Kaiser Burnout The Kaiser Burnout was a fire set by Confederate Captain James Kaiser during the American Civil War in the Big Thicket area of Southeast Texas . Historical Background . Like their counterparts in the Kansas region , local Texans that lived in the Big Thicket forest region who refused to fight for the Confederacy were referred to as Jayhawkers . Unlike the Kansas Jayhawkers , the Big Thicket Jayhawkers were not known to be guerrilla fighters . The Big Thicket was a good place to hide , and Sam Houston had planned to hide his army there had he lost the Battle of San Jacinto . Sometime after April 1862 , people who were drafted and didn ' t want to fight for the Confederate Army during the Civil War hid in the Big Thicket and became known as Jayhawkers . The Big Thicket Jayhawkers were initial followers of Sam Houston and fully believed that the Civil War was a " rich man ' s war and a poor man ' s fight " . Randolph Fillingim stated that Jayhawkers " were sensible men . They knew what would happen if the slaves were not freed . It wouldn ' t be long till the men who had money to start a business of any kind would buy slaves for his labor and poor whites would be left out . " A few of these Big Thicket Jayhawkers names are accounted for : Warren Collins , Stace Collins , Newt Collins , Lige Cain and Jim Williford . Although the Jayhawkers lacked coffee and tobacco they had plenty of game and fish . They would live off of the land ' s wild fruit and often salvaged corn sacks from timber camps for clothing . Due to the numerous beehives near Honey Island , a vast concentration of these Jayhawkers formed a camp nearby . The Jayhawkers would cut down a tree and take the honey . Where Honey Island is now , there were ( at that time ) two big pear trees that the Jayhawkers had built a table between . The Jayhawkers would place honey and game on the table for their families to come and pick up and take to Beaumont to sell . With the money from the sold goods they were able to buy many goods they lacked such as tobacco and coffee . Sympathetic locals would also bring supplies to this encampment , often in exchange for the honey that was collected . The Escape . In the spring of 1865 , a Confederate captain named Charlie Bullock captured some of these refugees and locked them up in a wooden shack near Woodville , but they managed to escape . According to Lance Rosier and Cecil Overstreet , when the Jayhawkers were brought to Woodville there were guards placed all around them . In order to free the men , whiskey was brought by a local sympathizer and the fiddle playing ensued . One of the Jayhawkers , Mr . Warren Collins , snuck his pocket knife in tucked away in his boot . Using some backwoods ingenuity the Jayhawkers pried a floor plank up in the floor of the shack . As the fiddle playing continued , Warren began to dance a " jig " entertaining the inebriated guards . As Warren danced about , the Jayhawkers escaped one by one through the plank lifted up in the floor . In the commotion that followed , Mr . Collins crawled out from the wooden shack and simply walked to freedom . The Fire . Shortly after the escape , Confederate Captain James Kaiser set fire to the canebrake region near Honey Island to flush the Jayhawkers out . The fire did not harm any of the Jayhawkers , only the surrounding thicket . According to Lance Rosier , " you take all the Collins ' — this whole place is full of them — well , their ancestors [ were ] Jayhawkers . If any of them had gotten burned in the fire someone would have known about it . " Intense heat from the fire permanently destroyed the canebrake and over of the Big Thicket forest burned as well .