Who Were The Bushwhackers?

Who Were the Bushwhackers?

Kenneth W. Noe’s article was basically trying to prove that the men who were called “Bushwhackers” during the civil war, were not the men that you would expect it to be. These men were mostly middle to upper class men who were also land owners. Most people expect the Bushwhackers to be poor, homeless men who wanted nothing more than to cause a ruckus. Noe does a great job to support his theory that most of the men involved were upper class landowners by giving the names and relationships of certain men.

A few of the men that Kenneth Noe talks about is Samuel Fox, Allen Gartner and James Ridle. All three of these men are older gentlemen who are also landowners. These men are not young, rowdy men like most expected. These were well respected men of a significant age.

Noe also goes on to talk about why the Bushwhackers decided to attack like they did. He said that most of them that were part of this group were in it to stop the Yankee invasion. In order to do this, they went out and slaughtered all the Yankees that they came across. Once again, this is something that could be more expected from men in their late teens or early twenties, but it is almost impossible to think of from middle class, land owning men in between the ages of thirty and fifty years old. Impossible as it may sound, that is exactly how it was with this group of men called the Bushwhackers.

Overall, I liked this article pretty well. It was interesting and kept my attention. I think Kenneth Noe knew what he was talking about and he did an excellent job showing his perspective and proving his point. I would definitely recommend this article to future students.