The Shadow Warriors: A Novel of Unionist Resistance in Tennessee and North Carolina, September 1860-January 1863

Excellent Read...couldn't put it down. I've read all 3 and all 3 were excellent. Cameron Judd has a fan for life. He is an amazing story teller and I love the way he ties in factual events and people with the fictional charecters of the book.

This is an excellent book. It is well written and researched like all of Judd's books. There is a problem, however. Only the first and the third books in the trilogy are available. This has been a great disappointment to me. This is the first book. The second book "The Phantom Legion" is out of print.

"The Shadow Warriors" takes place during the events leading up to the Civil War and events during the Civil War itself. The location of the story is mainly in the eastern part of Tennessee, in both the cities and mountains. All the characters in the book meet up with one another at least one time if not more. At each encounter the reader learns a little more about the characters involved. Which tends to help the reader understand each individual character, and what they're like. Unfortunately because "The Shadow Warriors" has several main characters, it makes the book hard to follow. If followed by the reader, it is a great book. This book follows many types of people and how the Civil War affects them. For starters, Ben Scarlet is a bum and a drunk who lives in the streets of Knoxville, Tennessee. He is one of the characters whose life is shown in the Civil War. Ben's allegiance (Secessionist or Unionist) to the war depends on who is holding the bottle from which he is drinking. Amy Deacon's life as an avid Unionist and participator in the underground railroad is also followed. Sam Colter's life as Amy's associate in the underground railroad is likewise portrayed. Hanibal Deacon is Amy Deacon's uncle who is eventually killed for the Union cause. All these people were considered main characters. The author of the book had a interesting writing technique, he never flat out described a character. By having the characters explained through constant run ins among each other, he managed to keep the reader from acquiring a full profile on any one person till the end of the book. Personally as a reader of the book I was not fond of this style. One reason I have for this is that the reader never knows what a person was really like till the book was over. As the book develops, because there are so many people, understanding the book a difficult task. If you manage to follow the book, it can really shed some light on how life was during the Civil War. Another setback in Cameron Judd's book, is the fact that his ending lacked something to be desired. The results of two of the characters actions went unanswered. Amy was arrested, but whether she was punished or not was never revealed. Sam was also arrested but what eventually happened to him was also not revealed. This left the book unfinished; not knowing the outcome of two main characters' lives. It is a good book to show the effects of war on different people. I really liked the book even though it was hard to follow. I definitely would recommend this book to anyone interested in trying to understand the Civil War. It would also be a good book to use as a teaching tool for U.S. history teachers.