Chiles Family Account of the Great Hanging

Thanks to Hershel Parker for the comment left on the Henry Chiles blog post about the 1894 newspaper article in the St Louis Republic.😊

Dr. Henry Chiles was the first person to be hanged in the Great Hanging at Gainesville.  

His widow, Dicy Kennedy Chiles, and children remained in Texas until the end of the war.  They then moved to be close to Dicy’s brother and her extended family who lived in Illinois.  Dicy lived near her family until she moved to Iowa.  Catherine Marsh Kahn is the granddaughter of Dicy's sister, Margaret Kennedy Marsh.

On March 4, 1894, the St Louis Republic Newspaper published an article called, “Greatest Hanging Bee – Bloody and Dramatic Execution of Forty-Three Men at Gainesville, Tex., in October, 1862.”  A week later, Catherine Marsh Kahn - the grandniece of Dicy Chiles, responded with a letter written on March 13^th (printed on March 15^th) to the editor of the St Louis Republic.  The newspaper article (hard to read) and transcription (be sure to read) are shown below.  First, some comments.

According to Kahn's Aunt Dicy, “These men were hanged because they were loyal to the Union – simply that and nothing more.”  At the end of the letter Kahn writes: “This is a truthful history of one of the victims of that awful murder – a victim for principle, for love of country and union of States…”  These sentiments were also expressed in another first hand account by widow, Susan Leffel in her 1869 letter.

Kahn’s letter recounted the trials and tribulations that Dicy Chiles suffered during and after the hanging of her husband, Dr. Henry Chiles.  The letter states that when Henry was arrested in the night, Dicy had been “recently confined” and that a few days later she had “crawled out of her bed of confinement.”  Those terms are probably referring to the fact that just three weeks prior to the hanging of her husband, Dicy gave birth to a baby daughter. 

One paragraph of the letter in particular shows the inhumane, heartless manner in which the wives of the hanging victims were treated:
“My aunt (Dicy Chiles) crawled out of her bed of confinement, scarcely able to walk, left her little children with the oldest girl, and she and the other women walked to Gainesville.  When they reached the town other women were there before them, weeping, screaming and begging for the bodies of their loved ones, for they were dead and had been buried some time.  And some of the prominent men of the town – fiends they were at the time – mounted horses, and, with cattle whips, drove the women before them from the town, saying they would not have them bawling around there.” 

Cattle whips against grieving widows😒 What kind of person would do that?? And, just because the prominent men of the town did not want them (the women) "bawling around there"😭😭😭.

Kahn’s account of her aunt’s suffering (as well as the suffering of all the widows who lost their husbands in the hanging) has been mentioned by others.   Susan Leffel wrote about how she and other widows were being continually harassed by some of the same group that killed their husbands in the Hangings and exclaims: “What to do, or where to go to hide from them I can not tell.”  Even Diamond's disdain when he refers to the “Weeping Wives” of the accused and also to the screaming women and children.  Barrett stated the following in his book, “while those (wives) who got news that the husband was to be hung, were following or before, weeping, while wailing and lamentations burst from their lips. In some houses, sadness and deep sorrow reigned supreme. None but those who experienced that dreadful night can fully realize the deep sorrow of loving and disconsolate hearts." 

One has to admire these women for their resiliency and courage to carry on -- these wives who were left widows in such trying circumstances -- these mothers who continued to care for their children without the help of a husband -- these women who were chased out of town with cattle whips.

St. Louis Republic Thursday, Mar 15, 1894 St. Louis, MO Vol: 86 Page: 6

Transcription of Catherine Marsh Kahn’s 1894 Letter to the Editor of the St Louis Republic:

THE GAINESVILLE HANGING

Relatives of Dr. Childs Give Their Version of the Affair
To the Editor of the Republic
Montrose, Mo., March 13. – In the Republic of March 4 with the headline “Greatest Hanging Bee,” was an article written by someone not altogether rightly informed.  He may think the “Bee” is forgotten, but, although 33 years have passed, the “Bee” has not lost its sting.  And there are many living to whom the incidents of that “Bee” are as vivid as when they took place.
Dr. F C. Childs was my father’s uncle by marriage, having married a sister of father’s mother, and Mrs. Dicey Childs was Miss Kennedy before she married the Doctor.  Mrs. Dicey Childs is living to-day as are her five children and also several hundred of her relatives.  So that awful murder is not soon to be forgotten by one victim’s friends.
Aunt Dicey tells a different story from the writer in last Sunday’s Republic.  These men were hanged because they were loyal to the Union – simply that and nothing more.  There was a farce trial for the first seven or eight, and after that – nothing.  One or two drunken fiends had been hired to swear to some villainy, and had been hired by parties to spy out the Union men so they could be certain to arrest the right men.
Dr. Childs was a practicing physician, a man well liked in his professional capacity and as a neighbor, and was a kind husband and father.
When they went to arrest him it was in the night (as were all the others), and when he heard them knocking he thought it someone in need of his services.  But his wife, who had been recently confined, was frightened and begged him not to open the door, telling him it was troublous times and someone might do him an injury.  But he just laughed at her, telling her he had done nothing to be afraid of, and that he knew everyone and everyone was his friend.  When he opened the door two or three men were there with a warrant for his arrest.  But they talked pleasantly and as if it was nothing much, but they said he had better go to Gainesville with them.  He laughingly bade his wife good-by, saying it was nothing, and that he would be home the next day.
Mrs. Childs looked for her husband the next day, but he did not come, and the next night, and so, on the morning following, I think it was Sunday, she, with some neighbor women, consulted together and concluded to go to Gainesville to find out what was detaining their husbands and fathers.
My aunt crawled out of her bed of confinement, scarcely able to walk, left her little children with the oldest girl, and she and the other women walked to Gainesville.  When they reached the town other women were there before them, weeping, screaming and begging for the bodies of their loved ones, for they were dead and had been buried some time.  And some of the prominent men of the town –fiends they were at the time – mounted horses, and, with cattle whips, drove the women before them from the town, saying they would not have them bawling around there.
Dr. Child’s widow lived there till the close of the war, when she made her way to Knox County, Illinois, where her brother, George Kennedy, and my father lived.  I was a child of 6 years old when she and her children arrived at our house, and I cannot forget the impression they made on my mind.  She and her children were clothed in home-spun cotton which she had grown, picked, carded, spun and woven.  They had an old team of horses and an old wagon that no one at Gainesville had thought worth confiscating.  They were a sad group.  With them their fountains of grief had run dry; but when she retold her sufferings -- weary, sad, dry-eyed – our hearts would almost break in sympathy with her sorrow.  She had come all the way from Texas in that old wagon, with that old team; the children all sick with the ague, and part of the time sick herself.  There were days when not one was well enough to bring water for the others.  And at one time, somewhere in Missouri, they had nothing but wild fox grapes to eat.
The property her husband had acquired in Texas was confiscated by lawless persons in the lawless times, and the land belonging to him his widow never received one cent for that I ever heard of.
This is a truthful history of one of the victims of that awful murder – a victim for principle, for love of country and union of States, a man who had been incautious in speaking his sentiment in those turbulent times among turbulent people.
But God is over all, and the innocent and guilty will soon have passed away, and the hanged and hangers will all meet at the throne of the Most High.
Catharine Marsh Kahn


Other posts about the harsh treatment of the wives/widows:
"Left me in a sad and mornful condition" 

Chiles Family Posts:
Dicy Chiles Obituary 
Dr Henry Chiles 
Dicy Chiles  


Note:
Blog note about the spelling of the Chiles surname.  Chiles and Childs seems to be used interchangeably by some writers of the hangings.  Diamond used the Childs spelling in his account of the hanging.  McCaslin used the spelling of Chiles.  Dicy's grandniece on her side of the family, used the Childs spelling in the letter above.  I use Chiles because that is the spelling Dicy and her children used during their lifetimes in legal documents.