Not That Sherman RoadyGoat

Say the name Sherman out loud in a lot of the country, and people picture the Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, the one who marched to the sea and burned a path across Georgia in the Civil War. So it would be easy to assume this North Texas town was named for him. It wasn't. And the calendar proves it. Sherman, Texas got its name in eighteen forty-six. The Civil War didn't begin until eighteen sixty-one, and General William Tecumseh Sherman didn't make his famous march until eighteen sixty-four. In other words, this town was already sitting here with its name for the better part of two decades before that other Sherman ever became a household word. The town is named for a completely different man, Sidney Sherman, a hero of the Texas Revolution who fought for Texas independence, not for the Union. Same last name, two very different histories, and about a generation apart. So if you ever hear somebody say this town is named for the Civil War general, you can gently set them straight. The dates simply don't line up.

RoadyGoat →

The Man Behind the Battle Cry RoadyGoat

The man this town is named for is tied to maybe the most famous battle cry in Texas history. General Sidney Sherman commanded the Second Regiment at the Battle of San Jacinto on April twenty-first, eighteen thirty-six, the fight that won Texas its independence in about eighteen minutes of open combat. And Sherman's troops are the ones generally credited with first shouting the war cry that has echoed ever since: Remember the Alamo. Remember Goliad. Those weren't just angry words. Barely six weeks earlier the defenders at the Alamo had been overrun, and hundreds of Texan prisoners had been executed at Goliad. So when Sherman's men swept forward at San Jacinto and roared those names, they were carrying the memory of the fallen straight into the charge. Now, historians are careful here. They say Sherman's regiment is credited with the cry, not that we have a perfect recording of that afternoon, and some of Sherman's own descendants remembered the wording a little differently. But the through-line is real. The name on the town sign belongs to the man whose soldiers gave Texas its rallying cry.

RoadyGoat →

Named by a Vote of the Legislature RoadyGoat

Here is something most Texas towns can't claim. Sherman wasn't named by a founder or a railroad company. It was named by an act of the Texas Legislature. On March seventeenth, eighteen forty-six, when lawmakers carved Grayson County out of the older Fannin County, the very same legislative act specified that the county seat would be called Sherman. That makes it one of the very few towns in the whole Lone Star State named directly by the legislature. And the name honors General Sidney Sherman, a hero of the Texas Revolution. There's even a bit of political horse-trading baked in. The county was named for Peter Grayson, who was aligned with Sam Houston's supporters, and the town was named for Sidney Sherman, who was on the other side of Texas politics. Naming the county for one man and the county seat for the other was a compromise, a way to give both factions something to be proud of. So the next time you roll into town, remember: Sherman is a place where the name itself was a peace treaty written into law.

RoadyGoat →

Bloody Bill Anderson - Sherman Winter Quarters

1863

In the winter of 1863, William 'Bloody Bill' Anderson and Quantrill's Raiders wintered in Sherman, Texas. Anderson subsequently split from Quantrill here and returned to Missouri, where he led the Centralia Massacre of 1864 — the most decisive guerrilla victory of the Civil War. He was killed in battle a month later, a silk cord on his person with 53 knots, one for each man he claimed to have killed by his own hand.

Biographical →

Quantrill, William Clarke

1863

William Clarke Quantrill (Charley Hart, Charles William Quantrill, and Billy Quantrill), Civil War guerrilla leader, was born at Canal Dover, Ohio, on July 31, 1837, to Thomas Henry and Caroline Cornelia (Clarke) Quantrill. He taught school briefly in Ohio and Illinois; in 1857 he moved to Kansas, and in 1858 he accompanied an army provision train to Utah. At Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, and elsewhere in the territory, Quantrill was associated with a number of murders and thefts. He fled a warrant for his arrest in Utah in 1860 and returned to Kansas. In December he joined a group in an effort to free the slaves of a Missouri man; he betrayed the plans, and three of the abolitionists were killed. Quantrill collected a group of renegades in the Kansas-Missouri area. He fought with Confederate forces at the battle of Wilson's Creek in Oakhills, Missouri, in August 1861 but soon thereafter began irregular independent operations. Quantrill and his band attacked Union camps, patrols, and settlements. In November 1862 the group murdered twelve unarmed teamsters. Union authorities declared them outlaws. Quantrill's role in the capture of Independence, however, led to his being commissioned a captain in the Confederate Army. Shortly thereafter, he sought a regular command under the Confederacy Partisan Ranger Act, but his reputation for brutality preceded him, and his request was denied, although he was promoted to the rank of colonel. In mid-October 1863 Quantrill and his band crossed the Red River at Colbert's Ferry and established winter camp on Mineral Springs Creek fifteen miles northwest of Sherman. During his first winter in Grayson County Quantrill and his men may have acted as a police force against cattle thieves who raided farms and ranches from Indian Territory. This winter camp was necessary, in part, for Quantrill's men to escape retribution for two of their recent affairs, the first being their infamous sack of Lawrence, Kansas, on August 21, 1863, during which they looted the town and shot approximately 180 men and boys. Weeks later, while on their way to Texas, Quantrill's well-mounted and armed force of 400 men came upon the 100-man headquarters escort of Union general James G. Blunt. Quantrill's band attacked on October 6, 1863, and killed eighty men and wounded eighteen in the Baxter Springs Massacre. Many were murdered after having surrendered. The raiders also captured several fully loaded supply wagons. Quantrill reported at Bonham on October 26 to Gen. Henry E. McCulloch . One of the officers described Quantrill as standing about five feet ten inches, weighing about 150 pounds, with fair hair, blue eyes, and a florid complexion. Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith , commander of the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy, approved of Quantrill and ordered McCulloch to use Quantrill's men to help round up the increasing number of deserters and conscription-dodgers in North Texas. Quantrill's men captured but few and killed several, whereupon McCulloch pulled them off this duty; McCulloch sent them to track down retreating Comanches from a recent raid on the northwest frontier. They did so for nearly a week with no success. Quantrill is credited with ending a near-riot of county "war widows" who were convinced that the Confederate commissary in Sherman was withholding from them such "luxury goods" as coffee, tea, and sugar. During this winter Quantrill's lieutenant, William (Bloody Bill) Anderson , took some of the men to organize his own group. With two such groups in the area, residents of Grayson and Fannin counties became targets for raids, and acts of violence proliferated so much that regular Confederate forces had to be assigned to protect residents from the activities of the irregular Confederate forces. Finally, General McCulloch determined to rid North Texas of Quantrill's influence. On March 28, 1864, when Quantrill appeared at Bonham as requested, McCulloch had him arrested on the charge of ordering the murder of a C

Tsha Handbook →

Sherman Riot of 1930

1930

The Sherman riot of 1930 was one of the major incidents of racial violence that occurred in the United States at the onset of the Great Depression , when lynching and other lawless acts increased with economic problems. The incident initiated a flurry of racial violence in Texas. White tenant farmers had exhibited hostility to Blacks throughout the county. As county seat, Sherman was the county's banking, industrial, and educational center. The Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching reported in 1931 that Sherman had felt the onset of the depression more keenly than representative communities of similar size in Texas. The prevalent abhorrence of miscegenation, together with the sensation surrounding the rape of a White woman by a Black man, provided the context of the violence. A Black farm hand named George Hughes, described by acquaintances as "crazy," was accused of raping a young woman, who was never publicly identified. Hughes admitted that he had come to the farm five miles southeast of Sherman on May 3, 1930, in search of the woman's husband, who owed him wages. Hughes left when the woman said that her husband was in Sherman but soon returned with a shotgun, demanded his wages, and raped the woman. He shot at unarmed pursuers and at the patrol car of the deputy sheriff who later arrived to investigate the disturbance. He then surrendered. On Monday, May 5, Hughes was indicted for criminal assault by a special meeting of the grand jury in the Fifteenth District Court. County attorney Joe P. Cox set the trial date for Friday, May 9, and promised a speedy trial. In the days preceding the trial, rumors spread about the case, among them that Hughes had mutilated the woman's throat and breasts and that she was not expected to live. Medical examination of the woman and of Hughes showed the rumors to be false. Officers removed Hughes from the jail to an undisclosed location as a precaution against mob violence, but rumors persisted that he was still there. A few people were taken through the jail to show that he was not there, but an unconvinced mob gathered outside nightly. In the early morning of Friday, May 9, Capt. Francis A. (Frank) Hamer of the Texas Rangers , assisted by two other rangers and one police sergeant, escorted Hughes to the county courthouse. County Sheriff Arthur Vaughan and deputies stood on duty in the courtroom and corridors. Only those connected to the case were allowed to attend the proceedings. Nevertheless, a crowd from all over the region gathered outside the building and filled the corridors from the main entrance to the courtroom doors. During the jury selection and beginning of the trial, the noise led officers to clear the stairway and corridor leading to the courtroom. In the late morning the crowd began to stone the courthouse. An American flag was carried around the grounds to incite the men to action. The jury was sworn in at noon. Then Cox read the indictment, to which Hughes pleaded guilty. The first witness had begun testimony when the crowd forced the doors to the courtroom corridor, whereupon the rangers fired three warning shots. The jury was sent from the room, and Hughes was taken to the district court vault as the rangers used tear gas to disperse the mob. Firemen provided ladders for others in the trial room. A few minutes before one o'clock the mob started toward the courtroom again, and again the rangers resorted to tear gas. Firemen again helped women and children escape the building with the use of ladders. District Judge R. M. Carter went into conference at about one o'clock and declared that he would likely order a change of venue, but at two o'clock he had not decided where to send the case. Captain Hamer told him that he did not believe that the trial could be held in Sherman without bloodshed. About 2:30 P.M., two youths threw an open can of gasoline into the county tax collector's office through a broken window. A fire started and quickly spread through the building.

Tsha Handbook →

Hilger, John Allen [Jack]

1942

John Allen Hilger was a United States Air Force officer and deputy commander of the Doolittle Raid of Japan during World War II. He was born the third of four sons of John Frederick Hilger and Emma Viola (Dye) Hilger, on January 11, 1909, in Sherman, Texas. The son of a stone cutter, Jack Hilger was raised in Sherman and educated in the city public school system. In high school, he was active in the pep squad, the glee club, football, and the school newspaper. Hilger graduated from Sherman High School in 1926. Hilger enrolled at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (present-day Texas A&M University) in September 1926. At College Station, he studied mechanical engineering and became a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In addition to his academic studies, he was active in the school's military program. With three years of college under his belt, Hilger left school in the fall of 1929. Most likely, fiscal issues contributed to this action. On March 1, 1931, John Allen Hilger married Ina Mae Smith. The marriage failed. In the fall of 1931 Hilger re-enrolled at Texas A&M and received his B. S. degree in mechanical engineering in June 1932. Along with a degree, Hilger also received his commission as a second lieutenant of infantry in the United States Army Reserve. Early in his military career, John Hilger made moves to become an active duty army aviator. In February 1933, he entered the U. S. Army Air Corps flying school as a cadet. After successfully completing flight training, he received his wings in the Army Air Corps in February 1934 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in February 1935. With more than two years of active duty, Hilger received a regular army commission in October 1936. After additional pilot training, Lieutenant Hilger was assigned to March Field near Riverside, California. During his service at March Field, he served as the assistant base adjutant and was in charge of the base photographic section. While on this assignment, Hilger married Virginia Hope Botterud in Los Angeles in March 1937. Lieutenant Hilger was reassigned to McChord Field near Tacoma, Washington, in May 1940. While on this assignment, he served as the commander of the 89th Reconnaissance Squadron. During this time at McChord Field, he was also promoted to captain and then to major. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the 89th Squadron took part in flying antisubmarine patrols in the region in early 1942. Hilger was promoted to lieutenant colonel in March 1942. In March 1942 Lt. Col. James "Jimmy" Doolittle selected Hilger as a pilot and as his deputy commander for a top secret air attack on Japan. The Doolittle Raid involved the launching of sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet at a point about 500 miles from Tokyo. The original plan called for a strike on selected Japanese targets with the aircraft then proceeding to friendly air bases in China. The eighty men that made up the Doolittle Raiders were all volunteers. With a reputation as a no-nonsense perfectionist, Hilger had been recommended to serve as Doolittle's second in command. Hilger took part in the training operations for the men and planes assembled at Eglin Field in Florida. The training was fast-paced, and a high priority was given to pilots practicing short takeoffs. By April 1, aircraft and airman had relocated to California on the West Coast. Consisting of eighty airmen and sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers, the Doolittle raid was launched from the deck of the Hornet in the morning of April 18, 1942. Fearing a Japanese picket ship had spotted the task force, Doolittle ordered the operation to begin before they reached their original destination point. Major Hilger piloted aircraft fourteen. His crew had been assigned the city of Nagoya, a major industrial center, as its target. Hilger directed his plane toward three specific areas: an army barrack complex, a military depot, and an oil s

Tsha Handbook →

Eleventh Texas Cavalry

1861

In May 1861, a frontier unit was organized at Camp Reeves in Sherman. Drawing volunteers from Cooke, Grayson, Hopkins, Red River, Fannin, Collin, Titus and Bowie counties, the regiment began with nearly 900 men and officers. Initially led by the noted Col. William Cocke Young, the unit fought its first battles in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, securing the territory for the Confederacy. In October of that year, the unit was inducted into Confederate service as the 11th Texas Cavalry and joined with other forces in Arkansas. Beginning in March 1862, at the Battle of Pea Ridge, or Elkhorn Tavern, the 11th Texas supported the Confederate Army. Following the battle, the unit became an infantry regiment, designated the 11th Texas Cavalry, Dismounted. For the remainder of the year, the troops were active in Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. In early 1863, the 11th Texas fought at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and shortly thereafter became a cavalry unit again. For the remainder of the war, the cavalry fought in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, participating in more than 100 battles and skirmishes. Notable engagements included Chickamauga, Knoxville, Dalton, Resaca, Allatoona Pass, Dallas/New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Savannah, and, finally, Bentonville, North Carolina. A small number of 11th Texas troops were present at the Confederate surrender at Durham Station, North Carolina, in April 1865. One of the most active Texas Confederate units, the 11th Texas Cavalry served with distinction throughout the Civil War, continuing until the last major Confederate offensive had ended. (2003)

Historical Marker →

Roosevelt, Theodore

1905

One of the most festive events in Sherman's early history, Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 appearance here marked the first visit of a president of the United States to Grayson County. Traveling to San Antonio to attend a reunion of the "Rough-Riders" -- his special troops in the Spanish-American War -- Roosevelt stopped first in Denison on that same day, April 5, and was there presented with a Texas-shaped floral piece from excited youngsters. His train proceeded then to Sherman, where a record crowd of 35,000 had come by buggy, horse, and special trains from as far away as 175 miles to see him. Led by a unit of Rough Riders, Roosevelt and his party rode up the banner-decked streets in nine handsome carriages. Passing between lines of Union and Confederate Civil War veterans, they arrived at the speaker's stand amid loud applause. Here (at this corner) he spoke for 15 minutes, praising Texas as "one of two or three greatest states in the Union". He emphasized his own heritage from the south and the north and his delight in national reunification. Within an hour Roosevelt left for Dallas, having provided for the people of this area one of the most memorable occasions in their lives.

Historical Marker →

Sherman, Texas

Music in Sherman

Songs About Sherman

Artists From Sherman

Rivers & Roads in Song near Sherman

History of Sherman

Not That Sherman RoadyGoat

The Man Behind the Battle Cry RoadyGoat

Named by a Vote of the Legislature RoadyGoat

Bloody Bill Anderson - Sherman Winter Quarters

Quantrill, William Clarke

Sherman Riot of 1930

Hilger, John Allen [Jack]

Eleventh Texas Cavalry

Roosevelt, Theodore

Everything Near Sherman