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Mason Henry Gang 1864-1865, was a bandit gang that posed as Confederate partisan rangers but acted as outlaws, committing robberies, thefts and murders in the San Joaquin Valley, Santa Cruz County, Monterey County, Santa Clara County, and in counties of Southern California.〔( William B. Secrest, California Badmen: Mean Men with Guns, Word Dancer Press, Sanger, California, 2007. pg. 143-147 )〕 == Mason and Henry as Partisan Rangers == In early 1864, a dedicated southern sympathizer from Tennessee, secessionist Judge George Gordon Belt, a rancher and former alcalde in Stockton, used his ranch on the Merced River to organize a group of partisan rangers. They would be led by two southerners John Mason and "Jim Henry" and sent out to recruit more men and pillage the property of Union men in the countryside. Unfortunately Judge Belt had chosen his men poorly. Both men had unsavory pasts. Mason was a southern-born former stage hostler who had reportedly killed several men.〔California Bad Men p144〕 Jim Henry was a criminal whose real name was Tom McCauley. He and his brother had been robbers within the gold camps and together had murdered a man in Tuolumne County in 1856. He had been sent to prison for ten years and his brother was hanged.〔( A History of Tuolumne County, California B.F. Alley, San Francisco, 1882. pages 201-249 Murder of Bond by McCauley. )〕 After his release from prison McCauley had returned to robbery with a gang along the Fresno River. When several of the gang were captured and lynched by vigilantes, Tom McCauley then fled and reinvented himself as Jim Henry. In the spring of 1864 the gang rode over to Santa Clara County, a center of Copperhead sympathizers, to recruit more members. Unfortunately it was a drought year that depressed the economy, and the increasingly bad war news also discouraged most of their recruits. They returned without success to the San Joaquin Valley.〔 By October, 1864, with the Presidential election approaching, Mason and Henry's gang turned into brigands. However, they referred to themselves as Confederate soldiers, and managed to garner support among the local Copperheads. They threatened to kill any "black republican" they came across. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mason Henry Gang」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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