When the American Civil War began, the Governor of Texas issued a call for 3,000 troops. Brothers Robert Jehu Lee, William Monroe Lee, John Emerson Lee and George Washington Lee signed up for Confederate military service on August 28, 1861 and that same day rode to Camp Reeves, Grayson County, Texas for training.
The year 1862 was not kind to the Lees. Both William M. and George W. were killed in action and John E. was shot up so badly that he was crippled for life. On March 20, 1862 he was discharged from the Confederate Calvary. Robert J. (Bob) fought in many battles and when the war was over, rode his horse back to Lee Station, Fannin County, Texas.
When the Confederacy began breaking up, Texas was placed under martial law. Lawless was everywhere. Jayhawkers, guerrillas and highwaymen appeared. One stage was said to have been held up on average once every five miles on the road from the Rio Grand to San Antonio.
Union General Sheridan, in order to prevent local resistance and guerrilla warfare, issued orders on June 30, 1865 that no home guards or bands for self-protection would be allowed. Sheridan thought that the military was sufficient for such purposes. By the same order, neighborhoods infested by guerrillas were responsible for the deeds of the latter.
Only 1800 Union soldiers were originally deployed to Galveston, Texas for occupation duties. Because they were needed everywhere, it took quite some time to get even a few of them to Northeast Texas.
The Union League of America, sometimes called the Loyal League, originated in Ohio in 1862 for political purposes. Within one year it had spread to Unionists of the South. At the end of the war, it worked for radical reconstruction of the South, i.e.: punishment of Southern leaders, confiscation of property and Negro suffrage. Southern Unionists hoped to start a new political party with the block vote of Freedman. (Given time, Freedman began to run for offices and the white Southern Unionists deserted the league causing its collapse.) They began secretly drilling and became night riders to achieve their ends. Lewis Peacock was head of the local Union League.
The Ku Klux Klan was organized after the war as a fraternal organization but out of necessity arose as a defense mechanism to the Union League. The KKK didn't arrive in Texas until mid 1868 so the Lee party didn't have the benefit of their help.
Captain Bob Lee, being a well respected Southern man and his family rumored to have gold, became a target of the Peacock Party. From all accounts, the Peacock/Union League “Clan” were the aggressors.
Soon after arriving home, while sick in bed, Lee was visited by a group of men dressed in U.S. uniforms who arrested him and stole his “Brace of fine ivory mounted pistols.” He was told that he was to be taken to Sherman to stand trial for offences committed during the war. Family tradition has it that while in Louisiana to sell a string of horses, Bob was inside a dance hall when a gun fight broke out. He killed two Union officers. The kidnappers thought that those killings were listed as a crime and that a reward was posted for Captain Bob. After they had gone a short distance, another group in civilian clothes joined them. They were an outlaw gang headed by one “Doc Wilson.”
“Doc” Wilson began telling Bob that he should buy his way out of the mess he was in and not go to Sherman to stand trial. “Doc” wanted more money than the reward was supposed to be, but Bob would be free from trial.
They stopped in Choctaw Bottom and left the road. One of the soldiers went to Sherman to confirm the reward. He did not find Captain Lee on any the rolls and returned to Choctaw Bottom.
Captain Lee begged to be taken to Sherman, but to no avail. “Doc” Wilson kept up his negotiations. After about thirty-six hours in the rain and Bob growing sicker and sicker, he agreed to Wilson’s terms. Lee gave the kidnappers his mule, saddle, bridle, and a $20 gold piece he had in his pocket. He then signed a $2000 demand note and agreed to leave the country forever. Bob Lee sought to try the civil courts to settle this, but to prevent him from doing so, the kidnappers began trying to kill him. The military turned a blind eye.
One day, while in Pilot Grove, Captain Bob met Jim Maddox, who was one of the men who had kidnapped him and had been a private under Bob Lee during the war. He was also a friend of Lewis Peacock. Lee asked Maddox if he would fight and Maddox claimed to be unarmed. Bob offered to loan him a pistol, but Jim said that he was sorry for what he had done and that he did not want to hurt the Captain and proposed buying him a drink.
After drinking, Bob told Maddox that he wanted to be left alone and Jim said “alright.” However, when the Captain left the grocery store where they had been drinking, Jim Maddox slipped up behind him and shot him in the side of his head. He would have died had it not been for Dr. Pierce’s skill and attention. Dr. Pierce was called to his gate and killed by Hugh Hudson, a Peacock man and neighbor to Dr. Pierce.
The U.S. soldiers stood by watching and said not a word until the Captain started fighting back. Then, they along with the “Peacock’s Old Clan,” started hunting the Captain. Through the distorted Radical press, the feud appeared as an effort of an armed band of rebels to exterminate the Union men. (Remember, a band of men, even for protection purposes, under martial law was illegal.) Peacock made an alliance with General Reynolds, who was head of the local military district. Hugh Hudson was paid $300 by the Clan for killing Dr. Pierce, but was later tracked down by the “Lee Raiders” and killed on the prairie. “Doc” Wilson and Jim Maddox went to South Texas to escape Bob Lee.
A full scale feud broke out and according to whose estimate you believe, between 50 and 200 men were killed, mostly in Fannin, Hunt, Collin and Grayson counties. A few days before his death Captain Lee told one of his Raiders that he had personally killed 43 men during the fued.
On May 24, 1869 Bob Lee was shot from ambush and killed near his home in Southwest Fannin County, Texas He was hit in the chest by a load of buckshot from a double barreled shotgun at the hands of Henry Boren.
During the war, Henry Boren had joined Captain J. K. Bumpass' Farmersville Company of Colonel L. M. Martins 5th Texas Partisan Rangers. He then deserted in March of 1863 and became leader of a group of brush men who were mostly deserters trying to stay out of the army and living as highwaymen.
Lewis Peacock owned 160 acres with Desert Creek running through it. The creek had springs and firewood in its bottom land. So many brush men camped along this creek during the war that it became known as “Deserter Creek.” Henry Boren may have been among them.
After killing Bob Lee, Henry went home and held a dance. The next morning he was called to his gate by his nephew William “Bill” Boren and they quarreled about the killing of Bob Lee. Both were armed with shotguns. Bill later wrote, “Not being a bad hand with a gun myself, I was the quicker.” Henry Boren had been “Paroled to Jesus” by his nephew. Bill, who was a Lee Raider, had also been a private under Captain Lee throughout the war.
Bob Lee is buried in the Lee family cemetery. It is located on the south edge of his father, Daniel Lee’s farm, just inside Hunt County, Texas.
Ronnie Atnip is a twenty year member of the Fannin County Historical Commission, a hobby historian and member of the Bob Lee Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Bonham, Texas.