Book Review: The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army by Gen. Adam R. Johnson

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 began researching the partisan rangers of the Civil War, I was thrilled to find General Johnson’s memoir. However, I found the book to be dull and largely uninformative. The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army is a short autobiography, with over half of the content comprising recollections from minor participants. The autobiographical section was a screed of flawless military derring-do by the author.

First published in 1904, Johnson provides detailed accounts of events from nearly forty years earlier, with supposed perfect recall. The author’s writing style is characteristic of “lost cause” rhetoric, possibly influenced by Jefferson Davis’s memoirs. I found the sections on 1850s Texas Indian fighting more compelling and more clearly presented than the book's main topic.

I suggest passing on this period memoir unless you are scavenging for Civil War trivia.

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