The Confederate Military Forces in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1865: A Study in Command

by William Royston Geise, Michael J. Forsyth (Editor)

Overview

William Royston Geise was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1970s when he researched and wrote The Confederate Military Forces in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861- 1865: A Study in Command in 1974. Although it remained unpublished, it was not wholly unknown. Deep-diving researchers were aware of Dr. Geise’s work and lamented the fact that it was not widely available to the general public. In many respects, studies of the Trans-Mississippi Theater are only now catching up with Geise. This intriguing book traces the evolution of Confederate command and how it affected the shifting strategic situation and general course of the war. Dr. Geise accomplishes his task by coming at the question in a unique fashion. Military field operations are discussed as needed, but his emphasis is on the functioning of headquarters and staff—the central nervous system of any military command. This was especially so for the Trans-Mississippi. After July 1863, the only viable Confederate agency west of the great river was the headquarters at Shreveport. That hub of activity became the sole location to which all isolated players, civilians and military alike, could look for immediate overall leadership and a sense of Confederate solidarity. By filling these needs, the Trans-Mississippi Department assumed a unique and vital role among Confederate military departments and provided a focus for continued Confederate resistance west of the Mississippi River. The author’s work mining primary archival sources and published firsthand accounts, coupled with a smooth and clear writing style, helps explain why this remote department (referred to as “Kirby Smithdom” after Gen. Kirby Smith) failed to function efficiently, and how and why the war unfolded there as it did. Trans-Mississippi Theater historian and Ph.D. candidate Michael J. Forsyth (Col., U.S. Army, Ret.) has resurrected Dr. Geise’s smoothly written and deeply researched manuscript from its undeserved obscurity. This edition, with its original annotations and Forsyth’s updated citations and observations, is bolstered with original maps, photographs, and images. Students of the war in general, and the Trans-Mississippi Theater in particular, will delight in its long overdue publication.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781954547438
Publisher:	Savas Beatie
Publication date:	10/05/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

William Royston Geise graduated from the Missouri Military Academy in 1936 and was attending the University of Texas at Austin when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He joined what would become the Air Force and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1961. He earned Bachelor’s in English from the University of Arizona and his Master’s in English and Ph.D. in American History in 1974 from UT-Austin. Geise taught history at San Antonio College for 15 years and published articles in a variety of periodicals before passing away in 1993.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Acknowledgments xii

Preface xiv

Chapter 1 The Confederate Northwest Frontier: May 1861 - August 1861 1

Chapter 2 Divided Command and Divided Counsels in Missouri: August 1861 13

Chapter 3 Continued Command Problems on the Northwest Frontier and a New Year's Promise of Solution: August 1861 - January 186 23

Chapter 4 Texas: The First Year 31

Chapter 5 Increasing Isolation and a New Command in the Trans-Mississippi West: January 1862 - May 1862 47

Chapter 6 Hindman and Hebert Divide Command While the Trans-Mississippi Department Awaits a Department Commander: June - July 1862 59

Chapter 7 General Holmes Fails to Create a Department: August 1862 - February 1863 73

Chapter 8 Holmes, Arkansas, and the Defense of the Lower River: August 1862 - February 1863 83

Chapter 9 The Department Faces Total Isolation: February - July 1863 91

Chapter 10 Isolation: July - December, 1863 105

Chapter 11 Kirby Smith's War Department, 1864 115

Chapter 12 Kirby Smithdom, 1864 131

Chapter 13 Military Command and the Campaigns of 1864 149

Chapter 14 Decline and Collapse: December 1864 - June 1865 167

Postscript 189

Bibliography 195

Editor's Supplemental Bibliography 201

Index 205

Excerpt: Thirteen Months in Dixie 213

Author and Editor Biographies 222

List of Maps

The Trans-Mississippi Department xvi (fronting Chapter 1)

Indian Territory 41

Pea Ridge 51

The Red River Campaign 153

Photographs

Brigadier General Ben McCulloch 5

Brigadier General Albert Pike 5

Brigadier General William J. Hardee 13

Major General Leonidas Polk 14

Major General Sterling Price 15

Major General Earl Van Dorn 33

Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley 37

Opothleyahola 42

Major General Thomas C. Hindman 56

Brigadier General Paul Octave Hebert 57

Major General Theophilus Holmes 68

Major General Richard Taylor 75

Major General John B. Magruder 78

Major General John G Walker 88

Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith 92

Brigadier General William Boggs 95

Major General Benjamin Huger 95

Missouri's governor in exile, Thomas C. Reynolds 143

Texas Governor Pendleton Murrah 144

Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner 151

Editorial Reviews

Geise’s study closes a yawning gap in the historiography of the Trans-Mississippi theatre in the Civil War. Military events provide modest but necessary connective tissue to a narrative of unremitting Confederate foundering off the battlefields: chain of command problems, ragged administration, general officer in-fighting, logistical neglect, confused purposes, divided command, and more. This is institutional and administrative history at its finest.

Thomas E. Schott

A skillfully edited and treasured contribution to the ever expanding library of American Civil War histories…

Midwest Book Review

Geise’s writing is masterful and his perspective takes the reader beyond a chronological or personality driven narrative and into a military analysis of the war in the Trans-Mississippi. Michael J. Forsyth’s editing is every bit as insightful and informative as Geise’s work. This book deserves a place on any Civil War bookshelf.

Jeffery S. Prushankin

This is a must read for any student of the Civil War, and particularly for those interested in the Trans-Mississippi.

The NYMAS Review