Customer Reviews

Kirby Smith's Confederacy: The TransMississippi South, 1863-1865

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....of a book for people like me. If you've bothered to read this, for people like you, too. A book can be "definitive", "essential", neither, or both...this book is definitive, but is probablly essential for only a few dozen people on earth....

This is NOT a biography of General Edmund Kirby Smith; it is the story of his leadership of the Transmississippi Department from 1863 to the end of the war. After distinguished service in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, Smith was sent west in 1863 because Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes was not up to the job of running a department [he, alas, got to keep Arkansas]. He set up headquarters in Shreveport, LA, and ran a department that included western Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and what is now Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona. After the fall of Vicksburg in July, 1863, Smith was on his own. He was as much a Governor General as he was a General, exercising powers that NO other Officer in American history has had to [the only recent parallel I can think of is the British General Allenby in Palestine after WWI]. Smith had to juggle military necessity [and very different definitions of that] with political reality. He even promoted nine Generals, whose rank is still debated. Further complication came from the fact that many of his subordinate Generals were Robert E. Lee's incompetent rejects, though the worst problems came from the highly competent, but vain and insubordinate, Richard Taylor.

The problems were profound...little money, few resourses, poor transportation. Smith and Taylor fought over whether to concentrate on Arkansas and Missouri [Smith], or Louisiana [Taylor]. Of corruption, there was plenty...witness Santos Benavides' cotton gathering, or the Yankee cotton traders carrying a pass signed by both Smith and Union General Banks, escorted by soldiers from both sides. Still, there were victories; Taylor's Red River campaign was a masterpiece; Dowling's victory at Sabine Pass was one of the greatest in history, small though it was; Stand Watie and the other Indians in Oklahoma were viable right to the end. Indeed, Smith was the last major Confederate commander to surrender, and Watie was the last general of any rank.

If you REALLY want to know about an obscure aspect of the Civil War, read this profoundly great book. Be warned; it is 600+ pages of heavy going. I am a fan of General Smith, and, though I live in Virginia, have an interest in the topic. If you don't, don't waste time, money, and shelf space.

FOLLOWING THE FALL OF VICKSBURG IN JULY 1863 THE CONMFEDERACY WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI BACAME A SEPARATE NAIION WITH THE UNDERVALUED GEN EDMUND KIRBY SMITH AS ITS LEADER. THIS GREAT BOOK BRINGS TO LIFE THE WESTERN CONFEDERACY'S ATTEMPST TO MAINTAIN RELATIONS WITH MEXICO FOR THE PURPOSE OF SMUGGLING COTTON FOR ARMS AND SUPPLIES, IT RECOUNTS THE UNION RAIDS ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI, AND IT COVERS THE TROUBLED SURRENDER TO THE TEXAS FORCES AT THE END OF THE WAR. FIVE STARS IS TOO FEW FOR THIS BOOK.