THE UNVANQUISHED

An exploration of some of the irregular fighters from both sides of the Civil War.

O’Donnell, author of more than a dozen books on military history, including The Indispensables and Washington’s Immortals, focuses on combat units who worked in northern Virginia and West Virginia, especially Mosby’s Rangers and their Union counterpart, the Jessie Scouts. “Through their irregular tactics, they changed the course of the war,” writes the author. “They were also, arguably, the US Army’s first modern special operators and counterinsurgency forces.” Much of their work, which O’Donnell covers in often overly excessive detail, involved raids on supply trains and misdirecting or harassing enemy forces to keep them away from the main front. They also acted as spies, often wearing enemy uniforms, risking immediate execution if they were detected doing so. The author also puts the spotlight on actions well away from the battlefield, notably the Confederate Secret Service operation working out of Montreal. There, a group of agents worked to influence the 1864 election, with a strong presence in several western states where disaffection with the war was widespread. They fed antiwar propaganda to northern newspapers and supported “Copperheads,” northern sympathizers with the Confederate cause who were prepared to undertake armed insurrections. O’Donnell offers evidence that John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Lincoln was the result of a well-planned operation funded and supported by the Secret Service and known at the highest levels of the Confederate government. The author offers plenty of material that even Civil War buffs will find new. Unfortunately, those readers will have to slog through a certain amount of cliche-ridden, often repetitious writing. Nonetheless, there is sufficient pay dirt to make the digging worthwhile for readers fascinated by military minutiae.

A revealing history of the largely unknown role of irregular forces and undercover agents in the Civil War.