Présentation de l'éditeur
Between 1862 and 1865, the Union army of the American Civil War were terrorised by an unseen foe; a shadowy figure who could kill a commander in the midst of a group of soldiers and slip away again, evading capture and death to strike another target with deadly precision.
Union soldiers weren't safe on land or on water, and four divisions of men were sent to bring this assassin in. But he evaded them all. In fact, this one-man war disappeared from even the pages of history; his home forgotten, his life erased from the pages of his family history so that even his descendants can only speculate about him. Until now.
Jack Hinson, 57, was strictly neutral in the civil war until Union soldiers beheaded his two sons, suspected of bushwhacking. His world destroyed, Hinson vowed to avenge his sons. He commissioned a special rifle, said farewell to his family, and took to the hills. Without any formal military training, and no organised support from the Confederate Army, Hinson carved circles on his gun barrel, 36 in total- one for every confirmed kill he made. In reality there were more than 100 men who fell under the barrel of his .50 calibre rifle, and despite all attempts to bring him in Hinson was never caught, and outlived the war.
Revue de presse
Born in North Carolina in July 1807, John C. Hinson moved to Kentucky as a young man and became a landowner in Bubbling Springs. The area in which he lived, locally called "Between the Rivers" has since disappeared with the building of hydroelectric dams, but in his day its isolation bred tough, independent-minded inhabitants. Hinson was not a secessionist- in fact, when war broke out he liberated his slaves and helped Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to achieve his important victory at Fort Donelson. Soon after that, however, a Union patrol arrested two of his sons, George and John, on a charge of being Confederate guerrillas or bushwhackers, summarily decapitating them and putting their heads on the gateposts of the family estate. At that point "Old Jack" Hinson swore revenge against their killers. Armed with a long-barrel .50-calibre rifle, he spread death among the Union army and navy alike in a one-man guerrilla war.
One of Hinson's greatest successes was to force a Union army river transort vessel to surrender after unerringly picking off its personnel. Another occurred on November 3, 1864, when he participated in Forrest's attack on Johnsonville, which Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman called "a feat of arms which I must confess, excited my admiration."
Tom McKenney, a former U.S Marine paratrooper who served in Korea and Vietnam before writing numerous historical articles, spent 15 years researching Hinson's life and exploirs for Battlefield Sniper. The result is a fresh look at an amost forgotten facet of Civil War history- a study of one of the South's deadliest guerrillas, as well as the family that, more than anything else, motivated his actions.
Additionally, the author believes that another of Hinson's sons, Robert, was responsible for the wound that Virgil Earp then serving in the 83rd Illinois Infantry, suffered at Fort Donelson, and that his wife Elizabeth, was a cousin of Jesse James.
Jack Hinson survived the war and started a new life near the village of Magnolia in White Oak Creek, where he died in July 1874 at the age of 76. His rifle, which he presented to Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, later came into the possession of Judge Ben hall McFarlin of Murfreesboro, Tenn. One can still make out the 36 circles on it, each representing a kill. --Civil War Times, 22nd December 2009
The astonishing untold story of the American Civil War s most lethal sniper. Kentucky farmer Old Jack Hinson turned serial killer when Union soldiers murdered his sons. His old friend Gen. Grant deployed a small army to hunt him down, but he was never caught and ended his avenger ;s war with more than 100 kills to his credit. --Chris Buckland
Biographie de l'auteur
Lt. Col
