Thanks for the info. I completely agree with your assessment of Dr. Bill's book. A good, solid history of Prairie Grove was long overdue, and Bill has admirably filled that gap.

I had read all the Official Records reports dealing with the Prairie Grove campaign, but the confusing jumble of marches, counter-marches and false starts was almost impossible to wade through and figure out. Bill made sense of the whole mess, and showed that there was actually a method to the madness.

Also, he did an outstanding job of showing the disaster that Van Dorn left in his wake after he skipped off to Mississippi in the Spring of 1862. We all knew, intellectually, that Van Dorn took all the troops, arms, munitions, and everything else that wasn't nailed down, but one of the mundane, overlooked things that serious impeded future operations in Arkansas was the loss of all the wagons and teams that Van Dorn took with him. That continued to adversely affect the Confederates well after Van Dorn was gone. Bill accurately pointed out that even though Van Dorn was long gone in December 1862, busy jumping out of windows in Tennessee, one step ahead of irate husbands, his fingerprints are all over the Confederate reverses in the Prairie Grove campaign.

That all goes to a reconsideration of the legacy of Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman. In an era when the size of generals' egos were exceeded only by the size of their beards, Hindman was a modest, dedicated general officer. He didn't always get it right, but given the legacy he inherited from Van Dorn, he did a superb job in rebuilding the army.

I could go on and on about Dr. Bill's book, and maybe in a future post I will. :)

Incidentally, Bill Gurley recently sent me a series of papers he's written about Brig. Gen. Mosby Munroe Parsons and Parsons' Brigade. It's extremely well researched and written, and I hope-hope-hope that it's going to be the basis of a book. Some good Trans-Mississippi stuff, which we need more of.