Kirby Smith's Confederacy--The Trans-Mississippi South 1863-1865
by Robert L. Kerby

Table of Contents

Preface ix
1. The Trans-Mississippi South, 1861-1863 1
2. The Home Front 1861-1863 51
3. The Loss of the Mississippi Valley 97
4. King Cotton 155
5. Summer and Autumn Campaigns, 1863 209
6. The Home Front After Vicksburg 253
7. The Red River and Camden Campaigns, 1864 283
8. The Closing Campaigns, 1864 323
9. The Collapse of the Trans-Mississippi, 1865 377
Notes 435
Bibliography 487
Index 511

Author (Kerby) uses a broad brush to examine the military, social, political, and economic facets of the Confederate states west of the Mississippi. The book provides an overall historical framework for understanding the history of the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi, but few details of any particular battle and no battlefield maps are given.

Kerby's extensive research program to develop source materials, synthesize his research findings, and write a coherent work provided him with five overall major "impressions" (pages 431-435) regarding Kirby Smith's Trans-Mississippi Department. Only one, the first, was historically interesting to me.