Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 203 of 894
762 p., [172] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this book.
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INDIAN W'ARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
183
money and provisions for the establishment of a
depot of supplies, at which such families could obtain
what they needed. Ile continued to publish
his paper throughout the war, never missing an
issue. The final result of the struggle did not unnerve
him as it did many other public men, some
of whom, among the number the brilliant and
lamented Pendleton Murrah, fled the country to
find graves in alien lands. Those were dark days
that followed the surrender, and the establishment
of military rule. Some of those who boasted that
they would submit to no indignities, not only tamely
submitted but went entirely over to the Radicals,
accepted office under them and seemed to delight
in oppressing a defenseless people. This class
found no mercy at his hands. His course was
characterized by eminent good sense and was remarkable
for its fearlessness. Owing to the stand
that he took the iniquities that were perpetrated
fell far short in atrocity to what they would otherwise
have done, as he unhesitatingly not only ventilated,
but denounced what was going on and his
papers found their way to Washington.
In April, 1867, he started the Jefferson Times
(daily and weekly) and ran it in connection with
his paper at Marshall.
At this time a complete system of oppression and
tyranny prevailed. An army of thieves were sent
into the country, ostensibly to protect the negroes
and to hunt up Confederate cotton and other
alleged Confederate property. The Freedman's
Bureau had its agents in every county. The jails
were full of respectable people, charged with disloyalty
or alleged crimes, on the complaints of
mean whites or depraved negroes. Five military
despotisms prevailed in the South. Governors were
deposed, legislatures dispersed at the point of the
bayonet and citizens disfranchised. The press
was silenced and men were afraid to talk, but in
many places they became bolder, until they (lid not
see actual danger.
Such was the case in Jefferson, in 1869, when a
number of outraged citizens broke into the jail and
shot to death a man named Smith (who llad often
threatened to have the town burned) and three
negroes. These killings inflamed the Radicals.
They cared nothing about Smith, whose conduct
was about as offensive to them as to the people,
but they seemed to rejoice at the opportunity this
incident afforded to oppress a people that they
hated. Col. Loughery, with both papers, attacked
the military organization and the military commission
appointed to try these men and others incarcerated
at Jefferson, charged with alleged crimes.
The commission prevailed for over six months, andwith it a reign of terror. Men talked in bated
whispers. A large number of men left the country
to escape persecution. A stockade was erected on
the west side of town, in which were imprisoned
over fifty persons. Martial law prevailed, the writ
of habeas corpus was suspended, and men were
tried by army officers in time of profound peace,
in plain, open violation of the constitution. His
position during this period was one of great peril,
as he reported the proceedings of, and boldly
assailed, the commission and its acts from day to
day.
Col. Loughery's able and intrepid course resulted
in the downfall of the commission, prevented the
arrest of many persons,and the perpetration of many
outrageous acts that otherwise would have been
committed, and preserved the lives and liberties of
many of those confined in the stockade. With him
at the head of the Times, the military authorities
were compelled to restrain themselves, and think
well before they acted. They ordered him several
times to cease his strictures, but in each instance
he sent back a bold defiance, and the following
morning the Times appeared with editorials in keeping
with those of former issues. He had three
newspaper plants and all of his files destroyed by
fire in Jefferson, but notwithstanding these great
losses and heavy expense attendant upon the publication
of a daily newspaper in those days, he conducted
the Times until --, after which time he
published and edited papers at Galveston and Jefferson,
Texas, and Shreveport, La., and from 1877
until 1880, edited the Marshall HIerald, at Marshall,
Texas, published by Mr. Howard Hamments.
Some of the best work that he ever did was on the
Herald. There was scarcely a paper in the State
that did not quote from the Herald's editorial
columns, and the editors of the State, as if by common
consent, united in referring to him on all
occasions as the " Nestor of the Texas Press."
From a very early period Col. Loughery strongly
advocated the building of a trans-continental railway
through Texas to the Pacific ocean, and while
in New Orleans on one occasion was employed by
Col. Faulk, the original projector of what is now the
Texas and Pacific Railway, to write a series of
articles for the Picayune in defense of the corporation
which Col. Faulk had then recently formed.
Later he became one of the stockholders and directors
of the corporation. Throughout his life he felt
an interest in the fortunes of the Texas and Pacific,
and remained an earnest advocate of railway construction.
Every worthy enterprise found in him
a staunch and zealous supporter.
In 1887 he was appointed by President Cleveland
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/203/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.