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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Crisis in Confederate Command: Edmund Kirby Smith, Richard Taylor, and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi
Jeffrey S. Prushankin
Illustrated, maps, 328 pp., 2005. Louisiana State University Press, P.O. Box 25053, Baton Rouge, LA 70894-5053, $39.95 plus shipping.
There are no shortages of books about feuding Civil War commanders. We are all familiar with disputes involving high-ranking generals, both North and South. Robert E. Lee, for example, maintained relative harmony within the Army of Northern Virginia by sending troublesome commanders elsewhere. While President Abraham Lincoln exiled the failed John Pope to fight Indians in the Northwest, President Jefferson Davis often used the Western Theater and Trans-Mississippi as a home for men who fell out of favor in the East. The two subjects in this fine study in command by Jeff Prushankin both began their wartime careers in Virginia. Both ended up in the Trans-Mississippi, one by choice (Richard Taylor) and one by assignment (Edmund Kirby Smith). Taylor was a native of Louisiana, son of a former president, and a war hero before his health failed in 1862; he chose to return to his beloved Louisiana. On the other hand, Smith did not have much say about his exile west of the Mississippi River. Smith, two years older than Taylor, had grown up in Florida. As a young man he attended West Point (Taylor opted for Yale), fought in the Mexican War under Zachary Taylor, and was still in the U.S. Army at the time of secession. He fought in Virginia and East Tennessee before taking part in the failed invasion of Kentucky in 1862. His criticism of Davis’ friend Braxton Bragg paved the way for his assignment farther west, to the Trans-Mississippi, where, in the spring of 1864, he would come into conflict with his old commander’s son. Lincoln’s continued interest in Texas, with its international border and the cotton fields of East Texas, contrasted with Davis’ almost total disregard for the region. Lincoln approved repeated forays along the Texas coast and half-hearted attempts to move into Louisiana in 1863. But it was the 1864 invasion, with Federal armies in Arkansas moving south toward Shreveport and blue columns in Louisiana moving north toward the same goal that brought Taylor and Smith into conflict. One would think that since the Confederacy stopped both incursions there would be no story to tell. But herein is the error. Prushankin relates a tale of frustration, intrigue and jealousy. Following Taylor’s successful campaign on the Red River, Smith could have ordered him to Arkansas. But Smith chose not to do that; he did not know how to handle the outspoken Taylor and, more importantly, he did not want to share any possible glory. Taylor and Smith feuded over strategy before, during and after the campaign. Prushankin notes that “Smith’s pride, poor judgment, and lack of military skill prevented Taylor from turning those victories into a campaign that would aid the Confederate war effort east of the river.” A concentrated thrust against the Federal forces in Louisiana might have disrupted William T. Sherman’s Atlanta campaign and his subsequent march to the sea. Prushankin has written an excellent account of why this did not happen and how the personalities of two individuals, so different in disposition and upbringing, kept this from happening.
Anne J. Bailey
Anne J. Bailey, a professor of history at Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, is the author of eight books on the Civil War, including Invisible Southerners: Ethnicity in the Civil War (2006); War and Ruin: William T. Sherman and the Savannah Campaign (2003); and The Chessboard of War: Sherman and Hood in the Autumn Campaigns of 1864 (2000). She has also written three books about the Trans-Mississippi.
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