The Longest Raid of the Civil War: Little-Known & Untold Stories of Morgan's Raid Into Kentucky, Indiana & Ohio [Hardcover]

Lester V. Horwitz (Author), James A. Ramage (Foreword)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: Farmcourt Publishing; 1st. ed edition (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967026709
• ISBN-13: 978-0967026725
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,872,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Civil War Buffs Will Enjoy, January 17, 2000

By 

Thomas L. Townsend (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Longest Raid of the Civil War: Little-Known & Untold Stories of Morgan's Raid Into Kentucky, Indiana & Ohio (Hardcover)

I found this book to be enjoyable from the Civil War buff and Ohio resident viewpoint, but I think the writing suffers in many places. Both the author and the editor seemed to never have taken English in high school. Paragraphs start out with one idea and end up with another in a very distressing manner. In the Preface, the author explains that he will tell the tale in chronological manner and indeed does so, but in so doing, hops around all over the place with the story.

Lots of information is repeated - how many times need we be told that 'Lightning' Ellsworth, Morgan's telegraph expert, spread disinformation by tapping into the Union telegraph lines? Each time Ellsworth is about to perform his duty, he is reintroduced to the reader. I found this irksome.

Twice within ten pages, the Confederate saying 'They could load on Sunday and fire all week' is used; once referring to the Spencer rifle and once referring to the Henry rifle. While it may be true that the confederates referred to both rifles with that saying, couldn't the author have used the saying once while referring to both rifles? Or at least when mentioned the second time, he could have referred to his previous use of the saying: "As with the Spencer, when speaking of the Henry the Confederates said..."

Although the subject matter is near and dear to me, being a civil war nut and having done my own basic Morgan's Raid research, the writing in this book drove me up the wall. I felt like the book was not proofread. It got to be where I was reading for construction and not content.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly written and presented history, February 19, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Longest Raid of the Civil War: Little-Known & Untold Stories of Morgan's Raid Into Kentucky, Indiana & Ohio (Hardcover)

John Hunt Morgan was a general of the Confederacy who conducted the longest, most wide ranging calvary raid in the history of the Civil War. Author Lester Horwitz first became aware of the extent to which Morgan's raid ranged when he discovered that his own ant-bellum home in Cincinnati, Ohio was raided by Morgan's forces. General Morgan's forces covered more than one thousand miles during July 1863 and spanned Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. Horwitz draws upon hundreds of unpublished stories (a great many of them here published for the first time) as well as historic photos arising from Morgan's Raid in The Longest Raid Of The Civil War. A superbly written and presented history, this seminal work will be of particular interest to Civil War buffs as Horwitz's presentation of the Morgan Raid derives from both sides of the conflict -- those who were raided, and those that did the raiding.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Covers A Forgotten Part Of The Civil War, August 11, 2000

By 

Ken Belleman (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Longest Raid of the Civil War: Little-Known & Untold Stories of Morgan's Raid Into Kentucky, Indiana & Ohio (Hardcover)

Les Horwitz has taken a part of the Civil War seldom covered in history books, and made this incident come alive. I have waited over 25 years for someone to write a definitive narrative on Morgan and his Raiders, and Les has done a superior job! Each incident of the raid is richly described and makes the reader feel as though they are right in the middle of the action. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only a lover of history like myself will enjoy this book, but any person wishing to read an exciting true story will very much enjoy the book.