Book Review of Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia

Review of: Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia. By Brian D. McKnight. Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011. Pp. [xvi], 252. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8071-3769-7.) Excerpt: Civil War scholars have produced a number of noteworthy studies of guerrilla warfare in recent years. These historians have reassessed the origins of guerrilla violence, its impact on local communities, its role in the overall war effort, and some of its notorious figures. In Confederate Outlaw: Champ Ferguson and the Civil War in Appalachia, Brian D. McKnight addresses not only the infamous guerrilla Champ Ferguson but also the larger context of the war in southern Appalachia. The author argues that fluid loyalties, extreme paranoia, and opportunism defined Ferguson\u27s war in the Upper Cumberland region [...