An Example Of What One Senior Can Do When He's Angry Enough, A Civil War Story

Discussion in 'History & Geography' started by Ken Anderson, Jul 31, 2016.

  1. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    This could have gone in the reading section as well, but it feels more like history so I'll put it here.

    Written by Tom C. McKenney, Jack Hinson’s One-Man War is the true story of a businessman and plantation owner who lived on a peninsula bordered by the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers in Tennessee.

    Jack Hinson was opposed to secession, and he tried to remain neutral when war broke out. Nearing sixty, he had avoided the Confederate draft. As late as 1862, he was acting as a sort of a double agent, bringing information to Confederate General Gideon Pillow and to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, trying to keep himself and his family alive in tough times. But he hadn’t taken up arms against either the North or the South.

    Union forces entered Tennessee early, and Southern guerrillas, known as bushwhackers, began targeting Union troops. While hunting for squirrels, two of Hinson’s sons were captured by a Union patrol and executed on suspicion of guerrilla activity, and their decapitated heads were mounted on gateposts at the Hinson plantation as a warning.

    Hinson freed his slaves, and had a .50-caliber, 19-pound rifle made, and then launched a one-family campaign against the Union army, killing from forty to over a hundred soldiers personally.

    First, he shot the lieutenant who was responsible for killing his sons. A few months later, he killed the Union soldier who had planted the heads on his gatepost.

    Then, from a vantage point on a bluff above the Tennessee River, he targeted Union gunboats, transport ships and river pilots carrying Union troops down the river, as well as Union Cavalrymen and officers. He counted thirty-six that he had killed on land, whose bodies he could walk up to afterwards, but of course he didn’t have access to those that were killed as they passed by his plantation on the river. According to newspaper accounts and other reports, he may have killed over a hundred.

    In one case, a Union gunboat captain surrendered his ship to Confederate troops after having suffered what he described as a battering from the bluff above the Tennessee River.

    His son, Robert, became the leader of a partisan band until he was killed by Union troops in September of 1863. Jack Hinson was never captured, however. He served as a guide for Confederate General Bedford Forrest during his assault on a Union supply center at Johnsonville in November of 1864, but survived the war, dying in 1874.

    The same author has also published this story under the title, Battlefield Sniper: Over 100 Civil War Kills. While it is the story of the same man, I don’t know whether the books are identical. Just guessing, but it might be because he was unable to confirm the claim that he had killed over a hundred Union soldiers.
     
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    Last edited: Jul 31, 2016
  2. Sandy Wood

    Sandy Wood Veteran Member
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    That is amazing for his time period in history. For one man to have killed over a hundred. Wow! Just think what he could have done with the weapons the army has today. He could have singly won the war. I think true stories from history are so interesting. Thanks for sharing.
     
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  3. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    I can imagine that many struggled with not choosing sides, until they were driven into the war by circumstances. Thanks Ken!


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  4. Augusta Heathbourne

    Augusta Heathbourne Veteran Member
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    I'm very glad to be introduced to this book, being a Civil War buff. Am a bit surprised I had never heard of him before but there are really many thousands of Civil War books, aren't there, and I want to read them all! I see that the audiobook is available on Audible.com so I will be able to get it one of these days.
     
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  5. Babs Hunt

    Babs Hunt Supreme Member
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    This reminds me of the Movie "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson.
     
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