Gray Ghost: The Life of Col. John Singleton Mosby by James A. Ramage (review)

the Sword, and the Plough," and "The Passing of the Frontier." The readings thus "illuminate life in the region from the initial encounters of Europeans and Native Americans to the growing settlement of the Northwest Territory and, finally, to the 1840S removal of major tribal influence."(xi) This is an eclectic batch of prose: "Chief Logan's Speech," "The First White Child in Ohio," "Descriptions of Ohio by Manasseh Cutler and St. John de Crevecoeur," "A German Missionary ... Preaches," "A Letter From Cynthia Barker to Julia Buttles," "Ohiomania," "Frances Trollope's Book about Cincinnati" (inevitably!), "Escape of a Fugtive Slave," "Ottawa Indians Leave Ohio," and "News from Cleveland ... a Growing Industrial City," are sample titles giving the potential reader an idea of the volume's wide scope. The reader will hear the voices of many Ohio Valley residents-Indians, explorers, soldiers, missionaries, pioneer emigrants, entrepreneurs, slaves, leaders, and townspeople . There are maps (too often omitted in other works nowadays), illustrations, a good index, and a bibliography to lead researchers to the original documents. Ohio Valley history aficionados can no doubt curl up with a book like this, but primary source collections are not everyone's cup of tea. Professional. scholars and graduate students can run down most of these sources elsewhere, yet undergraduates and enthusiasts will find this edition invaluable. It would be a dandy book to assign in a collegelevel regional history course, and undergraduates could use it as a supplement to their primary source research for term papers and senior theses. Finally, and importantly, the series editors note, "The uniqueness of Foster's book is her willingness to allow these voices ... to speak directly to us without imposing her interpretation."(xii) Amen. Michael Allen University of Washington, Tacoma James A. Ramage. Gray Ghost: The Life of Col. 10hn Singleton Mosby. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1999. 464 pp. ISBN 0813121353 (cloth). $30.00. Nearly a century and a half after the start of the American Civil War, enthusiasts still find fascination in the romantic stories of its heroic raids and victorious battles against overwhelming odds. In the last several years, books and movies have incorporated the mystique of guerrillas into the growing popular culture of the Civil War. Kentucky partisan John Hunt Morgan's raids into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio will be commemorated and interpreted by the efforts of The John Hunt Morgan Heritage Trail Project, which includes a I8s-mile driving tour north of the Ohio River. James A. Ramage of Northern Kentucky University capitalizes on this popular interest in his biography of Confederate raider John Singleton Mosby. Ramage, who also authored Rebel Raider: The Life of Generallohn Hunt 44 Morgan (1986), recounts Mosby1s exploits with remarkable detail and enthusiasm. He argues that Mosby's tactics embodied the doctrines of military theorists Karl von Clausewitz and Antoine Jomini by employing fear, uncertainty , and harassment as effective weapons of war. Although Ramage highlights the success of guerrilla tactics in "Mosby's Confederacy/, an area of Virginia directly west of Washington D.C., he also points out that Mosby's potency in irregular warfare stemmed largely from his tenacious personality. Morgan's operations in Kentucky were the inspiration for the Partisan Ranger Act, which gave Mosby sanction from the Confederate government to wage war behind enemy lines. Partisans differed from guerrillas in their connection to the formal military chain of command and their status as military personnel. While other partisan bands gave service during the war, Mosby's unit was unique in its conformity to the Partisan Ranger Act and its operational flexibility. Ramage reminds readers that Mosby had to please Confederate officers like General Robert E. Lee in order to maintain his links to the main army's objectives, while capturing enough plunder to satiate his partisan subordinates . Mosby's adoption of guerrilla tactics provides a connection with Morgan's raids and the guerrilla actions fought in Kentucky and Missouri; however, Ramage proposes that Mosby's objectives demanded different methods, making Mosby's war unique in many ways. Ramage emphasizes Mosby's propensity for controversy and conflict as he encountered various Union commanders who attempted to neutralize, evade, hunt, and eradicate Moshy and his men. Yet while...