Bloody Williamson

by Paul M. Angle

  THAXTON: “Well, I talked around. Nobody seemed to know.”

  IGOE: “Why didn’t you go to the strip mine that night [June 21]?”

  THAXTON: “Well, we didn’t go.”

  IGOE: “Did you bring anybody before the grand jury concerning the murder of these union men?”

  THAXTON: “No.”

  IGOE: “Isn’t it true that you told Earl Miller, a newspaper reporter, and Colonel Hunter that on June 21 you heard of the murders while you were at Carterville and said that you thought you ought to go and that Duty told you not to go?”

  THAXTON: “No.”

  IGOE: “You didn’t find out who killed the union or nonunion men?”

  THAXTON: “No, sir.”

  IGOE: “Did you ever get a letter from Lester?”

  THAXTON: “I probably might.”

  IGOE: “Don’t you know that you got a letter dated June 18 in which Lester said: ‘We expect trouble and therefore we expect you to provide protection for our men and our property’?”

  THAXTON: “I don’t know.”

  Representative Pierce had no more success with the form sheriff than Representative Igoe.

  PIERCE: “Did you hear Colonel Hunter report to the Adjutant General [on the night of June 21]?”

  THAXTON: “He said that everything was quiet and that no further trouble was expected.”

  PIERCE: “You knew that that report was false, didn’t you?”

  THAXTON: “No.”

  PIERCE: “If seven men had been shot why didn’t you expect trouble?”

  THAXTON: I don’t know.”

  PIERCE: “You don’t think that you did your duty, do you?”

  THAXTON: “I felt like I did.”

  PIERCE: “You have told us all you did and you call that the fulfilling of the answer you gave the people of Williamson County in response to your oath of office?”

  THAXTON: “Yes, sir.”

  Thaxton’s deputies, and the police officers of Herrin and Marion, were uncommunicative, even defiant, on the stand. Jake Jones, a Herrin policeman, admitted that while he was on duty on the night of June 21 he learned that several hardware stores had been raided for guns.

  QUESTION: “What did you do then?”

  JONES: “Nothing. I didn’t have any right to do anything. It was too far gone and I didn’t know what had been done.”

  QUESTION: “Don’t you think that a crime?”

  JONES: “It wasn’t a crime. They just went in and got them. I didn’t think it was any of my business. I don’t know whether they charged them or not. I never asked.”

  Police officers on duty on the night of June 21 saw nothing unusual in the crowds that almost blocked the streets in Marion or Herrin; or if they did, they were content to regulate traffic, and asked no questions. They showed no more concern on the morning of June 22. Al Richardson, one of Thaxton’s deputies, arrived in Herrin about nine a.m. He noticed crowds in the downtown section, but never asked the reason for them. Jake Jones knew well enough what was taking place, but simply ignored it.

  QUESTION: “How did you hear of the mob coming?”

  JONES: “A woman telephoned that the mob was coming up 13th Street.”

  QUESTION: “Did you tell the chief? Did you make a record of the call?”

  JONES: “No.”

  QUESTION: “Why didn’t you go to 13th Street?”

  JONES: “One man himself couldn’t have done anything.”

  QUESTION: “Why didn’t you tell the chief?”

  JONES: “It was already rumored that the mob was coming down 13th Street.”

  QUESTION: “And you and the chief of police stood there and did nothing?”

  JONES: “Yes.”

  IGOE: “You ought to be indicted for complicity in this murder.”

  By the end of a week in Marion most of the members of the investigating committee had lost their patience completely. Chairman McCarthy put into the record the statement that he had been practicing law for eighteen years and had never seen more reluctant witnesses; Igoe simply refused to ask questions; Pierce commented that he would feel safer in Springfield than in the hostile atmosphere of Williamson County. So the committee voted to resume its hearings in the state capital.

  Altogether, some sixty witnesses appeared before it. W. J. Lester refused to testify,* Hugh Willis left the state and could not be called, and one deputy sheriff and two Herrin policemen departed after the Marion sessions. But the testimony was sufficient to fill in whatever gaps in the story remained after the two trials.

  On the basis of its hearing the committee drew up a report which ranks with that of the grand jury as an authoritative account of the events of June 22 and the preceding days. Its assigning of responsibility, however, was much more comprehensive. Few escaped censure. Adjutant General Black was blamed for not taking personal charge before the massacre and ordering out troops on his own responsibility, but that was a mild reproof in comparison with the castigation Colonel Hunter received. “We believe that he was absolutely incompetent, unreliable and unworthy to perform the duties assigned to him,” the committee stated. Sheriff Thaxton and his deputies were “criminally negligent”; all the local police-officers were “absolutely derelict in their duty.” Hugh Willis could be convicted of murder in any county in the state but Williamson. If he, Fox Hughes, and other union officials “had been prompted by high and lofty motives,” the disaster could easily have been prevented. Lester, on the other hand, should not be absolved from blame: his greed and foolhardiness were sharply condemned. Of all those of whose activities the committee took cognizance, only Delos Duty drew words of praise. “His untiring efforts in trying to convict those whom he believed responsible for the murders lead us to the conclusion that he did his full duty, even to the sacrifice of his health. He deserves the commendation of this committee, the people of his county and the State of Illinois.”

  Five members of the committee signed the report. The other two, Representatives Pierce and Curran, filed a minority report.

  In the main, the two minority members accepted the majority’s statement of facts, though they omitted some of the most harrowing incidents, and challenged several passages reflecting on Hugh Willis and Colonel Hunter. Of the majority conclusions, however, only the condemnation of Lester was retained. All other participants were exonerated in the concluding paragraph:

  It is the opinion that the evidence heard by the committee is of such controversial nature, that we are unable to definitely fix the responsibility, because of the mob spirit prevalent at the time, nor that there was any real or intended neglect of duty on the part of the public officials; furthermore … the committee believes that this massacre could not have been anticipated and that everything that could be done had been done by the State to forestall this trouble, because … these mobs were composed of people from other towns and localities.

  Both reports were presented on June 30, 1923, in the last hours of the biennial session. As many members of the House were not in their seats, Representative Curran tried to force the Speaker to recognize the absence of a quorum, and thus prevent either report from becoming a matter of official record. In this he failed, but he succeeded in blocking the adoption of the majority report and in keeping it from being printed as a separate document.

  That same night, in the Illinois State Senate, other union sympathizers gave the Herrin investigation the coup de grâce. Because Hugh Willis and other witnesses were not accessible, the House investigating committee had introduced a bill setting up another commission to prolong the investigation. The House passed the bill by a vote of 84 to 11. But a few opponents in the Senate prevented a vote before adjournment, bringing this bitter comment from the five signers of the majority report: “The committee hopes that these Senators will be replaced by men of high moral stamina and courage, who will think more of the protection of the fair name of the State of Illinois than their own selfish political ambitions.”

  Thus the last echoes of the gu
ns of Herrin died away in the popping of firecrackers and the noise of the horseplay that Illinois lawmakers consider appropriate to the final hours of a legislative session.

  * A year after the massacre the Illinois District, United Mine Workers of America, bought the Lester mine in order to forestall heavy damage-suits. The purchase price was $726,000, considered fabulous by all who knew the value of the property. There are reasons for believing that Lester “kicked back” substantial sums to several union officials: even so, he made a handsome profit.

  After his Illinois venture Lester attempted to develop a strip mine in Kentucky and lost heavily in the undertaking. When it failed, he promoted a bauxite mine in Arkansas. In that, too, he was unsuccessful. The depression found him penniless, but he succeeded in establishing a modest practice as a consulting engineer in and about Indianapolis. There, in the spring of 1934, he was stricken with paralysis. He died at the family home of his wife, Emily Hill Lester, at Augusta, Georgia, on January 5, 1935.

  V

  THE BLOODY VENDETTA

  July 1868–January 1876

  The feud is a disgrace to the whole State of Illinois—a disgrace to the courts of the State, to the government of the State, to the Governor of the State, and to the people of the State. Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1875.

  IN NEWSPAPER accounts of the Herrin Massacre the phrase, “Bloody Williamson,” occurred repeatedly. Most readers assumed that it originated in the killings that took place on June 22, 1922, but to residents of southern Illinois the words reached far into the past. They brought to mind, first of all, the days of the “Bloody Vendetta” half a century earlier, and after that, mine wars and riots that kept alive the county’s reputation for lawlessness and bloodshed. In such a background many a thoughtful observer found an explanation, if not a cause, of the savagery that had shocked the entire nation.

  Like most of southern Illinois, Williamson County was settled by immigrants from Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Many of them came from the hill regions, and they were slow to lose the peculiar characteristics of mountain folk. They were generous, hospitable, hardy, independent, brave, and intelligent, but undisciplined by education. Their superstitions were many and strong, their prejudices deep and unyielding. In religion they were Protestant—usually Methodist, Missionary Baptist, or Campbellite—and inclined to find emotional release in the excesses of the camp meeting.

  Almost without exception they were hot-blooded, proud, obstinate, jealous of family honor, and quick to resent an insult. Given what they considered sufficient provocation, they could kill with little compunction. Milo Erwin, the first historian of the county, counted 495 assaults with a deadly weapon and 285 murderous assaults between 1839, when the county was organized, and 1876, the year in which he wrote. He also listed almost fifty murders that had been committed in those same years. Of the murderers, he could find only six who had been convicted and given prison sentences, although two were under indictment or awaiting trial at the time he made his compilation. All the others had either escaped detection, fled the country, or been acquitted on pleas of self-defense.

  The Heart of “Egypt”: Williamson and Contiguous Counties

  Murder, then, was no novelty. Yet in the “Bloody Vendetta” the taking of life became so commonplace that hundreds of people lived in mute fear, while to the rest of the state the mere fact of residence in Williamson County was a reproach.

  By all accounts, the Vendetta began with an ordinary tavern brawl. On the Fourth of July, 1868, several members of a family named Bulliner were playing cards in a dramshop near Carbondale. Felix Henderson, commonly known as “Field” Henderson, took a hand in the game. Before long an argument developed, and Henderson made the mistake of calling one of the Bulliners “a damn lying son-of-a-bitch.” In the fight that followed, Henderson was badly beaten.

  Thus the Bulliner and Henderson families became bitter enemies. Both clans were relative newcomers. The Bulliners—two families headed by brothers—had lived in southwestern Tennessee until the last year of the Civil War, when they settled south of Crainville, a hamlet in the west-central part of Williamson County. There they bought good farms, established several business enterprises, and quickly came to be known as honest, industrious, and enterprising.

  They also acquired the reputation of having “sand in their craws” and of not liking to be “put upon.” The men were big-boned, broad-shouldered, muscular, good-looking, and pleasant in manner, yet they could be most disagreeable to anyone who crossed them. This propensity, with the influence that their standing in the community gave them, made them formidable enemies.

  The Hendersons—three brothers and their families—were Kentuckians. Like the Bulliners, they settled in Williamson County, north of Crainville, during the last year of the war. All were large, strong, and fearless. Though not wealthy, they too owned good farms, and soon became as influential in their neighborhood as the Bulliners were in theirs.

  While the enmity between the two families smoldered, another Bulliner quarrel gave the Hendersons an ally. On the farm adjoining that of “Old George” Bulliner lived George W. Sisney, one of the leading citizens of the county. He had served as captain in an Illinois regiment during the Civil War and had been elected sheriff in 1866. A contemporary characterized him as “a man of more than ordinary ability,” of “medium size and compactly built, dark complexion, a very passionate and fearless man, but high-toned, generous and open-hearted.” He had three grown sons, all “full of grit and fight.”

  A year after the first Bulliner-Henderson fracas Sisney and one of the Bulliner boys had a lawsuit over a crop of oats. In court, Sisney won. Some months later the two men met to settle several business transactions. Their accounts differed. In the argument that followed Bulliner accused Sisney of swearing to a lie in the lawsuit of the previous year, whereupon Sisney knocked him down. Young Bulliner rounded up his father and two brothers and the four men, all armed, set out to redress the wrong. As they approached the Sisney house on the run, with “Old George” shouting: “Here we come, God damn you, to kill you!” Sisney, armed with a repeating rifle, left by the back door. When the Bulliners saw him running across an adjoining field they opened fire. Every few yards Sisney stopped and fired back. Although hit four times, he managed to reach the shelter of a big tree. His assailants, afraid to close in on him, called off the fight.

  Later, all the participants were fined one hundred dollars each. Then Sisney brought a suit for damages against the Bulliners which they settled out of court. Henceforward, however, the Sisney family was in the Vendetta.

  For almost two years the animosities these incidents aroused lay dormant. A series of brawls brought them to life, and led the large and pugnacious Crain family, whose members had lived in the county for two generations, into the feud on the side of the Bulliners. The first trouble came on Christmas Day, 1872, when several Crains and Sisneys met by chance in the general store at Carterville, two miles west of Crainville. Bantering talk led to a full-scale fight, which bystanders finally quelled. Several of the participants were arrested, and ordered to appear for trial before a justice of the peace.

  At the trial the Crains turned out in force. So did the Sisneys and Hendersons, now their enemies, and the Bulliners, allies of the Crains by virtue of their feud with the other two families. What had been scheduled as a judicial proceeding turned into a small-sized riot, with several of the participants seriously injured. The State’s Attorney filed informations but failed to press the charges. Thus all went free.

  By this time two trivial incidents—a game of cards and a lawsuit over a few bushels of oats—had separated four large and prominent families, each supported by many friends and relatives, into two groups of sworn enemies, with any Bulliner or Crain eager to assault a Sisney or Henderson simply because he was a Sisney or Henderson.

  Throughout 1873 one brawl after another took place. Several times the rioters were arrested, but in every case either the accused was acqu
itted or the prosecution was dropped.

  Then, on the morning of December 12, 1873, “Old George” Bulliner saddled his horse and set out for Carbondale. Later in the day neighbors found him lying by the side of the road, his back torn by a charge of buckshot fired at close range. The murder was never solved.

  Three months afterward, two of Bulliner’s sons were fired on from ambush, and one was mortally wounded. Friends carried the injured man home. He lingered until morning, when, as Milo Erwin put it, “the twilight shadow of death, cold and gray, came stealing on him. A supernatural lustre lighted up his eye, and illuminated the gathering darkness. At length his eyes closed, and an expression of ineffable placidity settled on his pallid lips, and he was no more.”

  Before he died, young Bulliner named Tom Russell as the man who shot him. Russell had no family connection with the Vendetta, but everyone knew that two years earlier he had been jilted by a lady of somewhat easy virtue in favor of one of the Bulliner boys, and that since then he had hated them. He was arrested at once, and held for trial before a justice of the peace. He retained counsel, and the Bulliners, bent on vengeance, employed three lawyers to assist in the prosecution. A strong case was built up against him, but Monroe Bulliner, brother of the murdered man, failed to identify him as one of the assassins, while another witness provided an alibi. The result was a verdict of acquittal.

  By this time the original causes of the feud were forgotten and it was feeding on itself. Two Bulliners had been killed, and no one doubted that there would soon be an attempt at retaliation.

  There was. In mid-May 1874, James Henderson, acknowledged leader of the family and uncle of the “Field” Henderson who had been a party to the barroom quarrel with which the Vendetta began, was at work on his farm. For months he had lived in fear of his life, surrounding his house with watchdogs and posting his daughter and foster son as guards. This spring afternoon, while the girl helped her mother in the house, he and the boy lay down to rest. Assassins fired from a woodpile a few feet away, hitting Henderson in the back. One of them came into the open, and seeing that the victim was still alive, shot him with a pistol.