DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Big Thicket, C.S.A., out in San Jacinto County. Now, before the war came, the Big Thicket was about as close to paradise as a man who liked his solitude could find in early Texas. Dense, dark, alive with game and wild honey — the kind of place that swallowed you whole if you wanted to be swallowed.
And during the Civil War, it turned out, some men very much wanted exactly that. The Thicket became notorious. Not for outlaws in the romantic sense, but for something the Confederate army found a good deal more embarrassing — deserters.
Men who had slipped away from their units, and conscript dodgers who'd never signed up in the first place, melting into that tangle of timber and shadow and living off the country. And the Thicket, bless its impenetrable heart, cooperated fully. It was, the marker tells us plainly, the despair of commanding officers.
Think about what that means for the men who stayed. Loyal soldiers watching from the outside, knowing that somewhere in that green darkness, men were feasting on game and wild honey, answering to nobody. It demoralized them, and you can hardly blame them for noticing the math: desertion plus the Big Thicket apparently equaled safety from punishment.
Apparently. Mostly. Because on at least two occasions, the commanding officers found their answer.
The first time, a fire was set in a circle around the men — and smoked them out. You heard that right. Ringed with fire.
The Thicket's own concealment turned against the men hiding in it. The second time, it was a veteran hunter and his pack of bear dogs that did the work. Bear dogs.
Trained to run down something considerably larger and meaner than a tired deserter living on venison and honey. The dogs brought them out. But here's the part that sits with you.
Before they were hunted out, those men had built something like a life in there. Their wives were living nearby — not in the Thicket, but close enough to visit occasionally. And when conscript officers weren't in the locality, those wives would make their way to caches the men had established — caches of meat, hides, honey — and take what could be sold.
Enough to support the family. It was a quiet, careful, dangerous arrangement, and it held together as long as it could. The marker doesn't condemn these people.
It explains them. Many were foreign-born. They had sworn allegiance to the United States only five to ten years before the war broke out.
Then, confused by the sudden onset of that war, they had fled from their homes. They felt justified in what they did. The Big Thicket kept their secret as long as it could.
Fire got some of them. Bear dogs got others. But the Thicket itself — dense, dark, and stubbornly indifferent to the ambitions of commanding officers — that endured just fine.
What the marker says
In early Texas, a paradise for settlers liking solitude. During the Civil War, became notorious as hunt of army deserters or men avoiding conscript officers and living off the country. The thicket was so hard to penetrate that it was the despair of commanding officers. Soldiers who remained loyal were somewhat demoralized by seeing that men camping in the Big Thicket were safe from punishment for desertion. On at least two occasions, however, the men were discovered, once a fire was set in a circle around them, and smoked them out. A later camp was located by a veteran hunter whose pack of bear dogs brought out the deserters. Before they were hunted out, the deserters found thicket life good. They feasted on game and wild honey. Their wives, living nearby, would visit the men occasionally. Except when conscript officers were in the locality, the wives would visit caches established by the men and remove meat, hides or honey to be marketed for the support of the family. These people felt justified in deserting. Many were foreign-born and had sworn allegiance to the U. S. only 5 to 10 years earlier. Confused by the onset of war, they had fled from their homes.