Of all the painful times in the history of our country, there is no period harder or more painful for more people than the years that followed the close of the War Between the States. The thoughtless and bigoted in the North rejoiced at the fall of the Confederacy, but there was no rejoicing among true Southerners. Almost every man, woman, and child in the South suffered through these difficult and bewildering years.
Over most of the stricken South it was a question of survival, and of saving whatever was possible from the rapacious carpetbaggers, the unjust taxation, and the freedmen. This was bad enough.
But in north-central Texas, where the counties of Grayson, Collin, Fannin, and Hunt joined, the postwar misery was sharply and for long years augmented by the flaming of a dreadful feud. Captain Bob Lee, late of the Army of the Confederate States of America, was at the center of this feud. His was a personality and character that all too fatally fitted him for his tragic role.
Captain Bob and his family were educated, and at the time of their coming to Texas had brought with them an undetermined amount of gold from Virginia. It was this gold, and the naive arrogance of the unconquered Confederate captain, that gave birth to the blood-letting.
Captain Bob's home district-the Corners had been infiltrated by Redlegs from Kansas, by renegades and bushwhackers. These ruthless men set out to get both the captain and his gold.
What success they had, and the circumstances surrounding the deaths of literally dozens of men on both sides of the quarrel, is told in the present book. The author has not only done an excellent job of hunting out the truth; the book is exceptionally well and clearly written, and the breathless reader will follow the course of escapes, robbery, and murder with all the intense interest he would bestow on the very finest suspense novel.
If you will read one page of this book you will recognize instantly that G. B. Ray is no novice at the writing of history, but is a practiced hand at this most difficult of all lit-erary genres. A native of that section of Texas which is the setting for this bloody segment of reconstruction history, G. B. Ray knows the gory ground of this feuding, and knows many of the descendants of the families involved on both sides of the struggle. The author has talked with many of these persons, and so has got first-hand information which is passed on to the reader. The author's skill at this particular kind of writing is nowhere more tellingly revealed than in the chapter headings of the present book, which trace the suspense that is built up in the manner of a good mystery novel. But this is history, not fiction, and it is written with beautiful competence.
