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Littlefield History of the Civil War Era
Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River, 1861–1865
Though its most famous battles were waged in the East at Antietam, Gettysburg, and throughout Virginia, the Civil War was clearly a conflict that raged across a continent. From cotton-rich Texas and the fields of Kansas through Indian Territory and into the high desert of New Mexico, the trans-Mississippi theater was site of major clashes from the war's earliest days through the surrenders of Confederate generals Edmund Kirby Smith and Stand Waite in June 1865. In this comprehensive military history of the war west of the Mississippi River, Thomas W. Cutrer shows that the theater's distance from events in the East does not diminish its importance to the unfolding of the larger struggle.
Theater of a Separate War details the battles between North and South in these far-flung regions, assessing the complex political and military strategies on both sides. While providing the definitive history of the rise and fall of the South's armies in the far West, Cutrer shows, even if the region's influence on the Confederacy's cause waned, its role persisted well beyond the fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender to Grant. In this masterful study, Cutrer offers a fresh perspective on an often overlooked aspect of Civil War history.
Theater of a Separate War details the battles between North and South in these far-flung regions, assessing the complex political and military strategies on both sides. While providing the definitive history of the rise and fall of the South's armies in the far West, Cutrer shows, even if the region's influence on the Confederacy's cause waned, its role persisted well beyond the fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender to Grant. In this masterful study, Cutrer offers a fresh perspective on an often overlooked aspect of Civil War history.
601 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 17, 2017
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July 14, 2018
Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River, 1861-1865 by Thomas W. Cutrer is published by the University of North Carolina Press. It was awarded the Douglas Southall Freeman Award, Military Order of the Stars and Bars. Dr. Curtrer is professor emeritus of history at Arizona State University. He has previously authored a number of books, including Ben McCullough and the Frontier Miliary Tradition, Parnasus on the Mississippi: The Southern Review and the Baton Rouge Literary Community 1935-1942 (which is a book I thoroughly loved when I read it years ago), and most recently, Doris Miller, Pearl Harbor, and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement.
Two preliminary thoughts about Theater of a Separate War (TSW):
First, I hope Dr. Cutrer doesn’t count off much for late assignments. I began reading this book back in January, but it got brushed aside by a torrent of school readings, other review books, and other matters. I picked it back up a few weeks ago and read to the end.
Second, I found myself feeling ashamed while reading this book. After years of reading and teaching history, I have no idea how a mere mortal undertakes to write an account like this.
Now, on to the vast expanse of land west of the Mississippi, commonly called the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
Each time I teach on “the War,” also known as the War Between the States, the Civil War, the War of the Rebellion, the War for Southern Independence, or what southerners often just called “the Wawh,” I try to explain the three theaters–or major areas of operation–in the war. For many students–at all levels–the War took place in those places in Virginia and a few points north where such men as Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, and James Longstreet duked it out with wave upon wave of Northern invaders who finally wore down the beleagured Confederacy.
Besides being the subject of most of the books, studies, national park battlefields, and colorful leaders, the eastern theater was the location of both capitals. Many defining books, such as Brace Catton’s many works, Kenneth Stamp’s Lincoln Finds a General, and the historical/fictional trilogy by Michael and Jeff Shaara, are focused on events in the east.
For me, personally, it was around 1991, on my honeymoon vacation no less, when I was able to visit battlefields at Shiloh, Stones’ River, Chickamagua, and other western battlegrounds that I began seeing beyond just the battle of Vicksburg (which we toured around 1994). It was Andrew Nelson Lytle’s fun biography Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company that made me a student of that phase of the war.
Only when I began teaching Arkansas history and also participated in a re-enactment group for a short time did I begin giving any attention to the Trans-Mississippi. In the 1960’s, a small press in Little Rock, called Pioneer Press, published a number of books about the war in Arkansas with some dealing with adjacent areas. Those books are largely out-of-print and high priced in the used book world. (Lots of them were given to public school libraries throughout the state.) I think I paid about $60 for a copy of Rebels Valiant: Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles (Dismounted) by Wesley Thurman Leeper. I have a couple of ancestors who were in that unit, hence my willingness to pay such a hefty price back some 20 plus years ago.
Over the years, I have managed to acquire (to no one’s surprise) quite a few books about the War in Arkansas, a few more about Texas, Louisiana, and Missouri, and a biography of the Cherokee Indian and Confederate General Stand Watie. I am still, however, struggling through first or second grade in terms of having a good grasp of the Trans-Mississippi part of the War.
This new book, Theater of a Separate War, is and will be continue to be the defining work on this part of the war. This part of the war was a separate (in some senses) war from what was happening in the nearby western theater and from the eastern theater. In some ways, the Trans-Mississippi was a series of separate wars. There were battles for control of the western territories of New Mexico and Colorado. Control of the coast of Texas was another phase of the war. The civil wars within the Civil War as found in Missouri and which spilled over into Kansas and northern Arkansas was another series of events. Louisiana, the richest state in the Confederacy, had battles ranging from New Orleans in the south to the outskirts of Shreveport in the north, and being on the west side of Vicksburg, it played a small, but indecisive role in that pivotal battle. If all that isn’t enough, the various tribes of Native Americans, located mainly in the Indian Territory or present day Oklahoma, fought largely for the south, with some exceptions.
As Dr. Cutrer points out in the conclusion, if there had been no war in the rest of the United States, the events in this wide theater would still be a fascinating and important study in military history. “What difference does it make now?” to use the question posed by some politician of the past. The war was neither won nor lost in the Trans-Mississippi. It was, to quote Albert Castel as Cutrer did, “the garbage dump of the Confederate army.” It was, often enough, a distraction and side show to the Union generals and leadership.
In the fun category of “What If” history, or Alternative History, made famous by the scholarly works of such men as Robert Cowley or fictional works by such men as Harry Turtledove (Guns of the South) or McKinley Cantor (If the South Had Won the Civil War), one can speculate a Southern strategy that would have captured Missouri (particularly St. Louis) for the South and carried the war to the North with an invasion sweeping across Illinois.
A more likely scenario, at least it seemed more likely at the time, would have been for the Confederacy to have sealed an alliance with France through the Trans-Mississippi connection. Remember that at this time, France had bypassed the Monroe Doctrine to set up a puppet government in Mexico under the ill-fated Maximillian. (I thought “ill-fated” seemed a bit cliched, but just had to be in that sentence. Getting shot by a firing squad doesn’t conjure up words like “lucky.”)
Another aspect of this war that contributes to its lack of notice is the casualty figures. I must admit that after years of teaching the war, I find myself more and more queasy and disturbed by the numbers of men killed and maimed in battle after battle in Tennessee, Virginia, Mississippi, and Georgia. The novel The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks reminded me of what I had read about and watched in movies too many times: Even those soldiers who survived the wounds of war endured some horrible hospital experiences.
In contrast to the thousands and tens of thousands killed, maimed, or captured, many of the battles in the Trans-Mississippi resulted in anywhere from a few hundred to “only” a few thousand casualties. The numbers of what constituted battles in the Trans-Mississippi pales in comparison to the huge numbers in other parts of the war. But part of the greater purpose of this book is to get our attention off the glory/horrors images of the other campaigns and to focus on this part of the war.
Now for two criticisms of the book:
The first one falls under this title “blame the reader.” I often found myself lost or confused as to who was who and who was on what side in this book. It doesn’t help that there was a General Frederick Steele who fought for the Union and a General William Steele who fought for the Confederacy. I think I need some device that color codes the text so that Confederates’ names appear in gray and Union names in blue. At the same time, this reminded me of why so many of my students would give lame-brain answers on my tests. “What kind of idiot would think that Stonewall Jackson led the Army of the Potomac?” I would think. The same kind that would think that William Steele was a Union officer, I now realize.
The second criticism will go the publisher. That being said, I have and love many books published by the University of North Carolina Press. But why is there only one map in this book? The one map is useful and is a two page spread showing the theater in its entirety. But I was constantly lost and confused because I didn’t know where particular rivers, towns, and battlefields were located in the western states and territories. The Arkansas portions were a little easier to navigate because of having traveled to most of them. But a book of 588 pages and a book of this incredible caliber needed another dozen or more pages showing battlefield maps.
There is, somewhere, a listing of the 100 most important books on the Civil War. I am sure that it is out-of-date. I am equally sure that I have made up my own versions of such a list. But in any reckoning on this war, this book will have to be in the line-up. This work doesn’t have the fire and passion found in Bruce Catton’s books or Shelby Foote’s works. It is scholarly military history with a penchant for giving lots of details. But it is a worthy study and a powerful unveiling of a whole angle on the most neglected part of the Civil War.
Two preliminary thoughts about Theater of a Separate War (TSW):
First, I hope Dr. Cutrer doesn’t count off much for late assignments. I began reading this book back in January, but it got brushed aside by a torrent of school readings, other review books, and other matters. I picked it back up a few weeks ago and read to the end.
Second, I found myself feeling ashamed while reading this book. After years of reading and teaching history, I have no idea how a mere mortal undertakes to write an account like this.
Now, on to the vast expanse of land west of the Mississippi, commonly called the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
Each time I teach on “the War,” also known as the War Between the States, the Civil War, the War of the Rebellion, the War for Southern Independence, or what southerners often just called “the Wawh,” I try to explain the three theaters–or major areas of operation–in the war. For many students–at all levels–the War took place in those places in Virginia and a few points north where such men as Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, and James Longstreet duked it out with wave upon wave of Northern invaders who finally wore down the beleagured Confederacy.
Besides being the subject of most of the books, studies, national park battlefields, and colorful leaders, the eastern theater was the location of both capitals. Many defining books, such as Brace Catton’s many works, Kenneth Stamp’s Lincoln Finds a General, and the historical/fictional trilogy by Michael and Jeff Shaara, are focused on events in the east.
For me, personally, it was around 1991, on my honeymoon vacation no less, when I was able to visit battlefields at Shiloh, Stones’ River, Chickamagua, and other western battlegrounds that I began seeing beyond just the battle of Vicksburg (which we toured around 1994). It was Andrew Nelson Lytle’s fun biography Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company that made me a student of that phase of the war.
Only when I began teaching Arkansas history and also participated in a re-enactment group for a short time did I begin giving any attention to the Trans-Mississippi. In the 1960’s, a small press in Little Rock, called Pioneer Press, published a number of books about the war in Arkansas with some dealing with adjacent areas. Those books are largely out-of-print and high priced in the used book world. (Lots of them were given to public school libraries throughout the state.) I think I paid about $60 for a copy of Rebels Valiant: Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles (Dismounted) by Wesley Thurman Leeper. I have a couple of ancestors who were in that unit, hence my willingness to pay such a hefty price back some 20 plus years ago.
Over the years, I have managed to acquire (to no one’s surprise) quite a few books about the War in Arkansas, a few more about Texas, Louisiana, and Missouri, and a biography of the Cherokee Indian and Confederate General Stand Watie. I am still, however, struggling through first or second grade in terms of having a good grasp of the Trans-Mississippi part of the War.
This new book, Theater of a Separate War, is and will be continue to be the defining work on this part of the war. This part of the war was a separate (in some senses) war from what was happening in the nearby western theater and from the eastern theater. In some ways, the Trans-Mississippi was a series of separate wars. There were battles for control of the western territories of New Mexico and Colorado. Control of the coast of Texas was another phase of the war. The civil wars within the Civil War as found in Missouri and which spilled over into Kansas and northern Arkansas was another series of events. Louisiana, the richest state in the Confederacy, had battles ranging from New Orleans in the south to the outskirts of Shreveport in the north, and being on the west side of Vicksburg, it played a small, but indecisive role in that pivotal battle. If all that isn’t enough, the various tribes of Native Americans, located mainly in the Indian Territory or present day Oklahoma, fought largely for the south, with some exceptions.
As Dr. Cutrer points out in the conclusion, if there had been no war in the rest of the United States, the events in this wide theater would still be a fascinating and important study in military history. “What difference does it make now?” to use the question posed by some politician of the past. The war was neither won nor lost in the Trans-Mississippi. It was, to quote Albert Castel as Cutrer did, “the garbage dump of the Confederate army.” It was, often enough, a distraction and side show to the Union generals and leadership.
In the fun category of “What If” history, or Alternative History, made famous by the scholarly works of such men as Robert Cowley or fictional works by such men as Harry Turtledove (Guns of the South) or McKinley Cantor (If the South Had Won the Civil War), one can speculate a Southern strategy that would have captured Missouri (particularly St. Louis) for the South and carried the war to the North with an invasion sweeping across Illinois.
A more likely scenario, at least it seemed more likely at the time, would have been for the Confederacy to have sealed an alliance with France through the Trans-Mississippi connection. Remember that at this time, France had bypassed the Monroe Doctrine to set up a puppet government in Mexico under the ill-fated Maximillian. (I thought “ill-fated” seemed a bit cliched, but just had to be in that sentence. Getting shot by a firing squad doesn’t conjure up words like “lucky.”)
Another aspect of this war that contributes to its lack of notice is the casualty figures. I must admit that after years of teaching the war, I find myself more and more queasy and disturbed by the numbers of men killed and maimed in battle after battle in Tennessee, Virginia, Mississippi, and Georgia. The novel The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks reminded me of what I had read about and watched in movies too many times: Even those soldiers who survived the wounds of war endured some horrible hospital experiences.
In contrast to the thousands and tens of thousands killed, maimed, or captured, many of the battles in the Trans-Mississippi resulted in anywhere from a few hundred to “only” a few thousand casualties. The numbers of what constituted battles in the Trans-Mississippi pales in comparison to the huge numbers in other parts of the war. But part of the greater purpose of this book is to get our attention off the glory/horrors images of the other campaigns and to focus on this part of the war.
Now for two criticisms of the book:
The first one falls under this title “blame the reader.” I often found myself lost or confused as to who was who and who was on what side in this book. It doesn’t help that there was a General Frederick Steele who fought for the Union and a General William Steele who fought for the Confederacy. I think I need some device that color codes the text so that Confederates’ names appear in gray and Union names in blue. At the same time, this reminded me of why so many of my students would give lame-brain answers on my tests. “What kind of idiot would think that Stonewall Jackson led the Army of the Potomac?” I would think. The same kind that would think that William Steele was a Union officer, I now realize.
The second criticism will go the publisher. That being said, I have and love many books published by the University of North Carolina Press. But why is there only one map in this book? The one map is useful and is a two page spread showing the theater in its entirety. But I was constantly lost and confused because I didn’t know where particular rivers, towns, and battlefields were located in the western states and territories. The Arkansas portions were a little easier to navigate because of having traveled to most of them. But a book of 588 pages and a book of this incredible caliber needed another dozen or more pages showing battlefield maps.
There is, somewhere, a listing of the 100 most important books on the Civil War. I am sure that it is out-of-date. I am equally sure that I have made up my own versions of such a list. But in any reckoning on this war, this book will have to be in the line-up. This work doesn’t have the fire and passion found in Bruce Catton’s books or Shelby Foote’s works. It is scholarly military history with a penchant for giving lots of details. But it is a worthy study and a powerful unveiling of a whole angle on the most neglected part of the Civil War.
October 8, 2023
This book fills a void in the chronicling of the Civil War. I found it to be a very good narrative and the only complaint I have is that there were NO maps or diagrams throughout the book. This is the only narrative history book I've ever read that had no maps or diagrams. Very unusual. Other than that, a very good book and a necessary addition to the bookshelf of any serious Civil War buff.
April 17, 2017
Having lived my entire life west of the Mississippi, I was greatly anticipating this history of the Civil War closer to home. After reading this work, I will continue anticipating a history of this area. Cutrer's volume suffers from the worst case of editing I've ever come across - repeated words, phrases, sentences, and in at least one case an entire paragraph. Additionally, as is the case with many military histories, the lack of maps is crippling (there is only one). The author could have used some maps in his research as well, since it appears a lack of geographical understanding leads to flaws in his descriptions of actions. For examples: the southwest Texas area (it's not a 1,000 mile trek from San Antonio to El Paso, as he states, but only about 550) and the land in Louisiana that provides Grant a supply line in the opening phases of the Vicksburg campaign (eastern Louisiana was rendered irrelevant to Grant's supply line because he extended his right flank to the Yazoo river north of Vicksburg - in Mississippi...). Filled with errors, this was perhaps, a noble attempt to cover this most overlooked theater of the war but it falls far short of the goal.
September 20, 2022
Review forthcoming.
January 16, 2018
A wide-ranging study of the Civil War west of the Mississippi River, an aspect of the Civil War that typically doesn't receive much attention in Civil War histories. Separate chapters include the Confederate campaign up the Rio Grande River into New Mexico, Indian Nations that were divided between the Union, the Confederacy, and those who tried to stay neutral, the savage fighting guerrilla war along the Kansas/Missouri border, campaigns in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Soldiers on both sides were short of food, weapons, clothing, ammunition, and other vital supplies. Although both sides had some competent generals, both sides used the Trans-Mississippi as a dumping ground for generals that failed in the Eastern and Western Theaters.
I have a few suggestions that would improve a future edition. The book has only one map of the entire Trans-Mississippi Theater. Having more maps in the book, especially of the battlefields, would help the reader follow the text better. The book would also benefit from better editing to correct some glaring errors. One example is having sections of the text in the prelude repeat itself. Another example is giving the wrong year for the Gettysburg Address.
This book is a good attempt to shed some light on an often neglected part of the Civil War.
I have a few suggestions that would improve a future edition. The book has only one map of the entire Trans-Mississippi Theater. Having more maps in the book, especially of the battlefields, would help the reader follow the text better. The book would also benefit from better editing to correct some glaring errors. One example is having sections of the text in the prelude repeat itself. Another example is giving the wrong year for the Gettysburg Address.
This book is a good attempt to shed some light on an often neglected part of the Civil War.
August 11, 2022
Two stars. One star lost for an incredible lack of maps. For a military theatre with campaigns spanning the center of North America, there is one map at the front of the book with state borders, a few rivers, and a few cities. It does not even include the entire theater of the Trans-Mississippi, northern Missouri being trucated. There are no battle maps, there are no campaign maps. Also missing are army organizational charts, which would have better explained the convoluted command relationships of both parties. The editing is also not great and the book could have done with another few proofreads prior to release, these are not debilitating, just annoying.
The next two stars are lost because this is not really a history of the Civil War west of the Mississippi River. It is a history of the Confederates west of the Mississippi. The focus is on the Confederate forces, the characters brought consistently to life through primary source quotes are Confederate soldiers, this from a war in which the high literacy rates of all soldiers, and the extensive written records accessible belie an incredible oversight on the part of the author. The author is a professor emiritus of History at Arizona State University. He seems to specialize in history focused on the Confederate actors, and the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
I would be curious to see where he was raised. I would bet south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi. No biography is availabe online, he graduated college in 1969, did a tour as a USAF Intel officer, making him about 70 at the time this book was published. His writing betrays a basis in the kind of education which refers to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression." I detect a strong presence of the Lost Cause in his writing. I would be curious if his classes reflect the same blindness, in any case it detracts from this work.
The Confederates are portrayed as constantly just one step away from victory, their soldiers implied superiority betratyed by officers or perfidy. Union victories are laid at the feet of superior artillery and repeating rifles, never due to the grit of Union soldiers - similar to the kind of nonsense which permeates the history of the eastern front in WWII where the Nazis are defeated not by the Red Army but due to Soviet Artillery - which somehow is not part of the Red Army - and the mistakes of high command. There is a brief nod to the presence of USCT units and their effect on the war, but they are not represented in this history consistent with their proportional impact on campaigns in this theatre - and yes, I have done my research on their work.
Anyhow, there is a great amount of almost hero worship of junior Confederate generals - easy to be a hero when you can blame someone else for your deficiencies, while Union officers are either bumblers, or fanatics, Blunt is even treated as less of a factor than he really was, and given short shrift as a leader.
The book retains two stars because it does cover quite a bit of material on the Trans-Mississippi theatre. It is obviously pain-stakingly researched with voluminous notes. It is unfortunate that the author lets his views and his prejudices guide what should - and could - be a balanced and ground breaking narrative of this neglected and obscure theatre of the US Civil War. The men who fought and died there, died just as finally as those in Petersburg or Chickamauga, and they deserve a better story than this.
The next two stars are lost because this is not really a history of the Civil War west of the Mississippi River. It is a history of the Confederates west of the Mississippi. The focus is on the Confederate forces, the characters brought consistently to life through primary source quotes are Confederate soldiers, this from a war in which the high literacy rates of all soldiers, and the extensive written records accessible belie an incredible oversight on the part of the author. The author is a professor emiritus of History at Arizona State University. He seems to specialize in history focused on the Confederate actors, and the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
I would be curious to see where he was raised. I would bet south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi. No biography is availabe online, he graduated college in 1969, did a tour as a USAF Intel officer, making him about 70 at the time this book was published. His writing betrays a basis in the kind of education which refers to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression." I detect a strong presence of the Lost Cause in his writing. I would be curious if his classes reflect the same blindness, in any case it detracts from this work.
The Confederates are portrayed as constantly just one step away from victory, their soldiers implied superiority betratyed by officers or perfidy. Union victories are laid at the feet of superior artillery and repeating rifles, never due to the grit of Union soldiers - similar to the kind of nonsense which permeates the history of the eastern front in WWII where the Nazis are defeated not by the Red Army but due to Soviet Artillery - which somehow is not part of the Red Army - and the mistakes of high command. There is a brief nod to the presence of USCT units and their effect on the war, but they are not represented in this history consistent with their proportional impact on campaigns in this theatre - and yes, I have done my research on their work.
Anyhow, there is a great amount of almost hero worship of junior Confederate generals - easy to be a hero when you can blame someone else for your deficiencies, while Union officers are either bumblers, or fanatics, Blunt is even treated as less of a factor than he really was, and given short shrift as a leader.
The book retains two stars because it does cover quite a bit of material on the Trans-Mississippi theatre. It is obviously pain-stakingly researched with voluminous notes. It is unfortunate that the author lets his views and his prejudices guide what should - and could - be a balanced and ground breaking narrative of this neglected and obscure theatre of the US Civil War. The men who fought and died there, died just as finally as those in Petersburg or Chickamauga, and they deserve a better story than this.
August 27, 2017
Crafting a work of synthesis is difficult since an author has to cover a wide period of time, leading to inaccuracies, oversights, and uneven passages. This work does as well as it can, and covers some operations I knew nothing about such as Indian raids and Banks' fall 1863 offensive. That said the book is not well organized and jumps around. The prose is very dry. Mostly though, it desperately needed maps and images.
November 9, 2022
Professor Cutrer has written a masterful history of the US Civil War west of the Mississippi River. The level of scholarship is superb.
However, the product is a difficult to read collection of poor grammar. The UNC Press should be ashamed of having their imprint on this title as it appears to have gone to press without even a cursory glance from a copy editor. I found myself having to stop and look backwards for context as well as learning to read a pidgin form of English.
However, the product is a difficult to read collection of poor grammar. The UNC Press should be ashamed of having their imprint on this title as it appears to have gone to press without even a cursory glance from a copy editor. I found myself having to stop and look backwards for context as well as learning to read a pidgin form of English.
June 28, 2017
Pretty good overview of the Transmississippi Theater. Compared to Alvin Josephy's book, Mr. Cutrer's book has the advantage of being arranged in chronological order, instead of being written almost as five separate books.
On the other hand, there are several things which kept this book from five stars (and almost drove it down to three stars). There were many small errors scattered throughout the book; for example, chapter nine referred to John Magruder's command as the "Department" of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, rather than its correct title of district. The word choices in several parts were either wrong (at Pea Ridge, two cavalry forces meet in "midcareer") or rather odd (such as Sigel's "nonce corps" at Pea Ridge or a Confederate division's "bootless mission" during the Vicksburg Campaign).
On the other hand, there are several things which kept this book from five stars (and almost drove it down to three stars). There were many small errors scattered throughout the book; for example, chapter nine referred to John Magruder's command as the "Department" of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, rather than its correct title of district. The word choices in several parts were either wrong (at Pea Ridge, two cavalry forces meet in "midcareer") or rather odd (such as Sigel's "nonce corps" at Pea Ridge or a Confederate division's "bootless mission" during the Vicksburg Campaign).
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