East Texas Historical Journal Volume 11 Issue 2 Article 1 10-1973 ETHJ Vol-11 No-2 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj Part of the United States History Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Recommended Citation (1973) "ETHJ Vol-11 No-2," East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 11 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj/vol11/iss2/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the History at SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in East Texas Historical Journal by an authorized editor of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ;VOLUME XI 1973 NUMBER IT EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OFFICERS Ralph Goodwin. President .............................•......•.. , ...Commerce Robert S, Maxwell, First Vice·President ......•..................Nacogdoches Maury Dar t. Second Vice-President ................•.•...............GalvcMon Mr'l. Tommie Jan Lowery, Secrclary , ....•..•...........Lufkin DIRECTORS Term £:cpires F. I. Tucker Nacogdoche~ " 1973 Lee Lawrence ...................•.....Tyler 1973 Mrs. W. S. Terry Jefferson _, .. 1974 Ralph A. Woo'Her . .. _ Beaumont. ..•...••...•.......1974 Claude H. Hall Bryan ..............•............1974 Mrs. E. H. Lasseter Henderson. .. _ 1975 Ralph Steen Nacogdoches 1975 Maury Darst __.. _. Galveston ............•...•........1975 EDITORIAL BOARD Allan A'ihcrart ...........................................•.............Brynn Robert Glover ........................................•...............Tyler Ralph Goodwin Commerce Frank Jackson _....... .......•.. Commerce Archie P. McDonald. Editor-in- hier .....................•....... acogdoches Mrs. Charles Martin ...................................•..............Midland James L. Nichols. ... .. ........................•.......Nncogdoche.!l Rtllph A. Wooster... _. _...•....•.........Beaumont MEMBERSHIP PATRONS contribute to the work of the Association 100 or more, payable if de· sired over a period of five years. SUSTAI ING MEMBERS contribute to the work of the Association $50 or more. payable if desired over a period of five years. REGULAR MEMBERS pay S6 dues annually. STUDENT MEMBER pay S4 dues annually. A student enrolled in high school or college is eligible for membership. P.O. Box 6223. ACOGDOCHES. TEXAS 75%1, SFA S,a"on S3.00 per copy to nonmembers. $2.00 per eopy 10 members. Vol. XI. No.2 - East Texas Historical Associalion EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL JOURNAL Volume XI Fall 1973 No.2 CONTENTS A POLITICAL LABYRINTH: TEXAS IN THE CIVIL WAR by Nancy Head Bowen Page 3 THE REFERENDUM IN TEXAS ON THE ORDINANCE OF SECESSION, FEBRUARY 23, 1861: THE VOTE by Joe T. Timmun.~ .. Page 12 JUST A FEW CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF MATTIE D. STEUSSY by Robert W. Shook.,., _ Page 29 PRELUDE TO SAN JACINTO: NACOGDOCHES 1836 by Carolyn Reeve.\' Ericson.... ..,., ..Page 36 CHARLES A. CULBERSON: NOT A SHADOW OF HOGG by Pollyanna B. Hughes and Elizabeth B. Harrison... .,.Page 41 EAST TEXAS CONGRESSMEN DURING THE NEW DEAL by Philip A. Grant, Jr. ._ Page 53 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BIG THICKET WOODSMAN hy B. L Barrett , Page 59 EAST TEXAS COLLOQUY by Bobby H. John.wn ,., Page 63 BOOK REVIEWS . ..............................Page 67 NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS P.O. BOX 6223 SFA STATION 75961 Archie P. McDonald, Editor BOOK REVIEWS ... Billington, The Genesis of the Frontier Thesis-A Study in Historical Creativity, by , Edward Hake Phillips. Abernethy, Observations & Reflections On Texas Folk/ore, by Sid Cox. Clark, Historic Homes ofSan Augustine, by Drury B. Alexander. McFall, Historic Texas Churches, by Walter N. Vernon. Richardson, Along Texas Old Forts Trail, by Linda Cross. Rittenhouse. Maverick TaLes, by John Payne. Prassel, The Westem Peace Officer, A Legacy ofLaw and Order, by Philip D. Jordan. Meigs, The Cowboy in American Prints, by Janet Jelen. Green, A Thousand Miles ofMustangin'. by Frank H. Smyrl. Lewis, Tapadero: the Making of a Cowboy, by Adrian Anderson. Sterkx, The Free Negro in Ante-Bel/urn Louisiana, by Marietta M. LeBreton. Combs, Kudjo Quatterman, by (Mrs. W. S.) Lucille Morgan Terry. Kubiak. Monument to a Black Man, by Norman Lederer. Smith. Tn His Image, But . .. Racism in Southern Religion, 1780-/9/0, by Jerry M. Self. Edwin, White Sects and Black Men in the Recent South, by Jerry M. Self. Skaggs, The Folk ofSouthern Fiction, by Marshall Scott Legan. Green, The Role ofthe Yankee in the Old South. by Joseph G. Tregle, Jr. Stoutamire, Music of the Old South: Colony to Confederacy, by Richard Harwell. Combs, Folk-5ongs 0.( the Southern United States, by Staley Hitchcock. Alexander & Beringer, The Anatomy of the Confederate Congres.5: A Study of the Influences of Member Characteristics on Legislative Voting Behavior, 1861-/865. by Herman Hattaway. Moore, West Texas After the Discovery of Oil: A Modern Frontier, by John O. King. Bryant, Arthur E. Stilwell: Promoter with a Hunch, by James M. McReynolds. Palmer, For Land's Sake, by Deward C. Brown. Wagner, The Texas Army, by James L. Nichols. Kauffman, American Axes: A Survey of Their Development and Their Maker,I', by Lonn Taylor. Morris, Lineages and Genealogical Notes, by Emma Barrett Reeves. Davis, Latin American Thought: A Historical Introduction, by Douglas F. McMillan. EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL SOCIETY 3 A POLITICAL LABYRINTH: TEXAS IN THE CIVIL WAR hy Nancy Head Bowen Thirty·six years ago an eminent historian, Charles W. Ramsdell, surveyed some of the problems involved in writing the history of the Southern Confederacy. Rams­ dell urged the student of the Confederacy to steep himseU' in the South, to acquaint himself with the "nature and extent of the material resources" of that region, and to plunge into ante-bellum state politics. Ramsdell was convinced that local and intra­ state issues were as important in state affairs as reactions and responses to Federal politics. Futhermore, he asserted that local ante-bellum political alignments, personal rivalries, and social and economic distinctions carried over into the Confederate ex­ perience and helped to shape the peculiar nature of that exercise in nation-making. 1 More recently, Frank E. Vandiver supplied an updated version of the problems which remain unsolved in Confederate history. New questions, new techniques, and new analytical tools will produce new answers regarding the Confederate experience, Vandiver suggested; but old questions persist, demanding answers. Although Van­ diver tends to view the Confederacy from the perspective of Richmond, or more par­ ticularly from the window of Jefferson Davis' office, he has taken a hard look at the Trans-Mississippi West and has tried to unsnarl some of the tangles in that oft-ignored Department. But, as he notes, the experience of the Trans-Mississippi will become comprehensible only after historians prowl the labyrinth of intrastate politics, factional rivalries, and personal contests.2 The history of Civil War politics in Texas, the most important state in the Trans­ Mississippi Department, currently is an impoverished history. Fortunately, the neglect which characterizes non-military aspects of Civil War Texas does not attend the state's ante-bellum politics, For example, Randolph Campbell has lifted the Texas Whigs from obscurity and has managed to identify their stand on some public issues. Frank H. Smyrl and Ralph A. Wooster have scrutinized the Unionists and the Know­ Nothings to the point that we will continue to equate the two groups at our own peril. Indeed, Professor Wooster, in sifting through the Federal Census returns of 1850 and 1860, has given us valuable, digested data on Know-Nothings, secessionists, wealthy Texans, and slaveholders. Llerena Friend's biography of "the great designer", Sam Houston, moved beyond its central figure and surveyed pivotal issues, including frontier defense, in the 1850's. Earl Fornell's study of Galveston on the eve of seces­ sion examined island city personalities and factions, scanned the development of in­ formal banking operations, and sorted thTOugh at least some of the intricacies of rail­ road politics, In short, we know something about the parties, the m:ijor figures, and the critical issues of frontier defense and internal improvements in ante-bellum Texas, 3 No one, however, has seen fit to act upon the suggestions of either Ramsdell or Vandiver to determine whether and in what ways these ante-bellum alignments and issues carried over into the political experience of Civil War Texas. Instead, historians whose essays have ranged from the complex cotton trade to the state's tortuous fi· nancial system to the massacre of German "Tories" a1 the headwaters of the Nueces River have rather consistently dismissed or ignored the political matrix in which such Nancy Head Bowen is Associate Professor of History at Del Mar College. She is currently writinR a doctoral dissertation under the direction of Frank E. Vandiver at Rice Universit.y. An earlier ver.l"ion ofthis paper ~""'as read at the annual meeting of the Texas State Historical Anocitlfion, March 10,1972. 4 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL SOCIETY issues existed. At the risk of oversimplifying, most accounts of "Texas in the Civil War" have been written in a vacuum which choked out politics. Such failures might ~ be explained in several ways. First, with the important exceptions of Sam Houston, '-' Rip Ford, John H. Reagan, and Louis T. Wigfall, we have few biographical or poli~ tical studies of the principal leaders of the slale and therefore few secondary sources on which to base generalizations.4