Rebel bandits steal millions during the post-Civil War havoc.
When the bell atop Austin’s First Baptist Church began clanging that moonlit Sunday evening of June 11, 1865, the town’s civilian home guardsmen knew it signified trouble, not a call to worship.
With hundreds of battle-hardened ex-Confederate soldiers swarming the town of 4,000, none of the volunteers were surprised that a need for their services had arisen. But the nature of the emergency would rock the war-weary state.
Once the Civil War effectively ended with Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9, Texas rapidly descended into near anarchy. One Confederate general refused to lay down his arms: Joseph “Jo” Orville Shelby. Hoping the South might rise again, Shelby and the 400-plus soldiers of his “Iron Brigade” of Missourians marched toward Austin enroute to Mexico.
Most Texas officials, unsure if they would be hanged as traitors or merely told to go and sin no more, preferred not to find out and vacated their offices. Only the lieutenant governor (now acting governor) and two financial officials, Comptroller Willis L. Robards and Treasurer Cyrus H. Randolph, opted to stay.
“…Confederate soldiers, without officers or order, are coming in every hour, and there is nothing but plunder and sack going on—and the citizens are as bad as the soldiers,” Amelia Barr wrote in her diary on May 25. Eight days later, she noted, “Everything in confusion…and there is no law.”
[…]
