Customer Reviews

Between the Enemy and Texas: Parsons's Texas Cavalry in the Civil War

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This is a great work on Parsons' Cavalry in the Civil War: The 12, 19th, and 21st Cavalry, Morgan's Texas Battalion, the Tenth Texas Field Battery, and Johnson's Spy company. I have an ancestor in the 19th Texas Cavalry and I found this work to be complete and accurate. Well, either it is accurate, or the Confederate Research Center is accurate, but that's another story... Anyhow, this fine work covers the early Civil War days in Texas, the wild skirmishes in Arkansas, the raid into Missouri, the Red River Campaign (where the Texans, outnumbered 5 to 1, inflicted such punishment on the Yankee cavalry, infantry, artillery, and ironclads that they retreated across the Mississippi, never to return). Yee-Haw! It is a great book - I get goose bumps just readin' it.

I found this book particularly interesting because I have an ancestor who was in Parsons's Cavalry. The author used primary sources such as military records of battles, letters to and from officers, letters written by soldiers to their families. I felt I knew these men and understood what they were going through. Some of the men, such as Parsons's were better trained than others; that could be due to wealthy or influencial men become officers without real military training - think of that happening today! No matter what side you believe was right in the American Civil War you will agree that these Texas volunteers fought like fury to keep the enemy out of their homeland and away from their families.

This book describes in detail a look at the part of the Civil War West of the Mississippi River that seems to be overlooked by history.