Mountain Partisans: Guerrilla Warfare in the Southern Appalachians, 1861-1865

Mountain Partisans: Guerrilla Warfare in the Southern Appalachians, 1861-- 1865. By Sean Michael O'Brien. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999. xxiv, 221 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0-275-96430-2.

With Mountain Partisans Sean Michael O'Brien joins a growing number of authors who focus on one of the most tragic, brutal, and often forgotten aspects of the American Civil War. O'Brien's narrative covers the vicious partisan conflict in western North Carolina, east Tennessee, north Alabama, north Georgia, and West Virginia, where Unionists clashed with supporters of the Confederacy throughout the war. Forces on both sides frequently terrorized unarmed civilians suspected of sympathizing with the enemy. Commanders such as Champ Ferguson of Tennessee and John Gatewood of Georgia-leading small irregular detachments-committed atrocities that fractured families and communities.

O'Brien's insightful writing style highlights the prevalence and severity of guerrilla fighting in the Appalachians; however, in-text citations, rather than endnotes or footnotes, and overreliance on secondary sources detract from the book's readability and usefulness. The author concludes by praising the region's inhabitants as "a distinct and unique people, embodying the best in the American character" (p. 192). That may be, but his book hardly supports this glowing characterization. Nevertheless, Civil War buffs interested in an overview of a little-known but significant aspect of the conflict should find this volume readable and enlightening.

MICHAEL THOMAS SMITH

Louisburg College

Copyright University of Alabama Press Oct 2002
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