The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 34
641 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
those Germans who had fled to the hills six days to return to
Fredericksburg and declare their loyalty to the Confederate States
government.' The captain also dismissed the local militia com-
pany which had been enrolled by a unionist, Jacob Kuechler.8
A perusal of Duff's reports reveals a considerable degree of
unionist activity in the German counties, but his arrests and dep-
redations on the citizens of these counties seem unjustifiable.
Rumors and perhaps a bent for aggressive action apparently en-
couraged Duff to excess. One member of the Duff expedition re-
lated that the reports of 1500 "bushwackers" plundering loyalist
Confederate property were unfounded. The same trooper de-
scribed Duff as entirely unfit for command and challenged the
necessity for such drastic action as was perpetrated. Duff's tactics
included arrest, incarceration, shooting, and hanging of the pro-
union Germans.9
The reaction to such Confederate pressures was the inception
of a movement to leave the state on the part of those Germans
who desired to contribute to the Union cause. Large numbers
of 'Texans left their homes to serve in the First Texas Cavalry
Regiment (Union), organized in New Orleans by General Ben-
jamin F. Butler. This regiment consisted largely of Texas
Germans.o
7Captain James Duff to Major E. F. Gray, June 23, 1862, Official Records, Series
II, Vol. IV, 786-787. The authority for such demands for avowal of loyalty was
based on the Proclamation by the President, Confederate States, August 14, 1861,
Messages and Papers of the Confederacy (Nashville, 1905), I, 131-132. This procla-
mation required a period of forty days for unionists (males over fourteen years of
age) to leave the state. After such a time all remaining were subject to arrest on
refusing to pledge themselves to the Confederate cause. Duff's claims of unionist
activity and his compliance with the stated six days time limit are challenged in
Williams, With the Border Ruffians, 235; and Biggers, German Pioneers, 64.
SElliott, "Union Sentiment in Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, L, 466.
9Duff's atrocities are described in several sources: Williams reports in his work,
" ... I served under him, and found him to be not only the scheming rascal ...
but as cowardly, cold-blooded a murderer as I had ever met even in the roaring
days of the Kansas War." Williams, With the Border Ruffiians, 230. Williams relates
further, " ... [he] exercised [powers] to . [the] full extent, committing atrocities
even his superiors in San Antonio would not have sanctioned." Ibid., 235-238. See
also Biggers, German Pioneers, 76-77.
1oFrank H. Smyrl, "Texans in the Union Army, 1861-1865," Southwestern
Historical Quarterly, LXV, 235, estimated that 2,132 Texans served in the Federal
forces. Two Union regiments were formed at Matamoros. John Henry Brown,
A History of Texas 1685-z892 (2 vols.; St. Louis, 1892), II, 441.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/46/?rotate=180: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.