Guest post by Gary
In
1967, scholar James Frederick Willis, a native of Heber Springs, Arkansas,
described an event termed the ‘Cleburne County Draft War’ as being the occasion
“when over 200 possemen and soldiers with two machine guns attempted to subdue
8 Russellites.”(1) It has remained the classic review of the event ever since. So,
what happened and how accurate a description is this?
Using
primarily newspaper reports from the time, Willis related that on Saturday,
July 6, 1918, Sheriff Jasper Duke, from Heber Springs, Arkansas, and two fellow
officers, including Bill Bice, prepared to raid several addresses between
Rosebud (White County) and Pearson (Cleburne County) so as to capture five ‘slackers’.
Dr S.A. Turner and Porter Hazelwood were also persuaded to join the posse with
the Sheriff suggesting, “I’ll get you a gun. There’s $50 a piece in it for each
of us. I’ll divide the spoils with you.”
Unsuccessful
visits were made by the five-man posse late that night in searches for various
men but on Sunday morning, just before sunrise, they sneaked up on the
farm home of the 58-year-old Tom Adkisson’s family, slipping into a barn under
cover of darkness. As we now know, Adkisson’s younger son, 24-year-old Charley
Bliss, had registered for the draft claiming exemption as an International
Bible Student and was called up to Camp Pike some months earlier, but failed to
arrive. He and his brother-in-law, Leo Martin, both gave incomplete
addresses on their draft cards, suggesting perhaps, that if they were to be
conscripted the authorities would have to come and find them, which -
eventually - is precisely what happened! (2)
Usually
when enlisted Bible Students from cities and major towns failed to report to
army camps, shortly afterward they received a polite visit at their home from a
local policeman and amicably accepted their inevitable arrest before being
taken to camp where, if they resisted further, they received court martial
under the charge of desertion. But in Cleburne County, Arkansas, they did
things differently.
Willis
acknowledges that conflicting accounts exist as to precisely what happened
next. Whether the Adkisson family knew who the visitors were and why they
had chosen to arrive at such an ungodly hour is debateable. Suffice to say that
in the twilight someone fired a shot, gunfire was briefly exchanged, Porter
Hazelwood was badly injured, and the posse hurriedly fled. Hardy Richmond
Adkisson, Bliss’ older brother, found Hazelwood and the family arranged for him
to be moved and cared for at a neighbor’s house. A doctor was called for, but
sadly Hazelwood died later that afternoon.
Meanwhile,
the Sheriff’s party had returned in haste to Heber Springs with news of the
incident. Unsurprisingly, it drove the townsfolk into a state of frenzy and
within a short space of time twenty-five men carrying rifles were recruited
from here, Searcy, Pearson, and Quitman to return to the Adkisson farm and
bring in the ‘slackers’ by force.
According
to various newspaper reports, between the two visits Tom had invited other young
men from the area who were known to be sympathetic to his position to show
their support. When the second posse returned, it is said that some of
these young men were in the house, while others were perched with guns in
defensive positions in tree-tops or hidden in the underbrush. Further
that both sides engaged fire for forty-five minutes before the Adkisson
party somehow slipped away into the forest, allegedly setting the underbrush
afire behind them to block pursuit.
Gathering
more volunteers, including Sheriffs from neighboring counties and bloodhounds,
the posse blitzed through the countryside without ever locating the Adkisson
‘gang’. With popular imagination running riot, local towns panicked as
rumors circulated that a large “band” of desperate armed deserters would soon
attack. By now, in addition to Tom Adkisson there were only eight men being
searched for and their interests were only to defend themselves rather than to
attack others. Also, it is questionable too whether they were all together at
the time of the visit of the second posse to the Adkisson place. Even so, the
local authorities called for more help so that by Monday, July 8, thirty
men from the Fourth Arkansas Infantry, National Guard, arrived in Heber
Springs, bringing with them two machine guns.
For the
next few days, the National Guard and the local forces scoured the countryside
searching for the men without success. Meanwhile, several of the men’s families
and friends were rounded up in a local hotel with a local Bible Student
preacher, who was said to have stirred the sedition, and his family. Some
of these were threatened with lynching, and their food supplies were
confiscated to ensure that nothing could be passed to those on the run.
Effectively, if these could not be found they were to be starved into
submission.
By Saturday,
July 13, when the National Guard returned its machine guns back to Little Rock,
all the resistors, who were hiding in different locations, had surrendered.
Significantly, each turned themselves in to the authorities from neighboring
regions so as to avoid retribution from the posse from their own county. As Tom
Adkisson put it, “A band of men around Heber Springs … were trying to do us
harm, and that is the reason we would not surrender up there.”
As one
might expect, since the event followed the national ban on the distribution of
the book The Finished Mystery and the recent imprisonment of
Joseph F. Rutherford and his fellow IBSA directors under charges of sedition,
it was open season on verbally attacking Bible Students. It is no wonder
then that, in the aftermath, the local newspapers blamed the Russellites’
resistance on their religion, their isolation, and their ignorance. In
particular, the Arkansas newspapers homed in on the local Bible Student
minister, TH Osborne, who it implied had misled these simple country folk into
a course of sedition. A doomsday scenario was even conjured up suggesting
that since these millennialists believed themselves living near the time of
Armageddon, surely they were planning on fighting their way through it all to
the bitter end, weren’t they? All entertaining to read, of course, but though
neither Willis nor the newspapers of 1918 might not have known it, this was not
in any way reminiscent of early Bible teachings which instructed adherents to
respect the superior authorities (Romans 13:1-7) and that “Ye shall not need to
fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of
the LORD.” (2 Chronicles 20:17) At no point were Bible Students instructed
ever to become involved in armed warfare, since they believed “the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal” but spiritual. (2 Corinthians 10:4) Besides only
Almighty God Jehovah himself would bring Armageddon and, in so doing, would
certainly not need the assistance of puny men, with or without guns.(3)
At the
trial that followed, the Adkisson’s vehemently denied firing the first shot and
claimed their actions were motivated not out of millennialist zeal, but purely
from a need for self-defense. Naively they had anticipated their explanation of
events would be substantiated by the Sheriff’s deputy, Bill Bice. However, to
their dismay, for whatever reason Bice failed to appear in Court. As the case
for their defense floundered, Tom Adkisson was sentenced to serve two years for
voluntary manslaughter, while his son Bliss was sentenced to twenty years
imprisonment after having been found guilty of second-degree murder. (4) A
later report located recently from the Newport Daily Independent, Arkansas,
dated Saturday, January 11, 1919, p1, added that “four of them, Leo Martin, Lon
Penrod and two of the Blakeleys were sent to the federal penitentiary at
Leavenworth for five years.”(5) Evidently these, alongside Bliss Adkisson, were
the five ‘slackers’ the local posse initially searched for.
In a
commendable summary, Willis concluded that if the Bible Students “panicked,
thus betraying, perhaps unknowingly, their own beliefs, the
solid-citizen-patriots blatantly desired a bloody sacrifice to their offended
patriotism and blindly violated portions of the national ideal which they
proudly purported to defend.” In the end, therefore, neither side came
out with any glory.(6)
But is
this the end of the story? Most of what Willis recorded came from the
local newspapers of the time, yet how reliable were these? For one thing
the newspapers frequently misspelt the names of several men, as did Willis in
turn. The two Blakeley brothers were actually the Blakey brothers, Jesse
and Lum, whose full names were Jesse Fountain Blakey and Christopher Columbus
Blakey. Additionally, Lon Penrod was John Penrod! Further, the IBSA
preacher TH Osborne was Thomas Houston Ausburn. Worse still, in their hurry to
report the events the papers played fast and loose with the facts by ‘joining
the dots’ and making assumptions. For instance, one report bizarrely
speculated that three members of the gang had already received military
induction before deserting camp and returning home carrying their army
rifles!(7) The New York Times erroneously claimed the incident had
ended on July 8, since Tom Adkisson had been killed and all the remaining
men had been captured. (8) Another report suggested that an illegal alcohol
still was found in searches of his house following the visit of the second
posse.(9) Each of these misrepresents the men by conjuring up a ‘gang’ of
intoxicated and dangerous desperadoes on the run, presumably intent on causing
mayhem to whoever crossed their path. A few reports said that the second posse
discovered a ‘food hoard’ at the Adkisson farm which the posse impounded and
distributed to the army. This may well be true, since prior to American
involvement in the war, Pastor Russell had encouraged prudent Bible Students to
collect for a possible ‘day of distress’ so as to share with others in
need.(10) Unsurprisingly, as if to prove their sedition, the papers made much
of the fact that searchers found a copy of the book The Finished
Mystery at the Adkisson home, although possession, as opposed to
distribution, was not in itself an offense. Consequently, The
Pulaskian newspaper carried the front-page headline ‘Russellite Books
Cause Sedition’ with the shocking subheading stating that the ‘Finished Mystery
is read by all those who sought to resist draught and defied officers in
Cleburne’. It quoted Major Brandon, who had arrived to supervise the
search, as saying that “we are convinced that the young men acted in compliance
with instructions issued by ministers of the Russellite faith. They
advised the men to register, but not to report or don the uniform of the
United States. If the Russellite faith is not suppressed, it should be
immediately.” The newspapers made much of the fact that women from the
respective families of those on the run had been used in trying to contact the
men and convince them of the need to surrender. One even provided a cartoon
making jest of the situation. (11)
No
official account exists to explain what happened from a Bible Student
perspective. Yet is so uncharacteristic of early Bible Student thought and
actions that it seems inevitable that more must be involved to this account
than has been popularly remembered.
Time
for a remake?
Given that
Willis didn’t have access to Ancestry records as do modern researchers, and
that he had limited access to Bible Student records, he relied heavily on the
newspapers of 1918 and the court record to compile his account. In fairness he
tried his best to produce a balanced account though the evidence he sifted was
itself inevitably lop-sided. As a result, he seemed to side with the seemingly
inevitable conclusion of the time that Russellism was the cause of the whole
misery. I believe, however, that if Willis told the story today and tapped
into the right sources he would likely change much.
Scanning
newspapers of the time one can find an article, for instance, which hints at a
slightly different scenario to that recalled by Willis and popularly
received.(12) It again implicated the local Russellite preacher, which this
time it correctly named as Houston Ausburn, and who it said had “imbedded” in
to Tom Adkisson’s mind the Russellite message to such an extent that “he does
not believe in war of any kind.” Adkisson is quoted as having said that Ausburn
was one of the finest men he ever knew and “he preaches the whole truth, I
believe.” Interestingly for what will follow, it also said that Adkisson and
Ausburn had shared a crop for the last two years. However, importantly it
commented:
‘Although
Tom Adkisson would not discuss the gun fight at his home Sunday morning,
July 7, Bliss said today that the gang had heard after they were in the woods
that the officers of White, Faulkner and Cleburne counties had planned to raid
the Adkisson home Monday morning, but the Cleburne County Sheriff, Bliss
said, decided to capture them on Sunday.’ They refused to talk about the
shooting, however, except to say that when the posse of about 25 men returned
after the shooting of Hazelwood, the men were in the field and the posse began
shooting at the house. The women told them to come in and search the house,
Adkisson said, but they refused, cursing the women, he said. The men then came
out of the field and the second battle began. After the battle the men kept to
the woods all of the time.’
Two
things come out from the report. Firstly, the assertion that a joint approach
was to have been made to collect the ‘slackers’ but that the local Sheriff
hurriedly seized the opportunity to take the men and credit for himself.
Secondly, that “the men were in the field” when the second posse of twenty-five
men arrived. We may not be able to ascertain the accuracy of the first claim,
but the second claim presents a very different scenario than that popularly
received. Whereas earlier newspaper accounts had it that the Adkisson’s had
mobilised support and were ready and waiting for the return of a larger posse,
the account attributed to Bliss shows the men in the fields, unprepared, and
only eventually returning toward the house with the intention of protecting
their kin. The Adkisson account, if one is inclined to accept it, offers a more
likely explanation of how the men were able to escape from the posse. It
suggests they attempted to return to the house, came under considerable fire
and thereafter were forced to retreat in haste. This seems a more likely
scenario since had some of the Adkisson contingent, perhaps only a few men,
been in the house when the second posse arrived it would be difficult to
imagine how any of these could possibly have outmanoeuvred a twenty-five men
posse to escape unscathed to the fields.
At this
point, I introduce a further piece of evidence that is over 100 years old but
that Willis likely would not have had at his disposal. The St. Paul Enterprise, an
unofficial Bible Student paper, contained a letter from IBSA travelling
minister M.L. Herr in May 1919, about a Brother TH Ausburn from Rosebud,
Arkansas, who Herr credits being privileged to visit since he learned “by
actual fellowship the depth of the Divine Spirit that dwells in this
consecrated heart.”(13)
Herr
goes on to talk of the way that, in contrast with the St. Paul
Enterprise, “worldly newspapers, controlled by Satan and his spirit of
lying, accomplish Satan’s purpose.”
The
letter explains Ausburn’s background. We are told for instance, that “for
14 years Brother Ausburn was an earnest young minister in the Baptist church in
the rural district. In 1914 he met a Photo-Drama operator, Claude Stambough,
who interested him “in present truth”. The letter says that Ausburn
“acted promptly leaving all to follow Jesus. It cost him something.” Herr
explained that Ausburn had a wife and six children to look after but left the
comfort of the Baptist ministry to humbly accept “an opening to raise cotton
and do lumbering 12 miles from the railway on the mountain-side.”
In the
next paragraph, Herr touches on the Cleburne draft incident as he explains:
‘During
the war, ignorant mountaineers refused registration and others drafted refused
to respond. The enemies of the Truth and Brother Ausburn saw their opportunity
and perceiving the winds of bitterness and hatred favorable they filled the
newspapers with lying reports of the influence of a Russellite preacher who was
back of the ‘slackers.’ In the accounts these ‘slackers’ numbered hundreds, but
when facts were obtained the number shrank to five for whose foolish action,
subsequently abandoned, it was amply proven Brother Ausburn was in no sense
responsible. A mob with disguise of law wantonly destroyed provisions and
property. I am told: the losses aggregating $500. The sum becomes
much larger when one reflects upon how meagrely the Arkansas mountaineer lives
and what it costs in hard labor to produce this much in that country. The
brother was cast into jail and a full month elapsed before he was released.’
By this
point the reader may already have been struck by a very different picture being
presented than that of the news media of the time, and indeed Willis’ account
from 1967.
Herr’s
account tells of that a “mob with disguise of law wantonly destroyed provisions
and property.” Evidently, he believed the posse returned intent on doing more
than simply capturing Bliss Adkisson. They also wanted retribution for the
death of Hazelwood, however it occurred. And yet there is still more that can
be added to Herr’s account.
While
researching the ‘Cleburne County Draft War’ online I came across yet another
article relating the incident much as had the papers in 1918. However, a
telling 2016 blog comment from a man named Robin J. White stated:
My
Grandmother was a witness to all of this. She lived to 102 years old and the
youngest of his children. This battle only happened after the Adkisson
family was burned out of 2 homes, family business burned to the ground,
livestock stolen and killed. He was the sole provider for a large family.(14)
Of
course, blog comments from alleged relatives given 98 years after an event
should be treated with caution and not granted the veracity of evidence such as
Herr’s report from 1919, but it does support the idea that lives, homes and
livelihood were being threatened by the arrival of the first two posses.
Indeed, Tom Adkisson always maintained throughout his trial that his motivation
in acting was only that of protecting his large family and personal self
defense. And while I do not include the comment to justify the shooting of
Hazelwood in anyway, it suggests what happened occurred under extreme
provocation.
So, is
this blog entry a valid historical family story that has been preserved?
Ancestry.com enables
modern researchers to check the credibility of the statement to some extent.
Tom Adkisson did indeed have a daughter named Nora Jewell Adkisson who lived a
long life, dying in 2006 at 102 years of age.(15) Perhaps a reader of this blog,
maybe even Robin J White himself, might be able to add further
information?
What
may we conclude then from this unhappy episode? It is always easy to be
wise in retrospect, but Bible Student conscientious objectors in 1918 who lived
in rural areas with gung-ho sheriffs and excitable locals might have found it
better to have simply arrived in army camps when instructed and then downed
tools, so as to speak, by refusing the military uniform and drills. Any
alternative that involved resistance by use of weapons inevitably would end in
disaster. (Matthew 26:52)
It is
indeed sad to report what happened to both Porter Hazelwood and, ultimately, to
Bliss Adkisson too. Bliss behaved well during his imprisonment and eventually
gained a position of trust and oversight as a prison guard at the Tucker Prison
Farm. However, on September 18, 1921, when the notorious bank robber Tom
Slaughter attempted to escape, Bliss Atkinson was killed in trying to prevent
him.(16)
As for
the Blakey brothers, these served time in the Fort Leavenworth Detention
Barracks, and in the case of Jesse, the Pacific Detention Barracks, otherwise
known as Alcatraz. Eventually they were given an early dishonorable discharge
from an army they never considered they belonged to in the first place.
However, it should be noted that while they registered for the draft, neither
claimed exemption as International Bible Students. Further, while the Adkisson
and Blakey families were related and likely worked together, evidence from the
Swarthmore database of American WWI conscientious objectors suggests that the
Blakey brothers, along with John Penrod, actually belonged to the
restorationist Churches of Christ faith.(17) It is also unclear what
involvement, if any, they had in either of the two shooting incidents at the
Adkisson farm.
What
though of the local IBSA preacher Thomas Houston Ausburn, who was blamed by the
newspapers for having bemused the relevant families into believing
millennialist teachings as if they had no mind for themselves? In fact,
we now know that he had only become a Bible Student in 1914 whereas, in
contrast, Tom Adkisson acknowledged:
‘I have
been a student of Pastor Russell’s for 30 years. And if there is anyone to
blame for the literature in that country it is I.’(18)
Even
so, reporters were astounded to hear Tom Adkisson’s speak and see his manner
which was not that of a country yokel as they had expected. “To talk to
him is a revelation for his grammar is that of a highly educated man”, stated
the Arkansas Gazette.(19)
Regardless,
Adkisson made it clear that he was neither repentant or apologetic for what had
happened:
‘If it
came up again like it did the last time, I would do just like I have done, I
believe.’(20)
I do
not know what happened to Tom Adkisson following the end of his prison sentence
other than that he died in 1932. As regards Thomas Houston Ashburn, he retained
his beliefs as a Bible Student and Jehovah’s Witness. His Ancestry.com entry
shows he died in March 1961 and was given a Jehovah’s Witness funeral on
March 14 before his interment at the Mount Zion Cemetery, Steele,
Missouri.(21)
God
alone knows the full story of this unpleasant episode in Bible Student history. But
at last history allows for a more balanced approach to be taken which considers
evidence from the Adkisson perspective rather than relying solely on the
patriotic newspaper accounts of the time. Putting together newspaper
reports with the those given by Herr and more recently White, I would suggest a
possible explanation involves the second posse pursuing the Adkisson males back
into the fields and then spitefully setting alight to the crop owned jointly by
Adkisson and Ausburn, while blaming the Adkisson family for causing the fire to
block pursuit.
We may
conclude therefore by saying that the ‘Cleburne County Draft War’ involved just
one known Bible Student conscientious objector, Charley Bliss Adkisson, who had
been drafted and not reported when requested to do so. Tom Adkisson and Hardly
Richmond Adkisson also became involved when attempting to protect their family
after an over enthusiastic posse threatened their family and livelihood. At
least five and possibly six other men who were not Bible Students also were
searched for. The newspapers of the time, Willis’ 1967 account and indeed
social history ever since has largely blamed the ‘Russellites’ for the
incident. However, we must understand the public’s willingness to apportion
blame in the context of the times. Bible Students were viewed with
suspicion and hatred because of their refusal to support civic and military
affairs. The book The Finished Mystery had been banned from
distribution earlier that year and the Watch Tower Society President Joseph
Rutherford and six fellow directors had recently been found guilty in relation
to a charge of sedition. So how else would the ordinary American citizen likely
understand reports of the Cleburne incident?
Thankfully,
Herr’s St. Paul Enterprise letter
went on to relate how things changed dramatically for Ausburn within less than a
year of his ordeal. It explained that “the publicity given the case and the
manifest injustice has reacted in favour of our brother. People know him and
they know also the character of the persons active in his persecution.”(22)
Indeed, during the petition made by Bible Students earlier in the year to
pardon Rutherford and his co IBSA directors, Herr records that as a consequence
of Ausburn’s conduct and reputation “the governor of the state, mayor of Little
Rock, ex-mayor, lawyers, doctors and even ministers gladly signed the petition
for the pardon of our brethren.”(23)
The
tragedy of Porter Hazelwood’s death inevitably is the significant moment that
marks the ‘Cleburne County Draft War.” Yet the ‘war’, if it ever was
such, in fact involved only two brief skirmishes and, eventually, a search of
over 200 possemen and soldiers with two machine guns for eight or nine men,
only five or six who had been called up and only one of whom is known, based on
completion of their draft registration forms, to have been an International
Bible Student.(24) Therefore, although ‘Russellism’ took the blame for what had
happened it was in fact only one factor among several motivating those
involved.
References:
(1)
James F. Willis article, The Cleburne County Draft War, appeared in
The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1, (Spring, 1967, pp. 24-39)
(2)
Draft registration forms are searchable on Ancestry.com. Bliss was
registered in class one as a single person but failed to answer his call. His
older brother Hardy was married with a dependent child, and so consequently was
registered as class 4 and never called up.
(3) As
an example, see The Time is at Hand (1889) - Studies in the
Scriptures vol. 2, p.82
(4) Adkisson
vs. Arkansas, Criminal Transcript No. 2398 (Little Rock: Justice Building,
Supreme Court Archives, p.1-226)
(5) Newport
Daily Independent, Arkansas, dated Saturday, January 11, 1919, p1.
This repeated a report given earlier in the Judsonia Weekly Advance, August 21,
1918, p1
(6)
James F. Willis, The Cleburne County Draft War, p39
(7) The
Sentinel Record, Hot Springs, July 10, 1918, p1
(8) New
York Times, July 8, 1918
(9) Daily
Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, July 17, 1918
(10)
See the article entitled ‘The Prudent Hideth Himself’ in Watch Tower,
November 1, 1914, p 334-334, (R5571-5572)
(11) The
Puluskian, Pulaski Heights, Little Rock, July 19, 1918, p1
(12) Daily
Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, July 17, 1918
(13)
Letter from M.L.Herr to Brother Stewart, appearing in The Saint Paul Enterprize,
May, 13, 1919, p2, column 1, letter in the Voices of the People section
(14) https://ozarks-history.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleburne-county-draft-war.html?m=1
(15) Ancestry.com search
(16) Pine
Bluff Daily Graphic, September 20, 1921
(17)
The Adkisson and Blakey families were related, since Ancestry.com reveals
that Tom Adkisson was a younger brother of Susan Minerva Blakey, mother of
Jesse, Jim and Lum.
Records
for Jesse, Lum and John Penrod can be found in the Swarthmore database of WWI
US conscientious objectors, searchable at https://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/conscientiousobjection/WWI.COs.coverpage.htm
Many
Churches of Christ members held millennialist views at this time with those
following the teachings of David Lipscombe tending towards pacifism. Similar to
the Bible Students, Lipscombe taught that all “wars and strife between tribes,
races, nations, from the beginning until now, have been the result of man's
effort to govern himself and the world, rather than to submit to the government
of God.” As a result, many followers believed that the use of coercion
and/or force may be acceptable for purposes of personal self-defense but that
resorting to warfare was not an option open to them.
(18) Arkansas
Gazette, July 20, 1918
(19) Arkansas
Gazette, July 17, 1918
(20) The
Log Cabin Democrat, July 16, 1918
(21)
Herr letter, The Saint Paul Enterprize, May 13, 1919, p2
(22)
Ibid
(23)
Ibid
(24)
Another man who is also said to have been searched for was Amos Sweeten. However,
he did not claim to be a Bible Student on his draft registration form but
requested exemption on grounds of poor health (asthma).
Consequently,
the nine men ‘on the run’ can be named as:
(i)
Tom Adkisson (father)
(ii)
Charles Bliss Adkisson*
(iii)
Hardy Richmond Adkisson
(iv)
Jesse Fountain Blakey*
(v)
James Madison Blakey
(vi)
Christopher Columbus Blakey*
(vii)
Leo D. Martin*
(viii)John
William Penrod*
(ix)
Amos Sweeten*
I have
added an asterisk beside the six men subject to the Draft call as of July
1918.
