Washington abandons Americans behind enemy lines

The Catholic church bell towers of Matamoros, Mexico were a welcome sight to Unionists fleeing Texas during the Civil War. Three refugees connected with Bangor, Maine arrived in this birder town in May 1863 after fleeing 500 miles across Texas. (Library of Congress)

The story reads like something out of 2021 Afghanistan: Abandoned behind enemy lines by their government, American citizens face imprisonment or execution if caught by local authorities. Escape seems out of the question, and Washington, D.C. cannot send an 1861 equivalent SEAL team to pluck frightened Unionists from Southern clutches.

Three determined Mainers finally take matters in their own hands, and the wife brings home the story about a horrible atrocity.

Born in Bangor on March 11, 1836, Frances “Fannie” H. Chase had married John Frederic Deane in Bangor during a ceremony conducted by Rev. A.K.P. Small on Thursday, December 8, 1859. His middle initial incorrectly listed as “P” in Maine newspapers a few years later, Deane was the principal at “the Boy’s High School” in Bangor.

The couple soon moved to Galveston, Texas. When Texas militia occupied Union forts and federal facilities prior to Fort Sumter, the Deanes stayed in the Lone Star State; they willingly (one senses the idea was more his than hers’) remained behind enemy lines.

Unlike William T. Sherman, who gave up his position as the Louisiana Military Academy superintendent after Louisiana seceded from the Union, John Deane continued “his profession of teacher.” As the war progressed, the South needed more soldiers, but “he escaped several conscriptions” due to his profession.

The Deanes spent the next 24 months trying to escape Texas, “but the movements of everybody were strictly watched,” according to Fannie Deane. Word circulated in spring 1863 that “a more sweeping conscription” would soon occur, with Richmond drafting “all [men] between fourteen and sixty, with an exceedingly narrow exemption limit.”

John Deane read the writing on the wall. So did Walter Q. Brown, a mutual Bangor acquaintance who had been drafted while living in Houston. He was the “adopted son of Walter Brown, Esp.,” a wealthy Bangor merchant.

The warship USS Harriet Lane was among five Navy warships arriving off Galveston, Texas in autumn 1862. (National Museum of the United States Navy)

Walter Q. became a colonel’s clerk in Galveston and found himself “preferring to spill ink rather than blood for secession.” His arrival in Galveston approximately coincided with “the Union fleet just arriving off the place,” but the time frame remains cloudy.

We learn that Brown “joined the excited population on the shore watching the naval advent.” This phrase probably refers to five Navy warships appearing off Galveston in October 1862, shortly before Confederate troops abandoned the port and Union troops occupied it. But Brown may have watched the January 1, 1863 battle of Galveston, during which Confederate Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder (army) and Leon Smith (navy) recaptured the port in a combined land-sea assault.

Someone in the crowd apparently heard Brown rejoicing about the battle, perhaps when Union warships shot up Smith’s cottonclad, CSS Neptune. “While on his way back up the street” Brown “was seized by two men and conveyed to the guard house.”

After the USS Westfield grounded on a sand bar during the January 1, 1863 battle of Galveston in Texas, Union sailors set explosives in the vessel to blow it up. The explosives detonated prematurely, killing Union fleet commander William Renshaw and other sailors. (Harper’s Weekly)

He protested his innocence, but the authorities tossed him in prison for six weeks “with the commonest felons.” He slept on straw and ate “nothing but the most wretched food.” His friends finally found him, got his side to the story, and took his case up the judicial ladder. “No charges were made and no witnesses appeared against him and he was liberated on parole,” Fannie Deane told the story once back in Bangor.

In many Texas locales, Confederates were turning viciously on Unionists, those loyal American citizens trapped behind enemy lines. After probably carefully planning their journey, Walter Q. Brown, the Deanes, “and some others” fled across Texas “nearly 500 miles” — easier to do during a Lone Star winter’s cooler weather than in summer’s scorching heat — crossed the Rio Grande, and reached Matamoros, Mexico.

They awaited transportation to New Orleans [for] nine weeks,” and “some five hundred refugees” swelled Matamoros’ population over the next few months. Brown and the Deanes finally boarded an outgoing steamer — “many were her fellow passengers,” Fannie later reported — in May 1863 and upon reaching New Orleans, John Deane got a federal job, and Brown apparently joined an army regiment.

Mrs. Deane ultimately caught a ride home, possibly aboard an East Coast-bound steamer. She arrived at her father’s home in Bangor Saturday evening, September 19.

Family and friends probably listened raptly as Mrs. Deane described how closely “those suspected of Union sympathies are watched” in Texas. Expressing “affection for the Union and the dear old flag” could send men “to the dungeon and gallows” or “to be hunted as wild beasts.” Unionists “dare not by word or look to betray their sentiments,” and Yankee-haters could “on their own responsibility, without any official warrant, join in hunting refugees as if they were wild beasts.”

Discussing “the more bloodthirsty atrocities committed” against Texas Unionists, Mrs. Deane cited 45 men being “hung in one of the upper counties. She heard it also from a participant in the slaughter, who boasted of helping run of five of them.”

She apparently referred to the Great Hanging at Gainesville in Cooke County, located on the Texas border with Indian Territory. During October 1862 pro-Confederate whites hanged 41 suspected Unionists, many arrested and then “convicted” in illegal “trials.” The event remains a dark stain on Texas history.

Source: Escape of Bangor People from Texas, Ellsworth American, Friday, September 25, 1863; Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921; Great Hanging at Gainesville, Wikipedia; 1860 U.S. Census for Bangor, Maine


“Swartz delves into the personal stories of sacrifice and loss…” — Civil War News

If you enjoy reading the adventures of Mainers caught up in the Civil War, be sure to like Maine at War on Facebook and get a copy of the new Maine at War Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg, available online at Amazon and all major book retailers, including Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble. —————————————————————————————————————–

Available now: Passing Through the Fire: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Civil War, released by Savas Beatie.

This new book chronicles the swift transition of Joshua L. Chamberlain from college professor and family man to regimental and brigade commander and follows him into combat at Shepherdstown, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the Petersburg and Appomattox campaigns.

Drawing on Chamberlain’s extensive memoirs and writings and multiple period sources, historian Brian F. Swartz follows Chamberlain across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia while examining the determined warrior who let nothing prevent him from helping save the United States.

Order your autographed copy by contacting me at visionsofmaine@tds.net.

Passing Through the Fire is also available at savasbeatie.com or amazon.com.

—————————————————————————————————————–

Brian Swartz can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net. He enjoys hearing from Civil War buffs interested in Maine’s involvement in the war.

Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.