| Confederate General of the West: Henry Hopkins Sibley Texas A&m Univ Edition Contributor(s): Thompson, Jerry (Author), VanDiver, Frank E. (Foreword by), Garza, Leonel (Illustrator) |
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ISBN: 0890967059 ISBN-13: 9780890967058 Publisher: Texas A&M University Press OUR PRICE: $15.26 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 1996 Annotation: Had Henry Hopkins Sibley and his troops succeeded in taking New Mexico, author Jerry Thompson argues, "the entire history of the Southern Confederacy might have been radically altered". In Confederate General of the West, Thompson portrays the life and career of a soldier whose character flaws and leadership weaknesses stood in stark contrast to his sometime military successes and mechanical ingenuity. Civil War scholars, students, and enthusiasts will welcome this new paperback edition of Sibley's biography. As the Utah Historical Quarterly noted after the book first appeared in 1987, Jerry Thompson's scholarship "has provided us with a view of nineteenth-century American military life that rarely surfaces - a comprehensive picture of the mediocre, inept officer who, when thrust into positions of great pressure and responsibility, unwittingly produces great carnage.... Perhaps the greatest value of the book is the extent to which it illustrates the impact of frontier isolation ... on the contentious behavior of the army's officer corps during the antebellum period". |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877) - Biography & Autobiography |
| Dewey: 973.742 |
| LCCN: 95050291 |
| Lexile Measure: 1440 |
| Physical Information: 1.13" H x 5.54" W x 8.5" (1.34 lbs) 424 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Southwest U.S. - Geographic Orientation - New Mexico - Geographic Orientation - Texas - Topical - Civil War - Cultural Region - Mid-South - Cultural Region - South |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Had Henry Hopkins Sibley and his Confederate army troops succeeded in capturing New Mexico from the Federals, author Jerry Thompson argues, "the entire history of the Southern Confederacy might have been radically altered." In Confederate General of the West, Thompson portrays the life and career of a soldier whose character flaws and leadership weaknesses stood in stark contrast to his sometime military successes and mechanical ingenuity. A veteran of the Mexican-American War, Sibley served in Texas from 1850 to 1855, moving west with his regiment to Kansas and then joining the 1857 Utah Expedition. By the end of 1859 he had moved on to the New Mexico Territory. When the Civil War broke out, Jefferson Davis appointed him to lead an expeditionary force from Texas to seize New Mexico, Colorado, and California. He won a controversial Confederate victory at the Battle of Valverde in 1862--controversial because of his own disreputable performance. In the spring of that year, after defeat at Glorieta Pass, he retreated in disgrace from New Mexico into west Texas and later faced court-martial for his inadequate and often drunken leadership. A later mercenary stint in the Egyptian army also ended for similar reasons. Civil War scholars, students, and enthusiasts will welcome this new paperback edition. |