One of the most infamous conflicts in Texas history did not end with the Civil War. It ignited in the northeastern corner of the state and continued for years after the rest of the country had laid down its arms. The Lee-Peacock feud erupted in a dense, brushy area known as Wild Cat Thicket, where Grayson, Fannin, Hunt, and Collin counties meet. This vast expanse of trees, tall grass, and thorny shrubs had long served as a hideout for deserters and outlaws during the war.
At the northern edge of this thicket lived Daniel W. Lee, who raised his son, Bob Lee. When war broke out, Bob Lee enlisted in the Confederate army despite being married with three children. He served in the Ninth Texas Cavalry alongside other young men from the region, including the Maddox brothers and several members of the Bourne family.
As the war neared its end, word reached the soldiers that their home region had become unsettled. A Unionist organization called the Union League had established itself in Pilot Grove, only about seven miles from the Lee family home. The league was led by Lewis Peacock, who had arrived in Texas in 1856 and lived just south of Pilot Grove. During the war, Confederate residents had persecuted Union sympathizers.
But as Union forces prevailed, the balance of power shifted. The Union League grew stronger, and federal troops were dispatched to Texas to assist with Reconstruction. When Confederate soldiers returned home, they found a region already torn by sharp divisions. Most residents resented the imposition of Reconstruction and its new laws, whether or not they had owned slaves.
Bob Lee returned to a reputation as a natural leader for those who continued to resist. Peacock viewed Lee as a threat to his cause and to the Reconstruction effort itself. The Union League planned to extort money from Lee to neutralize him. One night, Peacock and his men arrested Lee at his home, claiming he had committed crimes during the war.
Lee later identified his captors as Lewis Peacock, James Maddox, Bill Smith, Sam Burr, Hardy Dale, Doc Wilson, and Israel Bourne. They told Lee he would be taken to Sherman. But at Choctaw Creek Bottoms, they stopped and robbed him of his watch and a twenty-dollar gold piece. They forced him to sign a promissory note for two thousand dollars.
The Lee family refused to pay. They filed a lawsuit in Bonham, Texas, and won the case. That legal victory set off a full-scale war that became known as the Lee-Peacock feud. Both men gathered friends and supporters.
From 1867 until June 1869, a second civil war raged in northeastern Texas, claiming the lives of an estimated fifty men. By the summer of 1868, the conflict had escalated so severely that the Union League requested federal assistance. General J. J.
Reynolds responded by placing a one-thousand-dollar bounty on Bob Lee’s capture. In late February 1867, Lee encountered James Maddox, one of his abductors, at a store in Pilot Grove. Lee confronted Maddox and offered him a weapon so they could fight. As Lee turned to leave, a bullet grazed his ear and head, and he collapsed unconscious.
Lee was taken to Dr. William H. Peirce, who treated him at his home. A report was sent to Austin, the seat of the Fifth Military District under General Reynolds.
On February 24, 1867, while Lee was still recovering at the doctor’s house, Hugh Hudson, a known Peacock follower, shot and killed Dr. Peirce. Lee swore revenge for the doctor’s death. As news spread, neighbors across the Four Corners thicket began arming themselves.
Hudson was later shot and killed in Saltyo, a stage stop on the road to Jefferson. The feud was now in full force. Throughout 1868, violence mounted. Lee Clark, Billy Dixon, Da Nance, Dan Sanders, Elijah Clark, and John Baldock were killed, and many others were wounded.
Even Peacock was wounded by Lee’s followers. On August 27, 1868, General Reynolds issued the one-thousand-dollar reward for Bob Lee’s capture, dead or alive. The offer drew bounty hunters from across the country to the Four Corners region. Three such men, Union supporters from Kansas, arrived in the area in the early spring of 1869 to attempt Lee’s capture.
Instead, the three were found dead on the road. Meanwhile, Bob Lee had established a hideout in the Wild Cat Thicket. General Reynolds responded by sending the Fourth United States Cavalry to search for Lee and settle the unrest. As they conducted house-to-house searches, several gun battles broke out and more men were killed.
In the end, a Peacock supporter named Henry Bourne betrayed Lee and turned him over to the cavalry troopers. Lee was shot and killed on May 24, 1869. Bourne was later killed by his own nephew, Bill Bourne, a Lee sympathizer who felt the traitor had to be eliminated. After killing his uncle, Bill Bourne left the region and began riding with John Wesley Hardin.
As Texas authorities had hoped, Lee’s death began to break up the feuding factions. Many of their members scattered to other parts of the state. Yet despite their dwindling numbers, the conflict continued for another two years, with more men killed in the Four Corners area and elsewhere.
The hostility did not truly end until Lewis Peacock was shot and killed on June 13, 1871.