Judy Falls

Sylvia Wood

Friends of Delta County Public Library

During the frenetic days of Reconstruction, Delta County claimed land between two branches of the Sulphur River, from Lamar and Hopkins Counties, and named itself after its shape and the third letter of the Greek alphabet. From its early days, Delta County became home to prosperous farmers who relocated from the South and who brought with them their knowledge of growing cotton as well as their traditions and cultures. At its heyday in the 1920s, the county boasted the densest rural population in the state. These pioneers believed strongly in education, and more than 40 schools dotted the county at one time, with many graduates of these rural schools becoming doctors, engineers, teachers, politicians, ministers, authors, musicians, lawyers, coaches, scientists, and athletes—as well as one All-American. For those who remained, those who returned, and those who chose this quiet corner of Northeast Texas, Delta County is home, with all the sweet and poignant implications of that word.

Delta County

David Pickering

As Charles Frazier's novel Cold Mountain dramatized, dissenters from the Confederacy lived in mortal danger throughout the South. In scattered pockets from the Carolinas to the frontier in Texas, these dissenters, or "brush men," often died at the hands of their own neighbors as a result of their belief in the Union or an unwillingness to preserve the slaveholding Confederacy. Brush Men and Vigilantes: Civil War Dissent in Texas tells the story of how dissent, fear, and economics developed into mob violence in the Sulphur Forks river valley northeast of Dallas. Authors David Pickering and Judy Falls have combed through court records, newspapers, letters, and other primary sources and have collected extended-family lore to relate the details of how vigilantes captured and killed more than a dozen men. Betrayed by links to a well-known Union guerilla, many dissenters were captured, tried in mock courts, and hanged. Still others met their death by sniper fire or private execution. Their story begins before the Civil War, as they describe the particular social and economic conditions that gave rise to tension and violence during the war. Four more chapters follow, each detailing the horror and hysteria that characterized post-Civil War Texas.

Judy Falls

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