Samuel B. Giddens.
Summerville, Mo.
All Union families were forced to leave Texas county. The illustration contains the pictures of S. B. Giddens and wife, who were driven out; also Mrs. Mary Dewett, now over seventy years of age, who was forced to leave all she had and flee for her life; Mrs. Stillen Stellman, whose father went to Rolla and got the Federal soldiers to guard him while he removed his family.
Union Men Killed in Izard County, Ark.
Moody, Mo., September 26, 1906.
Prior to and when the war of the rebellion broke out the writer of this article was a citizen of Izard county, Arkansas; the few loyal people that lived in North Arkansas, had a hope that war would be averted and when Ft. Sumter was fired upon they realized the awful condition and consequences of war at their very doors; those who favored a dissolution of the states had given notice in no uncertain way. And when the news was flashed over the country that there had been a clash of arms, the persecution of the loyal people began in the South and Central states by those that favored secession. They organized themselves into companies and went from house to house notifying all those that seemed not to take sides either way, that the time had come when the sheep and goats had to be separated. The Union element was arrested and many were sent to the penitentiary at Little Rock, Arkansas, from the counties of Izard, Fulton and Independence. Those people were robbed and plundered as long as there was anything worth taking and some of them, after they had got all the Union people had, commenced arresting and hanging the Union men. They arrested a young man and placed a halter around his neck to hang him; he broke loose from them and he was run one mile before he was caught; then he was taken to a stooping ash tree and hung. The writer was creditably informed that a man who was a prominent member of the Baptist church, scratched the dirt from under his toes in order that he might hang clear of the ground. I have seen the tree he was hanged on many times.
Another brutal murder was perpetrated upon the person of Rube Hudson, a Union man who had been run from home and returned home in the winter of 1865; from an exposure, he took sick with pneumonia; his wife had secreted him under the floor near the chimney and fire place; the news got out that he was at home, the rebels raided his house; every thing in the way of beds and what little they had left was turned upside down and they gave up the hunt and started away; a spell of coughing came on him, for he was very ill and he was heard coughing by them and they came back and tore up the floor and found him; they dragged him out and took him about one hundred yards from the house; there he was beaten and hung to make him tell of others who might have come with him; finally he was hung and shot to death, where the family could hear him pleading for his life; he made a special appeal to one of his near neighbors calling his name and asking him to intercede for him and save him. The only consolation he got was "you are a goner, Rube; you are a goner, Rube," he was left hanging for the family to cut down and bury. He met his death for no other cause than that of being a staunch Union man.
Another bloodcurdling murder was perpetrated upon the person of Minor White, for no other cause than that of being loyal to his country. He was honest and upright in his dealings with his fellowmen, but he was arrested, taken to the county seat of Izard county, tried and was released. Before he started home a friend told him not to go the road for they would follow him and kill him, he said: "I have always been free to speak my sentiments; I have done nothing that I have to slip back home through the woods. I am going to take the public highway, if I am killed." He was overtaken about a mile out by the mob that took him there; he was shot and otherwise mutilated and left hanging to a tree.