Courage and Desperation Rarely Equaled

In an attempt to relieve the mounting pressure on Vicksburg, the Confederate high command launched an assault on the Federal defences at Helena, Arkansas, a port city on the Mississippi River. Poor intelligence and reconnaissance work and a lack of coordination among the assaulting columns turned the effort into a costly failure and brought an end to the ill-starred command of Lt. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes in the trans-Mississippi.

Texas Must Take Her Chances

Examines the growing Federal naval blockade of the Texas coast and the sporadic attempts of the Union navy to occupy various point along the Gulf. A dramatic Confederate counteroffensive resulted in the recapture of the major port city of Galveston and the capture or destruction of several Federal blockaders.

No Feeling of Mercy or Kindness

Examines the political and military situation in Arkansas after the Confederate defeat at Pea Ridge and Earl van Dorn’s virtual evacuation of the state in order to reinforce Albert Sidney Johnston’s counteroffensive in Tennessee. Examines, in particular, Thomas Carmichael Hindman’s attempts to rebuild a Confederate army in the state to resist further Federal incursion, culminating in the union victory at the battle of Prairie Grove.

We Are Men and Braves

Deals with the Union’s attempt, during a greater civil war in the East, to retain control of the Western frontier and, in particular, the Santa Fe Trail and other routes to California, in the face of Native American—particularly Apache and Navajo—resistance.

The Only Man in the Army That Was Whipped

Deals with the inability of Ben McCulloch, commander of the Confederate army in Arkansas, and Sterling Price, commander of the Missouri State Guard, to agree on a strategy for operations in the region, Missouri’s formal secession, the appointment of Earl Van Dorn as commander of all Confederate forces in the trans-Mississippi, and the decisive Federal victory at Pea Ridge in 1862.

I Will Gladly Give My Life for a Victory

Narrates the decisive split between secessionist and Unionist Missourians in 1861, the early battles between the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard and Federal forces for control of the state, the intervention of Confederate forces, and the battle of Wilson’s Creek.

Has It Come So Soon As This?

Deals with the secession movements in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri.

Our Troops Should Occupy and Hold at Least a Portion of Texas

Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, having failed to achieve a foothold in Texas with an amphibious invasion, attempted an overland campaign across south Louisiana in the summer and fall of 1863. He was defeated by the inferior numbers of Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor and force to retreat, well short of the Texas border.

More Remarkable than Thermopylae

In an attempt to gain a foothold in Texas and to discourage the imperialistic ambitions of the French emperor Napoleon III in Mexico, early in 1863 Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin led a massive joint naval and army task force to the mouth of the Sabine River, planning to quickly capture Houston and remove Texas from the war. The tiny, under-gunned garrison of an earthen fort at the mouth of the pass handily repulsed the invaders, preventing a landing and destroying several Union ships.

Introduction

The Confederate states of Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri, the parishes of Louisiana west of the Mississippi, the Indian Territory, and the New Mexico Territory constituted what Richmond editor Edward Alfred Pollard called “the distant and obscure theatre of the Trans-Mississippi.” But “distant and obscure” as it might have seemed to a citizen of Richmond in 1862, the trans-Mississippi was an area of tremendous potential significance. For one thing, at 600,000 square miles, the trans-Mississippi Confederacy comprised more than one-half of the entire Confederate landmass, and the area was as variable as it was vast. In addition, manpower reserves were substantial. In 1860, Arkansas had a white population of more than 324,000; Louisiana, 375,000; Texas, 420,000; and Missouri, in excess of 1,000,000. The black populations of these states were also significant, with Louisiana’s slave population nearly equaling that of its free citizens. Texas had a slave population of more than 180,000, and Arkansas and Missouri each had more than 100,000 enslaved black people. With the coming of emancipation and the enlistment of former slaves into the Union army, many of these men flocked to the colors and played significant roles in the campaigns of 1863 and 1864. Of Louisiana’s black men of military age, 24,052, or 31 percent, joined the army, and in Arkansas, that number was 5,526, or 24 percent. From Texas, however, a state that largely avoided Federal invasion and occupation and therefore held its slaves until the war was ended, only 47 black men enlisted, a mere .001 percent of its prewar slave population....