Provenance: Marshall D. Krolick Collection

Adam R. Johnson. William J. Davis, editor. The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army. Louisville, Kentucky: Geo. G. Fetter Co., 1904. 

8vo. Frontispiece portrait and plates from photographs. Original red cloth gilt. FIRST EDITION. Coulter 257; Howes J-122; Jenkins, Basic Texas Books 108; Nevins I, p. 113.

Texas frontiersman Adam "Stovepipe" Rankin Johnson (1834-1922) first came to the western edge of Texas from Kentucky in 1854, where he gained a reputation as a surveyor, stage driver, and Indian fighter. Jenkins describes the account as "one of the most interesting first-hand narratives of Texas Indian fighting, stagecoaching, and Confederate cavalry operations." (Jenkins, Basic Texas Books, 108). 

He returned to Kentucky at the start of the war and enlisted as a scout under cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest. After escaping the fall of Fort Donelson, he raised and commanded the 10th Kentucky Partisan Rangers, operating behind Union lines in his home state of Kentucky. In a feat of stunning bravado, he captured Newburgh, Indiana, from a sizeable Federal force in July 1862 with just twelve men and a stovepipe mounted as a so-called "Quaker Cannon," earning him the nickname "Stovepipe." In 1863, he assumed command of a brigade in the division of John Hunt Morgan and reluctantly participated in the ill-fated Morgan's Raid. 

Promoted to Brigadier General in September (though never confirmed), his military career came to a halt when he was accidentally shot by friendly fire and became permanently blinded. He was abandoned, captured, and confined at Fort Warren. He returned to Texas and established the town of Marble Falls. 

This engaging memoir of his time as a Confederate Raider includes his antebellum Texas exploits and is described by Nevins as only "somewhat embellished." 

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