Battle of the Nueces". http://users.halpc.org/~dcrane/txgenweb/nueces.htm Accessed 09.25.2008
• Shook, Robert W. "Duff, James" Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fdu06), Accessed December 28, 2010.
• Underwood, Rodman L. Death on the Nueces: German Texans, Treue der Union. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2000.
• Van Winkle, I. "Myth, fate clash around Tegener's role in Unionist movement." West Kerr Current , 10.01.2008.
• Williams, R.H. With the Border Ruffians: Memories of the Far West, 1852-1868. Lincoln: Bison Press, 1982.
• 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.