Greyhound Commander: Confederate General John G. Walker’s History of the Civil War West of the Mississippi ed. by Richard Lowe (review)

Confederate General John G. Walker’s history of the Civil War in the trans-Mississippi West is a highly valuable contribution to the voluminous literature penned by veterans of the conflict. Whereas the vast majority of memoirs rehash the famous battles and debates surrounding the eastern and western theaters, Walker’s narrative is only one of two full-scale histories of the Civil War west of the Mississippi River written by a leading Confederate general. Placed alongside Major General Richard Taylor’s Destruction and Reconstruction (New York, 1879), Walker’s history paints a clear portrait of the complicated, and sometimes neglected, events in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. And, rather than operating as a forum in which to impose standard Lost Cause narratives, Walker’s history abides closely to the historical record, foreshadowing interpretations later put forth by professional scholars.

Walker was born in 1821 to an established Missouri family, notable for its ties to the slaveholding South, the southern political class, and its prominent military tradition. As a young adult, Walker enjoyed a first-class education, developing into a connoisseur of culture and class. He pursued a military career and earned distinction as an officer in the U.S. war with Mexico. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate military.

Walker first served in the famed Army of Northern Virginia, quickly earning promotions based on his strong leadership qualities and receiving high praise from Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson for his competence and martial acumen at Harpers Ferry and Antietam. Walker was ordered in late 1862 to the trans-Mississippi where he ultimately took command of a division composed entirely of Texas units. Dubbed “Walker’s Greyhounds,” the Texans fought myriad skirmishes and battles from the banks of the Mississippi River in defense of Vicksburg, the swamps of southern Arkansas, and the fields of central Louisiana, where they played a central role in repulsing the Union’s Red River Campaign in 1864.

Walker sought to put forth an unbiased narrative, yet he also argues forcefully for his perception of historical truth. Thus, the real value of Walker’s history is found in the stunning detail of campaigns and battles and his sharp critique of leading figures. Walker leveled explicit charges against Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, who prevented Walker’s Texans from joining with Richard Taylor in pursuit of the retreating Union army following the Red River Campaign: “To this fatal blunder [Union General Nathaniel P.] Banks was indebted for his safety” (101). The general also criticized the Confederate high command’s lack of attention and focused military strategy in the trans-Mississippi theater. And, although Walker generally abstained from the temptations of Lost Cause lore, the narrative retains a decisive southern bent, leaving no doubt about Walker’s wartime dedication to the Confederacy. He denounced, for example, the Union’s enlistment of African American troops, against whom his unit battled at Milliken’s Bend in June 1863. But unlike many of his postwar southern contemporaries, Walker acknowledged the revolutionary implications of black soldiering: “the obstinacy with which they fought . . . opened the eyes of the Confederates to the consequences to be apprehended by the Federal employment of these auxiliaries” (71).

Few scholars are more qualified than Richard Lowe in bringing Walker’s history to a modern audience. Lowe, a noted expert on the war in the trans-Mississippi West, as well as the leading historian of Walker’s Texas Division, complements the narrative with thorough footnotes and detailed commentary. He effectively places the work in historiographical context with an excellent, methodical introduction that positions the war west of the Mississippi in relation to the broader literature. Lowe and Walker both succeed in demonstrating that the trans-Mississippi Civil War was not a sideshow to...