Bloody Williamson (12 page)

By this time two trivial incidents—a game of cards and a lawsuit over a few bushels of oats—had separated four large and prominent families, each supported by many friends and relatives, into two groups of sworn enemies, with any Bulliner or Crain eager to assault a Sisney or Henderson simply because he was a Sisney or Henderson.

Throughout 1873 one brawl after another took place. Several times the rioters were arrested, but in every case either the accused was acquitted or the prosecution was dropped.

Then, on the morning of December 12, 1873, “Old George” Bulliner saddled his horse and set out for Carbondale. Later in the day neighbors found him lying by the side of the road, his back torn by a charge of buckshot fired at close range. The murder was never solved.

Three months afterward, two of Bulliner’s sons were fired on from ambush, and one was mortally wounded. Friends carried the injured man home. He lingered until morning, when, as Milo Erwin put it, “the twilight shadow of death, cold and gray, came stealing on him. A supernatural lustre lighted up his eye, and illuminated the gathering darkness. At length his eyes closed, and an expression of ineffable placidity settled on his pallid lips, and he was no more.”

Before he died, young Bulliner named Tom Russell as the
man who shot him. Russell had no family connection with the Vendetta, but everyone knew that two years earlier he had been jilted by a lady of somewhat easy virtue in favor of one of the Bulliner boys, and that since then he had hated them. He was arrested at once, and held for trial before a justice of the peace. He retained counsel, and the Bulliners, bent on vengeance, employed three lawyers to assist in the prosecution. A strong case was built up against him, but Monroe Bulliner, brother of the murdered man, failed to identify him as one of the assassins, while another witness provided an alibi. The result was a verdict of acquittal.

By this time the original causes of the feud were forgotten and it was feeding on itself. Two Bulliners had been killed, and no one doubted that there would soon be an attempt at retaliation.

There was. In mid-May 1874, James Henderson, acknowledged leader of the family and uncle of the “Field” Henderson who had been a party to the barroom quarrel with which the Vendetta began, was at work on his farm. For months he had lived in fear of his life, surrounding his house with watchdogs and posting his daughter and foster son as guards. This spring afternoon, while the girl helped her mother in the house, he and the boy lay down to rest. Assassins fired from a woodpile a few feet away, hitting Henderson in the back. One of them came into the open, and seeing that the victim was still alive, shot him with a pistol.

He lived for eight days. Before he died he named one of the Bulliner boys, and James Norris, who worked for them, as his attackers. Warrants for their arrest were issued, but three months passed before Bulliner was taken, while Norris was not apprehended until much later. Bulliner was indicted, tried, and acquitted when four witnesses from Tennessee swore that he was visiting there when Henderson was shot.

The day after the shooting of Henderson, a man plowing a field a mile distant was shot, though not fatally. He had no connection
with the Vendetta; the supposition was that he had stumbled on evidence incriminating someone. Shortly afterward another innocent resident was shot from ambush, again for no apparent reason. In August 1874, an attempt was made on the life of George W. Sisney, but the charges of the assailants’ guns, dampened by dew, failed to fire and he escaped. Although he watched his attackers run from the scene he would not reveal their names.

This wave of assaults and murders terrified the people of the western part of Williamson County. Fearing for their lives, they kept their suspicions, even their knowledge, to themselves, hoping thus to escape the bullets of the feudists. The murder of Dr. Vincent Hinchcliff proved that the hope was futile.

Hinchcliff was a substantial citizen. His family had lived in the county for many years, and all its members bore good reputations. He himself had been active enough in politics to be rewarded with the postmastership at Carterville, and as a country doctor he had a large number of stanch friends.

Hinchcliff’s connection with the Vendetta came about through circumstances rather than family connections. He had testified against Tom Russell when Russell was charged with the murder of David Bulliner, and that had aligned him, in the minds of the community, with the Bulliners and Crains against the Hendersons and Sisneys.

On Sunday morning, October 4, 1874, Hinchcliff made a call on a sick man. Returning home, he was shot from ambush and died instantly. During the ensuing investigation, witnesses testified that they were close enough to hear not only the shots but also the exultant yells of the assassins, yet they could not identify the murderers. Two of the Hendersons were arrested and indicted, but were never brought to trial.

One of those to whom the all-pervading suspicion and fear became intolerable was George W. Sisney. He knew that he might be chosen to pay with his life for the murder of Hinchcliff; he also knew that he had been lucky, a few months earlier, to escape death. In the fall of 1874 he ran for a second term as sheriff of Williamson County, but was defeated. Soon after the election he moved to Carbondale. There, though only a few miles from the scene of the feud, he thought he would be safe.

His peace of mind lasted only until the 12th of December, hardly a month after his removal. Early that evening, while he played dominoes with his wife and a young visitor, someone fired both barrels of a shotgun through a near-by window. Sisney was badly wounded; so was his young friend.

Both victims of the attack recovered. However, because of Sisney’s prominence, and because, by leaving the scene of the Vendetta, he had obviously tried to sever any connection with it, the attempted murder attracted far more notice than earlier assaults. Newspapers made biting comments. “Where this will end,” one editor moaned, “God only knows. Parties have visited Carbondale and ordered … double-barreled shot-guns, swearing vengeance, and boldly declaring that the fun has only begun.” Another, in the county seat, admitted that the name of Williamson County had become “a hiss and a by-word.” Strangers were shunning the region, property was dropping in value, and there was no prospect of exploiting the veins of coal that were known to underlie the topsoil. “To … bring these fiendish outlaws to justice seems to be the universal desire of the people,” the writer concluded, “but to accomplish this seems to be the point that puts to silence the entire county.”

One reason for this state of affairs—perhaps the only reason—was the ineffectiveness of the county authorities. The leading participants in the feud had influence, and weak-kneed officials were afraid to proceed against them. When Tom Russell was
cleared, on preliminary examination, of the murder of Dave Bulliner, a deputy sheriff with a warrant for Russell’s arrest on another murder charge in his pocket allowed him to walk out of the courtroom unmolested. The sheriff himself refused for months to arrest his cousin, Jim Norris, who was charged with the murder of James Henderson. But the worst delinquent was the State’s Attorney, J. D. F. Jennings. According to Erwin, who doubtless wrote with prejudice, this worthy was “a professional doctor, lawyer, preacher, fiddler, horn-blower and libertine” and thoroughgoing hypocrite. “He was a rowdy among the rowdies, pious among the pious, Godless among the Godless, and a spooney among the women.” But he could preach a sermon so persuasively that his hearers would still be shaking with remorse while he himself was gleefully drunk. His performance as a law-enforcement officer was on a par with his activities in the pulpit.

No wonder that a reporter for the
St. Louis Democrat
, writing a long account of the Vendetta a few weeks after the assault on Sisney, concluded: “As far as the officers of the law are concerned as to making arrests and prosecuting criminals, Williamson County might as well be without them.”

The people of Illinois were coming to the same conclusion. If the local authorities could not be depended upon, then the time had come for the state government to act. In January 1875, soon after the General Assembly convened for its biennial session, a member introduced a bill directing the governor to take such action as he might find necessary to secure the arrest and conviction of the Williamson County outlaws, and authorizing him to spend ten thousand dollars for that purpose. Stubborn opposition developed. “The feeling seems strong,” a correspondent wrote from Springfield “… that the proper thing is to leave the Williamson County murderers to go on killing each other till they are all exterminated.” A sharp communication from the governor, and a petition from the sheriff, treasurer, county clerk, and leading citizens of Williamson County kept
the bill alive, but its opponents succeeded in reducing the appropriation from ten thousand to three thousand dollars. Thus amended, it passed the House, but too late for the Senate to act upon it. The movement to obtain state aid served only to publicize the county’s shame.

While the legislators wrangled over the relief bill, Jennings, the State’s Attorney, disappeared, taking with him nine hundred dollars of public money. Soon afterward the office was declared vacant. At a special election in June, J. W. Hartwell, an able young lawyer and a man of courage, was elected to it.

During the first half of 1875 a few minor disorders were the only evidence that the Vendetta persisted. Then the feud blazed again. Once more the victim was George W. Sisney, and this time luck favored the assassin.

The circumstances were almost identical with those which had prevailed a few months earlier. On the night of July 28 Sisney retired early. About nine o’clock a friend knocked on his door. The man needed money and wanted Sisney to endorse his note. The ex-sheriff came downstairs, lighted a lamp, signed the note, and then sat and talked with his visitor before an open window until the blast of a shotgun ended the conversation. “As soon as we heard the shot,” a neighbor said, “we knew that George Sisney was killed; everybody knew it would be Sisney’s turn next.” A crowd gathered. Inside the darkened house the hysterical sobs of women could be heard. Someone battered in the front door. Sisney, still erect in his chair, had a gaping hole in his chest. He was dead.

They took his body to Crainville for burial. On the day after the funeral service, several of his friends gathered in the store of William Spence, the principal merchant of the village. As they talked, Spence lost his Scotch taciturnity long enough to remark that if he told what he knew, someone would suffer for Sisney’s murder. And, he added, they should.

The next morning Spence was found dead in his store, a shotgun wound in his body and pistol holes in his head and
chest. Neighbors admitted that they had heard shots during the night, but none had been bold enough to investigate.

Two murders in quick succession shocked the people of the state as no previous killings in the Vendetta had done. Four days after the murder of Spence Governor Beveridge wrote a stern letter to the sheriff of Williamson County: “The State’s Attorney must prosecute; grand juries must indict; witnesses must testify; courts and juries must try; and the Sheriff must execute the orders of the court.” He had no funds with which to ferret out local criminals, he added, nor could he act unless called upon by the county authorities. He could, however, authorize the enrolling and equipping of local militia. But the law, he explained to a newspaper reporter, only allowed him to offer a reward of two hundred dollars, which would be a farce under the circumstances. The county officials, through whom he had to act, had not yet notified him of their inability to enforce the laws.

To many people over the state, the governor’s attitude was inexcusably pusillanimous. From Cairo and St. Louis to Chicago, editors attacked the chief executive’s supineness. What Williamson County needed was a hangman, with a governor in Springfield courageous enough to give him something to do.… The entire state was being disgraced by the lawlessness of a single county, and it was the governor’s responsibility to find a way to restore order.… “This Williamson County business marks a black page on the annals of Illinois, and by the honor and power of the State there should be no more of it.…” “Let the Governor take a hand: the people will sustain him in driving out the ruffians.…” “Why does he not offer rewards for the apprehension of the Williamson assassins? What reward does he expect for his neglect of duty in this matter? Who can explain his conduct?”

This deluge of criticism had its effect. The Williamson County Commissioners offered rewards of one thousand dollars each for the arrest of the murderers of David Bulliner, James Henderson,
Vincent Hinchcliff, and William Spence. And Governor Beveridge, suddenly discovering that he had more money at his disposal than he had at first supposed, offered additional rewards of four hundred dollars each for the arrest and conviction of the murderers of these men, and a like amount for the arrest and conviction of the killers of George W. Sisney and George Bulliner. Shortly afterward the Jackson County Court offered rewards of four hundred dollars for the murderers of Sisney and George Bulliner, both of whom had been killed within its jurisdiction.

Nothing more was needed. A woman, to whom one of the killers had talked too freely, told her brother that she knew who had murdered William Spence. The brother decided that Benjamin F. Lowe of Marion—a former town marshal who had turned professional gambler—was the man to turn justice into a profit. Lowe agreed, and undertook to bring about the arrest of the murderers.

In less than a month he arrested a ne’er-do-well named Samuel Music at the post office in Cairo. The suspect had lived in the western part of Williamson County for seven or eight years, making a meager living as a teamster. He was illiterate and a drunkard. And he was the man who had gabbled about the killing of William Spence.