By Wesley Harris
The conclusion of the Civil War did not end the animosity some Southerners bore for the federal government. Reconstruction followed by increasing federal involvement in the lives of Southerners only exacerbated these feelings. A string of Washington mandates—from revenuers chasing untaxed stills and later the World War I draft and compulsory dipping of livestock to kill ticks—reminded Southerners of the tyranny they perceived the government forced on the South leading to civil war decades earlier. Some would argue a recent resurgence of hostility toward the federal government is rooted in generations of suspicion and the belief personal freedoms continue to erode away.
The conventional view of Louisiana history invokes images of genteel Southern chivalry rather than the hurly-burly associated with the rough and tumble Old West. Yet Louisiana experienced wild and woolly times in the 19th century, requiring the services of tough lawmen willing to enforce unpopular laws.
Although not a big man—he wore a size 4 shoe—Deputy U.S. Marshal John Tom Sisemore was tough and solidly built. His children would later remember townspeople referring to their father as “full of dynamite” and “the shortest six-foot fellar we ever saw.”
Sisemore lived at the Lincoln-Jackson Parish line when the U.S. Marshal in Shreveport selected him as a deputy marshal to serve north central Louisiana. As a federal marshal, Sisemore scoured the countryside, raiding stills and arresting bootleggers and outlaws. His name struck fear among whiskey runners. One reporter described Sisemore as “an efficient officer who made it exceedingly risky for the moonshiner to run his business in North Louisiana. He is a terror to the whiskey element and all outlaws in general.” While most applauded his efforts, the moonshiners saw no need to pay taxes on their handiwork. They despised the federal revenue agents who could destroy stills but relied on deputy U.S. marshals like Sisemore for arrest powers.
In 1884, Ruston rose from the red clay hills when the railroad finally spanned north Louisiana. The Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad—known locally as the “Very Slow and Pokey,”—replaced the Wire Road as the main transportation route between Vicksburg and Shreveport. Vienna and other Wire Road communities all but disappeared when the railroad bypassed them.
With Vienna’s demise, the courthouse moved to Ruston. Town leaders created schools, including a small college, the forerunner of Louisiana Tech. A summer Chautauqua program provided educational and cultural activities amid shade trees and bubbling springs north of town. Fiery politicians, preachers, and pontificators visited the Chautauqua to lecture and exhort.
Bad men came as well. Routine gunfire and rowdy disturbances clashed with Ruston’s hunger for sophistication and culture. Believing liquor to be the root of the community’s ills, in 1894 the town fathers proposed an ordinance prohibiting the sale or possession of alcoholic beverages. It passed overwhelmingly.
While federal officials sought moonshine because of its producers’ aversion to paying taxes, communities like Ruston objected to alcohol for moral and social reasons. Town founder Robert Russ, a staunch Baptist, wrote the Ruston Leader after the 1894 election: “The votes have been counted. The decision has been made by a large majority…all persons are prohibited from selling in any quantity all alcoholic or vinous spirits. Remember this is clothed with the strong arm of the law, the voice of the people. The law should be upheld and executed and when we fail to do this, we fail to do our whole duty.”
Ruston lawmen had their hands full, facing no small task in enforcing prohibition and removing the lawless element shooting up the town. Some of Ruston’s early police chiefs served as little as one month before surrendering their badges amid the gleeful taunts of the troublemakers. Sisemore’s pursuits had become regular fodder for north Louisiana newspapers and Ruston officials took notice. By 1896, the town asked Sisemore to serve as a part-time officer in Ruston in addition to his federal duties.
Frank Mullins of Simsboro became Marshal Sisemore’s chief adversary. Claiming photography as his profession, Mullins operated a “studio” near Ruston’s train depot. It served as a front for his true business—running whiskey. Sisemore and other law officers arrested Mullins at least a dozen times in Ruston, usually for selling liquor without a license, but the fines were just a cost of doing business.
The marshal charged Mullins with federal violations and with violating Ruston’s city ordinance on selling whiskey. “A bad feeling has existed between Sisemore and Mullins,” reported the Shreveport Times, “and everybody expected trouble between them every time they met.” During one difficult arrest, Sisemore shot Mullins. Mullins served a year in the Lincoln Parish prison while his younger brother Will operated the alcohol business. Another Shreveport paper, the Evening Journal, speculated the enmity between the two rose from Mullins’s alleged assassination of a government witness—Sisemore’s own brother-in-law had been shot dead through an open window at his supper table in front of his family before he could testify against Mullins.
On December 14, 1897, Sisemore and Mullins exchanged gunfire, but neither was injured. Mullins cried foul and a grand jury indicted Sisemore for assault. But Sisemore had sizable support in Ruston. In fact, in January 1898, after years of futile attempts at finding a strong police chief, city officials begged Sisemore to take on the job. The town council approved a unique arrangement allowing Sisemore to continue as a federal marshal while serving as Ruston’s new chief. Sisemore bought a house for his wife and five children on a hill a few blocks south of downtown Ruston.
Sisemore and Mullins met in a final showdown on the stormy evening of February 26, 1898. Lightning pierced the sky occasionally, casting ghostly shadows across Ruston’s business district. About 8:00p.m., a string of gunshots filled the air. Sisemore prowled the rain-dampened streets in search of the culprit. Mayor Fred Price also heard the gunfire between thunderclaps and, armed with his shotgun, rushed from his home to investigate. He nearly stumbled between Sisemore and Mullins in the murky night.
“It was very dark,” Price later testified. “I spoke and said hello to attract their attention, but I heard somebody say, ‘Who is that? Is that you, Frank?’ The answer was ‘Yes, that’s me.’ I recognized Sisemore’s voice, and I thought the other was Frank Mullins. I could see neither of them, only when the lightning flashed…Sisemore then said, ‘Is that you doing this shooting around here tonight?’ Mullins replied, ‘No, but by god I’ve got the fixing for you.’ Sisemore said, ‘You are a liar’—he may have said, ‘You are a damn liar’—and immediately both parties fired simultaneously.”
Other witnesses would contradict Price and accuse Sisemore of firing again at the mortally wounded Mullins as he fled. One man reported the gunshots had sounded like they came from the same gun, hinting only Sisemore had fired.
Mullins, riddled with shotgun pellets, limped to his boardinghouse where the landlady discovered him near the front door. Mullins encouraged Mrs. E.M. Sherwood to go to his room and locate his revolver to prove he had been unarmed. The many witnesses to his dying statement announced Mullins insisted Sisemore had shot down an unarmed man. Before he died, Mullins urged his family not to seek revenge but to let the courts deal with Sisemore.
A grand jury indicted Sisemore, a surprise to many citizens. The Shreveport Times announced, “Mr. Sisemore has the sympathy and backing of almost the entire law-abiding community, and will doubtless be exonerated when his case comes to trial.”
A record cotton season filled the streets with wagons, mules, and farmers as the trial began on September 14, 1898. In a packed courtroom, vehement opinions both for and against Sisemore made jury selection difficult. The prosecution subpoenaed 19 witnesses; the defense, 15. It would be the biggest trial to date in Lincoln Parish.
Testimony was heard explaining the gun recovered from Mullins’s room was dotted with mud, suggesting it had been dropped on the wet street. Witnesses revealed Mullins visited his room before Mrs. Sherwood found him bleeding by the front door. A youngster declared Mullins had been shooting off his revolver on a street where spent cartridges were discovered.
The jury quickly returned a not guilty verdict. The Shreveport Times reported, “The verdict meets with general approval.” The charges from the earlier shooting were dropped. Soon rumors circulated that Sisemore had been targeted for assassination.
On the evening of November 17, Sisemore ate supper with his family and played with his youngest son by the fire. Pocketing his children’s letters to Santa Claus on the pretense of mailing them, Sisemore followed his evening routine of making a final patrol through town. As he walked toward downtown Ruston, Sisemore heard a noise in a pine thicket nearby. Drawing his revolver, he approached the trees slowly. A shotgun blast knocked Sisemore to the ground. A second shot missed.
Neighbors carried Sisemore to his bed and doctors hurried to the scene. With his sobbing family and concerned friends gathered around, Sisemore whispered he did not see his ambusher. Soon Sisemore joined his nemesis Frank Mullins in death. The Shreveport Times reported the shooting on page one with the headline, “A Cowardly Murder: Deputy United States Marshal John T. Sisemore Shot to Death by Assassins.” The article noted Sisemore “for the past few years has been a terror to the moonshiners…and always fearlessly discharged his duties…regardless of fear or favor.”
Telegraphers sent messages in all directions requesting bloodhounds to track the killer. U.S. Marshal James Martin and a deputy rushed from Shreveport to aid in the manhunt. Rewards were offered. Frank Mullins’s associates were blamed for Sisemore’s death. One news story reported, “While so far as is known there is no direct evidence, yet every citizen of Ruston seems to have settled to their own satisfaction who the actual criminals or instigators of the crime are.” No suspects were arrested, but Sisemore family members tell the story of a killer hanged in El Dorado for another murder. Before his execution, John Henry Thomas reportedly confessed to killing Sisemore for $50.
We will never know if Mullins was shot in a “fair fight” or who killed Sisemore. We do know Ruston founder Robert Russ appreciated the town’s newfound tranquility. The removal of the alcohol element, Russ wrote, “added more to the material, social, and religious growth of Ruston than all other agencies put forward by its citizens. Money that once went to saloons now goes to beautify and make happy homes. Wives and daughters who once had sad faces, now carry smiles and contentment. Ruston is now the refuge for virtue, happiness, and law abiding citizens.”
Sisemore’s brief career and death helped mold Ruston’s path into the new century. The attitudes toward alcohol and lawlessness in Ruston’s early days endured for decades. The city would remain “dry” for nearly 75 more years before allowing alcohol to be sold again in the 1970s. Despite the controversies they created, men like John Tom Sisemore were sought by struggling communities committed to maintaining law and order.
