Richard S. Brownlee's The Gray Ghosts Of The Confederacy
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The Civil War was well documented with tales of battles and skirmishes, but few capture the public imagination quite like the guerrilla warfare that wreaked havoc over the western border of the United States. The Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy delves into a part of the American Civil War that was brutal, bloody and chaotic. Author Richard S. Brownlee states that his work was an attempt to “set forth what occurred when the Civil War west of the Mississippi River degenerated into widespread insurrection and almost complete military tyranny.” With knowledge gained through extensive research and study, the author endeavors to set the record straight and hold each character involved accountable for their actions by reasoning that “the men dealt…show more content… He even provides a list of personal items found on a victim, where that information was historically available. In addition, by supporting his research with credible sources that document firsthand accounts, such as correspondence between officers, newspaper and magazine articles printed at the time and government documents, Brownlee was able to demonstrate the tumultuous nature of the war in this troubled territory. One example can be found in “Bloody Bill” Anderson’s letter to the editors of a Missouri newspaper in which he declares his reasons for becoming a guerrilla as “to revenge myself for wrongs that I could not honorably revenge otherwise…because I would not fight the people of Missouri, my native State, the Yankees sought my life, but failed to get me. Revenged themselves by murdering my father, destroying all my property, and since that time murdered one of my sisters and kept the other two in jail twelve months.” All of these graphic details are combined effectively to create a window into the past and evoke an emotional response from the