Like most small towns in the American South during the the Civil War (1861-1865), Sherman civilians faced food and supply rations. Many of the plantation owners and farmers went off to fight on the battlefields, leaving people who had little control on the farms, thus rendering a food shortage. Union ships initiated a blockade in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, preventing supply ships from Europe from entering Southern ports. Moreover, Union soldiers destroyed hundreds of feet of railroad track, preventing small towns in the ‘deep south’ from getting supplies from major depots in the border states and Virginia. It is interesting to read that Sherman suffered a ration phase in it’s history, which in turn caused a minor uprising in the winter of 1863-1864 (postcard of the Confederate monument in Sherman– the first one built in Texas, picture by Texas Escapes).
Based on the account of local resident, Dick Hopson, a group of women whose husbands were serving in the Confederate Army, heard that certain individuals in the town had a large supply of foods and other luxurious goods that were supposed to be given to the Confederate widows and married women of Confederate servicemen. Growing restless due to outbreaks of starvation and illnesses, the women assumed that they were being cheated out of what was rightfully theirs, assembled in a band, and descended upon the house of the Sherman Commissioner.
Sherman Commissioner, Major Blaine, a veteran of the 1836 Texas Revolution, awoke from his afternoon slumber to a crowd of angry women demanding their fair share of rations. In this era, women were supposed to live their quiet domestic life and fade into the background on matters of community politics and policy. This angry and vocal crowd of women was very unusual. Their leader, Mrs. (?) Savage, informed the major that “she knew a soldier’s ration contained sugar, coffee, and tea and that he had been withholding these things from the ration of the ‘war widows’ of Grayson County.” Dumbfounded by the efforts of the women, the major assured the women that he had none of these commodities and even escorted them to the warehouse to prove his point.
However, the women was not satisfied with Blaine’s remarks and gradually retreated to a nearby home, grumbling under their breaths and readying themselves for a combative struggle. The group soon became a indignant mob, armed with guns, axes, sledge hammers, clubs, and pitch forks. Subsequently, they marched upon privately-owned homes in Downtown Sherman and broke into several residences, searching for non-existent supplies. Mr. I. Heilbroner, a British salesman who owned a well-stocked general store on the east side of the downtown square, saw the mob, rapidly locked his store, and fled the tense scene.
The women were able to break into the general store and pillage the stock in a hurry. However, the mob stopped when William Quantrill, the famous Western cowboy/bandit, stepped into the store. The convict spoke to the women in a cold tone, advising them to put back the merchandise they were sampling and taking. The scene was dangerous and tense at first, but suddenly cooled, bringing sanity and harmony to the Sherman civilians living nearby. The story ends when the women put back the goods, followed the convict out in the streets with their heads bowed, nailed the broken doors in place once more, and quietly returned to their homes (photograph to right is of the Quantrill Raiders, winter 1864, by Pintrest). Such a twist that is truly a beautiful and hidden episode of history for the City of Sherman. Who would have thought that a famed convict who regularly stole foods, money, and supplies from others, would stand up for a small town and stop a band of women from thieving. Ironic…
For further information on Sherman during the Civil War: Graham Landrum, An Illustrated History of Grayson County, Texas (Fort Worth: Grayson County Historical Society Publishing, 1960).
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