Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences Volume 15 Issue 1 Article 4 2012 Confederate Raider...Criminal...Hero: Captain Jake Bennett’s Civil War Randy Mills Oakland City University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jiass Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Mills, Randy (2012) "Confederate Raider...Criminal...Hero: Captain Jake Bennett’s Civil War," Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences: Vol. 15 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jiass/vol15/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Butler University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Butler University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. History Confederate Raider…Criminal…Hero: Captain Jake Bennett’s Civil War* RANDY MILLS Oakland City University ABSTRACT The story of how irregular warfare during the Civil War played out in border regions has been unevenly told. There exists a relatively large body of scholarly work, for example, on irregular Civil War activities in the border areas of Missouri and Arkansas and, more recently, in eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia. Other areas besides these, however, also witnessed intense and brutal partisan fighting. These other locations have received little attention from historians. A case in point concerns the fierce irregular warfare that took place in western Kentucky and the forgotten story of guerilla fighter Captain Jake Bennett. KEY WORDS American Civil War; Civil War in the Border States; Western Kentucky; Irregular Warfare On a miserably hot day in August of 1864, rugged Confederate fighter Jake Bennett found himself in an unexpected pickle.