Excerpt from Civil War Books and Authors:

“The book does a very good job of describing and highlighting the full range of military activities performed by the rangers, who proved remarkably adept at scouting, raiding, supply gathering, and ambushing enemy columns, all the while keeping their own casualties to a minimum. As one might expect, the volume offers a full account of the rangers’s most celebrated wartime exploit, the February 1865 simultaneous nighttime capture and successful spiriting away of major generals Benjamin Kelley and George Crook right under the noses of the Union garrison at Cumberland. French also offers some interesting background information on McNeill. Many readers are likely unaware that the Virginia-born McNeill fought extensively with the Missouri State Guard in 1861 before being captured and incarcerated in St. Louis. In June 1862, he and his son Jesse managed to escape military prison and return home to Virginia to embark on their better-known partisan careers…”

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