{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02179379715004191, 'fraction_numerical': 0.003352891869237217, 'mean_word_length': 5.123076923076923, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
McNeill’s Rangers in the Public Memory of Hardy County, West Virginia

T article uses the McNeill’s Rangers of Hardy County, West Virginia, as a case study that demonstrates the difficulty of interpreting the past of a divided public. The McNeill’s Rangers were a group of partisan Confederate soldiers who, using Hardy County as their main headquarters, fought a guerrilla war against the Union. Following the war, a heroic memory developed within Hardy County, due in part to the rangers, and their supporters, actively reporting their own version of the war. The heroic memory dominated early histories of the rangers and still exists today. In the late 1930s, the state of West Virginia placed a wayside marker in Moorefield, West Virginia, commemorating the rangers. This marker perpetuates the heroic memory and fails to place the rangers within broader context of guerrilla war or Civil War memory. The following article will place Hardy County in its historic context, briefly explain the service of the McNeill’s Rangers in the Civil War, demonstrate how initial memories of the rangers were formed, and discuss contemporary efforts to revise these early romanticized interpretations.