The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army by Adam Rankin Johnson
When I am trying to get a perspective on a historical
period, I like to read books written by people who lived through the period. Examples
would include The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Roughing it
by Mark Twain, The Virginian by Owen Wister, An Editor on the Comstock Lode by Wells
Drury, James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention, A Short
History of the Confederate States of America by Jefferson Davis, and The
Impending Crisis of the South by Hinton Rowan Helper.
When I started researching the partisan rangers of the Civil
War, I was thrilled to find General Johnson’s book. Unfortunately, the book was
dull and mostly uninformative. The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate
States Army was a short autobiography with over half of the book
being a mishmash of recollections by minor players. The autobiographical section
was a screed of flawless military derring-do by the author. First published in
1904, Johnson has a perfect memory for events nearly forty years prior. The author’s
writing style is cliché “lost cause” rhetoric, probably unduly influenced by Jefferson
Davis’s two memoirs. Ironically, I found the 1850s Texas Indian fighting fascinating
and better told than the supposed subject of the book.
I suggest passing on this period memoir unless you are scavenging
for Civil War trivia.
