The University of North Carolina Press

456 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 16 illus., 3 maps, notes, bibl., index

Civil War America

Cloth

ISBN  978-0-8078-3277-6

Published: July 2009

A Savage Conflict

The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War

By Daniel E. Sutherland

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The American Civil War is famous for epic battles involving massive armies outfitted in blue and gray uniforms, details that characterize conventional warfare. A Savage Conflict is the first work to treat guerrilla warfare as critical to understanding the course and outcome of the Civil War. Daniel Sutherland argues that irregular warfare took a large toll on the Confederate war effort by weakening support for state and national governments and diminishing the trust citizens had in their officials to protect them.

About the Author

Daniel E. Sutherland is professor of history at the University of Arkansas. He is author or editor of thirteen books, including Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front.

Reviews

"The first work to treat guerrilla warfare as critical to understanding the course and outcome of the Civil War."
--McCormick Messenger

"Scholarly attention to guerrilla activity during the Civil War has expanded dramatically in recent years, with Dan Sutherland leading the charge. A Savage Conflict is a culmination of that good work, in which Sutherland makes the fullest and most compelling case yet for the pervasiveness of irregular warfare, for the many forms it took and the forces that drove it, and for its considerable impact on the course of the war, both militarily and on the home front. Its a masterful study and a major contribution to our understanding of the internal divisiveness that characterized this most uncivil of civil wars."
--John C. Inscoe, coauthor of The Heart of Confederate Appalachia

"Sutherland argues that the Civil War cannot be truly understood unless one examines the brutal guerrilla fighting that spread across the Confederacy and even into the Midwest. In scope and breadth, A Savage Conflict approaches the encyclopedic, stretching from Florida to Iowa. There is nothing like it in Civil War studies."
--Kenneth W. Noe, Auburn University