Department of History
Dr. Adrian Lewis, Chair
P.O. Box 310650
Denton, Texas 76203
Phone: 940-387-2288
Email: history@unt.edu |
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Walker's Texas Division, C.S.A.: Greyhounds of the Trans-Mississippi
by Richard Lowe
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Description:
Colorfully known as the "Greyhound Division" for its lean
and speedy marches across thousands of miles in three states,
Major General John G. Walker's infantry division in the
Confederate army was the largest body of Texans - about 12,000
men at its formation - to serve in the American Civil War.
Walker's division remained, uniquely for either side in the
conflict, a stable group of soldiers from a single state from
its creation in 1862 until its disbandment at the war's end.
Richard Lowe's compelling saga shows how this collection of
farm boys, store clerks, carpenters, and lawyers became the
trans-Mississippi's most potent Confederate fighting unit,
from the vain attack at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, in 1863
during Grant's Vicksburg campaign to stellar performances at
the battles of Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and Jenkins' Ferry
that helped repel Nathaniel P. Banks's Red River campaign of
1864.
Lowe evokes the trans-Mississippi
theater, with its battles in the hills, prairies, and swamps of
Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas - vitally important and
influential in the war's course even though outdazzled by
eastern landmarks such as Gettysburg and Antietam. The author
makes vivid the growing challenge that confronted the
Confederate cause in 1862 and gave rise to the Greyhounds. Using
a database of information collected on 2,200 soldiers, he
calculates that Walker's enlisted men were somewhat older,
more likely to be married, and more often heads of households
than their counterparts, both Rebel and Yankee. Their financial
assets and casualty statistics mirrored those of Texans
generally, casting doubt on the slogan "a rich man's war and
a poor man's fight." And although the Confederacy may have
erred in not sending the division east of the Mississippi River
to fight in larger campaigns, Lowe's book yields the poignant
conclusion that the Greyhounds were content to remain where they
were to shield their families from an invading enemy and the
devastation of war.
The only modern history of these
soldiers, Lowe's study is also a rarity in its scholarly
examination of an entire Civil War division. Moreover, his
skillful blending of narrative drive and demographic profiling
represent an innovative history of the period that is sure to
set a new benchmark.
Available from Amazon
ISBN# 080712933X |
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