The Burning Of Brenham

On the night of 7 September 1866, federal occupation troops set fire to part of the commercial heart of Brenham, and nobody was ever convicted of it. The quarrel behind the fire had been running for weeks in print. D. L. McGary, editor of the Brenham Banner, had been attacking the local Freedmen's Bureau in his columns, and federal authorities arrested him for it. After his release, three soldiers were shot during an altercation at a dance. Other soldiers went back to the scene, arrested two citizens, and set the fire. Their commander, Brevet Major George W. Smith, insisted his men were innocent and refused to hand them over to local officials. What followed was two investigations and no answer. Federal officers held hearings, and the Texas legislature appointed a joint select committee of both houses whose printed report on the burning of Brenham survives in the journals of the Eleventh Legislature. The question of the soldiers' guilt was never resolved. How much of the town went is still disputed. The Handbook of Texas says only that part of it burned, while Brenham's own accounts have long claimed more than half, and the fire is credited locally with the founding of the city fire department. Smith was transferred to Seguin and later convicted of stealing Freedmen's Bureau funds, a charge unconnected to the fire. The conviction was overturned on appeal. He resigned his commission in 1869.