By Wilton Hudgens 22nd May 2021
Growing up in the Big Thicket of East Texas, I wandered the woodland areas for miles experiencing a natural world full of beauty and sights that many will not know in their lifetimes. It was peaceful, serene and completely absent of other humans mostly. I never imagined that one of the greatest rangers of the 19th century had also traveled through those same areas. During the beginning of the North American Civil War, a man named D. E. Haynes would incur local wrath by setting about to raise a Unionist company of men in the thicket. After reading an article online written by Greggory E. Davies (retired law officer and local historian in Winn Parish), I would begin my own search for D. E. Haynes.
According to records, Dennis Edmond Haynes was born in Ireland sometime between 1815 and 1819 or so. He appears in Lee County, Georgia by 1850 listed as a Grocer with a wife (Betsey) and three children (William, Patrick and Mary). The 1860 US Federal Census shows Dennis’ family without him first in Tyler County, Texas and then later with him in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. The reason for this was that Haynes had become a hunted man with a price on his head after attempting to raise a Unionist company of men in the Big Thicket of East Texas; some of these men had family back in Jones County, Mississippi who would also fight back against the C.S.A. from within. After having fled quickly back into Louisiana, Dennis passed himself off as a Confederate supporter and even exchanged properties with a man around Ten Mile and the Stanley District by the name of James “Austin” Presswood who was a secessionist and odd-man-out where he lived.
Haynes and his oldest son, William, were captured by Confederates in October 1863 after having been betrayed by Mr. Presswood’s letter to a former friend back home relating how Haynes had a $500 bounty on him back in Texas for being a Unionist. William was let go at Hineston after Dennis had shown proof that his son wouldn’t be eighteen years of age until January. Haynes was to be taken before General Kirby Smith at Shreveport on the charge of high treason. Meanwhile, William had been recaptured and threatened by Bloody Bob Martin. After the Confederates lost interest, William was freed a second time and had to walk home about fifty miles distance.
On the 3rd November 1863, after leaving Many, Haynes and another prisoner from Avoyelles dug out of a smoke house they were being held in for the night. Haynes lost Lee in their escape and made his way back southeastward encountering Confederate forces all along the way. He’d concocted a story of being from around Spanish Lake and visiting family near Calcasieu which seemed widely accepted until he accidentally crossed the field of Archie Smith and being recognized was shot. Haynes was recaptured and taken back to Hineston. After the majority of the Confederates present their would not vote in favor of shooting him, Bloody Bob Martin was sent for to execute him. The day before Martin’s arrival, Haynes made his escape aided by a Mrs. Boyd, the Cloud family and other Union men hiding in the woods. He would then embark on another epic journey through the swamps and woodlands in an effort to join find famous Unionist named Ozeme Carriere who’d developed a force of resistance against the Confederacy in the Opelousas District. More adventures would follow with Dennis being betrayed yet again and held for most of a month in South Louisiana before fooling the Confederates into releasing him and making his way to New Orleans.
In March of 1864, Haynes wrote to Generals Charles P. Stone and Nathaniel P. Banks requesting permission to raise a company of Union Scouts in Louisiana. Gov. James Madison Wells made an introduction to Banks and even requested that Haynes be allowed to keep Banks’ autograph; Wells was from a prominent family in Rapides Parish and had been the leader of the so-called “Jayhawkers” there before Lee’s surrender and became a much hated man among the local Confederate citizens as did Haynes.
In Dennis’ letter to General Charles P. Stone, he refers to being a veteran of both the Florida Wars (Creek Wars) and the Nicaragua War. It may be that Haynes was immediately involved in warfare at a young age upon entering the United States. There is scarce information regarding his childhood, thus it is possible that he began his ranger training during the Creek War which lasted many years and was very brutal. Between Florida and Nicaragua, Haynes would have become intimate with guerilla warfare and living on the run.
The Nicaragua War was a series of several ill-fated missions led by Tennessean William Walker in order to overthrow the government. Haynes had been present at the siege of Nicaragua 1854. It is notable in the Walker story that, after the first mission in which the Nicaraguan government had been overthrown, slavery (which had been abolished there) was reestablished and Walker self-declared as president. Eventually, Walker was run out of Nicaragua. He would lead two more missions to reinstate his control. The last mission to Nicaragua left almost no survivors and saw the execution of William Walker by the local authorities in Honduras. It is quite a feat that Haynes lived through it all.
Around the time Haynes wrote to General Stone, General Nathaniel P. Banks lead Union forces up the Red River in Louisiana to strike at the heart of the Confederacy in Shreveport. Things wouldn’t turn out in his favor. He would eventually, after his retreat back down the Red River from Mansfield and Grand Ecore, swear in Dennis E. Haynes as a ranking officer on 22nd April 1864 along with others as official Union Army Scouts at Alexandria, Louisiana; Haynes was the captain of Co. B, 1st Battalion Louisiana Cavalry Scouts. Banks and company then moved on southward in May. Before reaching New Orleans, Haynes fell dangerously ill with Typhoid at Simmesport. He was later honorably discharged 29th June 1864.
Haynes’ wife and one of his children died following local hostilities and conditions of the War from 1863 to 1864. His remaining children were with him and mostly homeless during the mid 1860s. Haynes’ property had been reduced to ash by Bloody Bob Martin and his men. The children were sick and starving much of the time between 1865 and 1866 as Haynes sought work teaching school near Sugar Town and the border areas of Calcasieu and Rapides Parishes. Many Unionist men had been hunted with dogs and murdered here in the swamps and their homes.
Dennis was staying in New Orleans briefly on the charity of a friend employed at the Customs House when the 1866 New Orleans Massacre occurred during the Constitutional Convention called for by the Republican Party. There was a massive conspiracy of Confederate supporters in which approximately half of the police force turned on the citizens leaving many dead. It was an absolute act of terrorism and war that was largely downplayed by the US Federal Government. Again, Haynes survived while on the streets at ground zero in the middle of the murder and mayhem.
April of 1868 saw Haynes in the eye of another storm during election times in St. Helena Parish where he was running on the Republican ticket for the office of Parish Recorder. The rebels searched houses for days in order to find Dennis and kill him. After hiding on the run and inn the forest, Haynes made his way into Pike County, Mississippi to Osyka where he was able to board a train for New Orleans. Other Republican candidates for offices in St. Helena Parish had also been politely warned to leave the vicinity. Haynes would again be in the wind.
Dennis also had the distinction during this time of suing for a violation of his civil rights by J. W. Texada and winning in the US District Court in June 1868; he had been savagely beaten by Texada and a group of other men in the streets of Alexandria after finding his home burned by “Bloody Bob” Martin. Having an arm and shoulder compromised from previously being caged by rebels, escaping and being shot, the assault left him even more disabled requiring more recovery time than would have been needed normally. There was a great deal of animosity between Haynes and some of the citizens of Rapides Parish as they must have felt betrayed by him. In the aftermath of Lee’s surrender, Haynes was harassed and even arrested by local authorities for theft of bed clothes in one case.
In 1870, Dennis was living in Winn Parish at the home of Ohio-born John Murphy Long and employed as a school teacher for Long’s children; Long’s grandson Huey P. Would later become one of Louisiana’s most famous governors. Haynes was also president of the sub-executive committee of the Winn Parish Republican Party until his resignation in October 1871. There was a Post Master position also given him though he would keep it for only a week.
By this time, Haynes’ sons had moved on with their lives and would wind up back in East Texas by the late 1800s. Patrick Haynes applied for Union Veterans’ Pension there in Texas and was buried at Franks Branch Cemetery in Fred when he died. Dennis’ son Benjamin Franklin Haynes would move on from Tyler County, Texas to Roswell, New Mexico with his family.
D. E. Haynes became somewhat of a mystery for me as he seems to drop off the face of the earth after the 1870s. In my search, I kept seeing a reference slip for his Southern Claims Commission Application but not an actual file. There was no problem locating the file for another captain of the Union Cavalry Scouts (Albert Hawthorn) which contained 80-plus pages of valuable information from the time and also a sworn affidavit by Capt. Dennis E. Haynes. The older Georgia-born Albert Hawthorn was a Southern Unionist and very outspoken against the Confederacy and suffered for it; he and his school teacher son had also been arrested by Confederates like Haynes and his sons had been. Albert spoke out against the C. S. A. every chance he got.
After many telephone calls to the National Archive in Washington D. C., the Southern Claims Commission Application for Haynes was located. It had been sent to the courts on appeal and never returned to its proper location as is the fate of many documents it turns out. Dennis was denied and never granted the compensation he asked for. His son Patrick is listed as a witness in the file while residing near Town Bluff, Texas which had once been known as "The Natchez on the Neches.".
Between Haynes’ and Albert Hawthorn’s Southern Claims Applications, quite an interesting scene was painted of the US Cavalry Scouts following the Battle of Yellow Bayou. After they reached New Orleans, they were made to surrender their arms which were also said to have been thrown into a bayou. It’s easy too see how many of those men who had risked and lost so much to fight the enemies of the U. S. Federal Government in a hostile land began to rethink their position.
The final mention of Dennis E. Haynes that I’ve seen was 7th September, 1876 in the Louisiana Sugar-Bowl in New Iberia, Louisiana. It stated, “Mr. D. E. Haynes, an aged and invalid school teacher, and a member of Nicholls Wide-Awake Club, having lately deserted the Radicals, informs us that the notorious Belden last Monday threatened to cow-hide him because he was exposing the latter’s rascality. We are sure Mr. Haynes will be protected in his good work.” My discovery of this brief commentary was significant as I’d seen no mention of Haynes past 1874 and have no idea where he eventually died or how.
It is quite possible and likely that Haynes had, through his many terrible experiences during the War, become bitter. How could anyone not be? His feeling of hopelessness had already been previously communicated in his letters to Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan on the 25th of May 1866 where he states “...I went to Alexandria to try to obtain counsel to sue for damages and prosecute the rebels who injured me. I could not obtain the services of any lawyer. No Union man would dare take case against them...I was violently beaten by...Joseph Texada, encouraged by the presence of others, and were it not for a friend I would have been murdered...I have lost my wife and child. I have lost everything at the hands of the enemy, and unless I can have some redress against those enemies to the U. S. Government, I cannot support myself and five children...” and 4th of August 1866, “...Judge Kellog’s appointing rebels to office forever shut the doors of the Collector’s office in my face. J. M. Wells, Naval officer, told me I need not go in the Collector’s office unless on official business...I am now...dependent on the bounty of a poor employee in the Custom House for the following week’s board - I have five children in Texas, the oldest boy an invalid from sickness contracted in the U. S. Army and three small children without a mother, and I past the Meridian of life without a possession or employment. In my loyalty to the U. S. Government I risked all and lost all and suffered...for being thus true to the old flag...I lost the respect and esteem of a people among whom I lived during the past twenty nine years for they would ten times sooner forgive a Northern Man than what they call a ‘Southern Yankee.’”
Haynes managed to make it through the US war on the Creek Nation, William Walker’s repeated attempts to overthrow and maintain control of the government of Nicaragua and living behind enemy lines as a southern Unionist in the North American Civil War. He was captured, shot and beaten multiple times during the Civil War and even hunted by the notorious Capt. David Crockett Paul (Rapides Parish Sheriff and Klansman) who was part of a special Confederate unit that hunted deserters and led about a third of the men responsible for the Colfax Massacre in 1873. By 1866, Dennis wrote and published the account of his own war-time adventures and even sold it as far away as Washington, D. C.; this account was republished by the late Dr. Arthur Bergeron and University of Arkansas Press.
The man is certainly a mysterious figure and quite a contradiction in character; though Haynes was well educated and a devout advocate of liberty and justice, he seemed in thought and sometimes verbally a racist. Much of Haynes’ survival has been attributed to his Masonic ties though it has crossed my mind that he may have been an undercover agent or spy operating in the employee of some unknown party.
The late Capt. D. E. Haynes saw and personally experienced the betrayal of the people of the United States by both the Confederacy and the Federal Government during the Civil War. We may never know the full story behind the hardened, Irish-born school teacher turned soldier. To have survived through so much is a terrible and awe inspiring thing. “The evils which men do live after them, The good is often buried with their bones.” -Dennis E. Haynes
Sources: “Belden as an Intimidator.” The Louisiana Sugar-Bowl (New Iberia, Louisiana), Thursday, 7 Sep 1876, p.2. Newspapers. https://www.newspapers.com/image/333121796. Accessed 2 May 2021.
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Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "William Walker." Encyclopedia Britannica, Invalid Date. https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Walker. Accessed 20 May 2021.
Davies, Greggory E. “The Search for Dennis Haynes, Winn Parish, LA.” The USGenWeb Project, Louisiana Archives, Winn Parish History Records. Reprinted from Legacies and Legends (Quarterly Publication of the Winn Parish Genealogy Society). http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/winn/history/haynes.txt. Accessed sometime around April 2013.
Haynes, D. E. (7 Mar. 1864). Letter to Gen. C. P. Stone. Union Provost Marshals’ File Of Paper Relating To Individual Citizens, D. C. Haynes, pp.1-3. The National Archives, n.M345. NARA 1967. Fold3 2011, Job 11-044. NARA Catalogue ID: 2133278, Papers Relating to Citizens Compiled 1861-1867. Record Group: 109. Roll: 0122. Fold3.com. https://www.fold3.com/image/286864614. Accessed 6 Jan. 2014.
Haynes, D. E. (17 Nov. 1865). Letter to Maj. Gen. E. R. S. Canby. Union Provost Marshals’ File Of Paper Relating To Individual Citizens, D. L. Haynes, pp.1-6. The National Archives, n.M345. NARA 1967. Fold3 2011, Job 11-044. NARA Catalogue ID: 2133278, Papers Relating to Citizens Compiled 1861-1867. Record Group: 109. Roll: 0122. Fold3.com. https://www.fold3.com/image/286864628. Accessed 6 Jan. 2014.
Haynes, D. E. (25 May 1866). Letter to Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan. Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Louisiana, First Battalion, Cavalry Scouts, D. E. Haynes, pp.15-17. The National Archives, n.M396. NARA 300398. Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Volunteer Organizations During the American Civil War, compiled 1890 - 1912, documenting the period 1861 - 1866. Fold3 2010, Job 10-020. Record Group: 94. Roll: 011. Fold3.com. https://www.fold3.com/image/260405258. Accessed 6 Jan. 2014.
Haynes, D. E. (4 Aug. 1866). Letter to Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan. Union Provost Marshals’ File Of Paper Relating To Individual Citizens, D. E. Haynes, pp.1-3. The National Archives, n.M345. NARA 1967. Fold3 2011, Job 11-044. NARA Catalogue ID: 2133278, Papers Relating to Citizens Compiled 1861-1867. Record Group: 109. Roll: 0122. Fold3.com. https://www.fold3.com/image/286864621. Accessed 6 Jan. 2014.
Haynes, Dennis E. A Thrilling Narrative of the Sufferings of Union Refugees, Massacre of the Martyrs of Liberty of Western Louisiana: Together with a Brief Sketch of the Present Political Status of Louisiana, as to her Unfitness for Admission into the Union. Letters to the Governor of Louisiana and Noted Secessionists in That State, and a Letter to President Johnson on Reconstruction. Washington, D. C.: McGill & Witherow, Printers and Stereotypes, 1866. Internet Archive. 16 June 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. <http:// archive.org/ details/ thrilling narrati 00hayn>. Accessed 20 May 2021.
Haynes, Dennis E. 2018. A Thrilling Narrative of the Suffering of the Union Refugees. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:101:1-2019031521041165753614.
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Lane, Charles. 2008. The day freedom died: the Colfax massacre, the Supreme Court, and the betrayal of Reconstruction. New York: Henry Holt and Co.
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Dennis Edmund Haynes was my GGG Grandfather, Emma Lee (Haynes) Block.