Tiger John: The Rebel Who Burned Chambersburg
Leesburg, Virginia: Gauley Mount Press, 1993. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. 400 pages. Endpaper map. Bibliography. Index. Signed by the author on the title page. Includes Introduction, Bibliography, and Index. Chapters cover The Silent Rider; Setting the Stage For Tragedy; The Kanawha Valley Campaigns, Fort Donelson, An Angry Man, The Tough Tear--1864, Defending Lynchburg, Raid on Washington, Chambersburg Raid, Moorefield, The Last Months, Toward Appomattox and the End, and Flight. Also contains a photograph of John McCausland on page ii, as well as several black and white maps in the text. David L. Phillips, an expert in human rights, humanitarian action, conflict prevention, and diplomacy, has international expertise in regions such as the Middle East and the Balkans. Phillips is also the author of several books on the U.S. Civil War and on international diplomacy. In his 2005 book, Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco, Phillips draws from his experience as U.S. Department of State senior policy advisor to President George W. Bush to describe the U.S. involvement in the Iraq War, which began with the invasion of that country in 2003. This is a biography of John McCausland from western Virginia, teaching assistant in math and artillery tactics under Stonewall Jackson at VMI - He had a bounty on his head long after the war was ended. The military biography of John McCausland has essentially been overlooked by Civil War historians, but he was a significant officer in the Confederate army who fought throughout the war for the state he loved more than country, Virginia. He had many similarities in common with "Stonewall" Jackson: orphaned while young, he grew to manhood among the proud mountain people of western Virginia, had a military education at the Virginia Military Institute, and young McCausland was a teaching assistant at VMI in both mathematics and artillery tactics under Jackson's supervision. He is remembered for the Rebel raid into Pennsylvania in which the town of Chambersburg was burned in retribution for Federal atrocities in the Shenandoah Valley. Bitter to the last of his days, he was described as "The Last Confederate stronghold" until his death in 1927, the next to last surviving Confederate general officer.
McCausland was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 13, 1836, the son of an immigrant from Ireland. Orphaned in 1843, he lived first with his grandmother until her death, then he and his brother went to live with his aunt Jane Smith near Point Pleasant, Virginia, now in Mason County, West Virginia. McCausland attended the Buffalo Academy in Putnam County, Then he traveled to Harrisonburg, Virginia, studied engineering at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and graduated with first honors in the class of 1857. In 1858, after a year of further studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, McCausland became an assistant professor of mathematics at VMI until 1861. In 1859 he and VMI professor Stonewall Jackson commanded a group of VMI cadets at the execution of John Brown at Charles Town for the uprising at Harpers Ferry. After the war, McCausland spent two years in Europe and Mexico before returning to the United States. He faced arson charges for the burning of Chambersburg, but was pardoned by President Ulysses S. Grant. With part of his inheritance from his father, he purchased a tract of 6,000 acres 17 miles from Point Pleasant in Mason County, West Virginia. During the next six decades, McCausland became known as a progressive farmer. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: John McCausland, Civil War, Chambersburg, Lynchburg, Moorefield, Appomattox, Kanawha Valley, Fort Donelson, William Averell, Lew Wallace, Henry Wise, Stonewall Jackson, Thomas J. Jackson
ISBN: 0962821837
[Book #79894]
Price: $75.00