155th anniversary of hanging
By Racey Burden | Published Saturday, October 21, 2017
In October of 1862 ... The men, convicted of treason against the Confederate government of Texas, were forced to ride out of town sitting in their own coffins ...
Susan Conn, the wife of John Conn, remarried after her husband’s execution. Her new husband, the Rev. Stephen Beebe of Denton, wrote a letter to a relative in New York in July of 1865, indicating the couple’s desire to leave Texas behind for the North. Beebe’s letter, sent to the Wise County Heritage Museum by a relative in ’80s, shed light on the side of the convicted men.
Beebe called Conn a "victim of the violence of the times during the late Rebellion and reign of terror in the Seceded States." He explained that Conn had always been a Union man, and he joined the Peace Party because he wanted Texas to return to the Union. Beebe said the party in Wise County was betrayed by a member of the group who told the Confederate government the Peace Party was planning to rob and kill Southern advocates.
"Susan’s health is very good," Beebe wrote toward the end of the letter. "She is ... very much displeased with Texas. She never did like it, and now that she has suffered so much from the violence of the parties there she perfectly abhors it."
http://www.wcmessenger.com/2017/news/dark-days-october-marks-155th-anniversary-of-hanging/