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The Governor’s Pawns: Hostages and Hostage-Taking in Civil War West Virginia By Randall S. Gooden
Thomas W. Robinson
The Governor’s Pawns: Hostages and Hostage-Taking in Civil War West Virginia. By Randall S. Gooden. Interpreting the Civil War. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2023. Pp. xxii, 250. $55.00, ISBN 978-1-60635-457-5.)
After decades of writing and thousands of books on the topic, it is hard to believe that one can find a subject largely absent from general Civil War histories. But Randall S. Gooden has accomplished such a feat with this excellent history of hostage-taking in West Virginia. Gooden, a West Virginia native, focuses on his home state because, while hostage-taking was a common tactic throughout the history of warfare and was utilized by both sides during the Civil War, hostage-taking in West Virginia was unique: it was an official state program, codified in state law and administered by the governor.
Gooden begins his work with a much-needed primer on hostage-taking, its history, and its evolution in North America. He also includes outstanding background information on the social and political divisions between eastern and western Virginia, which led to the creation of West Virginia as a separate state. Gooden persuasively argues that these divisions had a direct role in creating an environment where taking hostages would emerge during wartime extremes. West Virginia passed a formal hostage law in 1863, but even before that, hostage-taking occurred during cavalry raids, security sweeps, and guerrilla attacks as the region was home to much early campaigning when the war began in 1861. These types of events directly led to the formal hostage law, as the Unionist counties that broke off to form West Virginia pointed to actions such as the Confederate Jones-Imboden raid of April–May 1863 as proof that a hostage law was a necessity. Thus, advocates of West Virginia’s own separate statehood often were advocates of hostage-taking as a necessary wartime measure as well. The hostage law allowed for the retaliatory taking of hostages seized in exchange for pro-Union civilian hostages, but it also permitted the arrest of suspected disloyal persons.
The real strength of Gooden’s work (and this should come as no surprise since the author also served as the assistant curator of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection) is the focus on individual case histories, which serve as examples for the larger issues at play. By focusing on case histories, Gooden shows how and why certain people were targeted to be arrested as hostages and also shows the delicate balancing act between federal and state powers in West Virginia. The book delves slightly into the postwar years as well, where Gooden surveys the contrasting experiences of several former hostages. He finds that while some former hostages were ostracized socially and professionally once the war ended, others used their experience as a hostage as a source of pride, a sort of West Virginia version of waving the bloody shirt. Gooden does not dive deep into the postwar period, although, to be fair, that is not the object of the book.
The Governor’s Pawns: Hostages and Hostage-Taking in Civil War West Virginia is an excellent work, and Gooden deserves praise for using a variety of sources. It is a local history, no doubt, but it also fits in well with works on the Civil War and civil liberties and highlights the political and social pressures Civil War governors faced (Governor Arthur I. Boreman left detailed records that Gooden relies heavily on). It should be widely read. [End Page 436]
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