U.S. Civil War - Confederate Soldiers - Military Biography, Confederate States of America - General & Miscellaneous, United States Civil War - Resolution & Aftermath, Confederate States of America - Armed Forces, Confederate States of America - Biography,
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Overview
One of the most remarkable but surprisingly little known stories of the post–Civil War era is the unforgettable account of how a famous Confederate general forged a defiant new life out of crushing defeat and finally achieved forgiveness and respect in his own reunited land.General Jo Shelby, a daring and ruthless cavalry commander renowned and notorious for his slashing forays behind Union lines, declared after Appomattox that he would never surrender. With three hundred men, some from his fighting “Iron Brigade” regiment, others adventurers, fortune hunters, and deserters, he headed for Mexico.
In vivid detail, General Jo Shelby’s March describes the dusty and dangerous 1,200-mile trek that this “last holdout of the Confederacy” made through a lawless Texas swarming with desperadoes and on into a Mexico teeming with Juárez’s rebels and marauding Apaches. After near fratricide among his fraying band of brothers, Shelby arrived to present a quixotic proposal to Emperor Maximilian: he and his fellow Americans would take over the Mexican army and, after being reinforced by forty thousand more Confederate soldiers, the government itself. Though a dramatic, doomed, and brave endeavor, Shelby’s actions changed both him and American history forever.
Historian Anthony Arthur then recounts the astonishing end of Shelby’s career: his return to the United States and his renouncing of slavery, his nomination by President Grover Cleveland to become U.S. marshal for western Missouri, and his eventual fame as a model of nineteenth-century progressivism.
Editorials
Washington Times
“A lively narrative of post-Civil War America and Mexico.”—Washington Times
— John M. Taylor
Booklist
“Arthur fluidly crafts an exciting narrative for Civil War buffs.”—BooklistWashington Times
“A lively narrative of post–Civil War America and Mexico.”—Washington TimesPublishers Weekly
Die-hard Confederate cavaliers take the fight to Mexico in this boisterous post- Civil War adventure. Historian Arthur (Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair) sings the exploits of Shelby, a wily rebel cavalry commander who rejected the verdict of Appomattox and led his 300-man Iron Brigade into Mexico, then roiling with war between the French-backed emperor, Maximilian, and Benito Juarez's republican army. The Xenophonesque trek mired them in another lost cause. Battling Juarista soldiers and Apache bushwackers, they fought their way to Mexico City only to have Maximilian nervously spurn Shelby's offer to raise an army of 40,000 Americans; they then dispersed to various doomed pursuits, including schemes to bring Southern settlers to colonize Mexico. Heavily reliant on the colorful writings of Shelby's friend John Edwards, Arthur's narrative paints Shelby's band as the last paladins. They are forever protecting decent townsfolk against ruffians, fighting duels on points of honor, and making stands against hopeless odds; they even rescued a beautiful American woman from a bandit's clutches. (The author downplays clashing notes, like a Civil War incident in which Shelby's men massacred dozens of unarmed blacks.) Arthur's account is a bit shallow--and the Confederate romanticism a bit thick-- but it makes for a colorful picaresque. 8 pages of b&w photos; map. (Aug. 17)Kirkus Reviews
A proficient study of a diehard Confederate cavalry general. Historian Arthur (Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair, 2006) doesn't disguise his ambivalence toward this hotheaded opportunist who threw his lot into the losing side and gained little, save a reputation as a ferocious fighting man, "the embodiment of certain enduring American characteristics and values." Raised in Kentucky and "groomed as a merchant prince," Joseph Orville Shelby (1830-1897) was offered the chance to serve for the Union after hostilities broke out in 1861. His good friend and fellow Missourian Frank Blair, a Republican congressman, offered him a commission, but Shelby fervently supported states' rights in the bloody aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and had been involved in nasty cross-border raids. Indeed, he was already funneling munitions to the Confederates and was soon put in charge of defending the Trans-Mississippi Department, the 400,000 square miles that lay west of the Mississippi. While the federal forces recognized the significance of controlling the river, the Confederacy used the area as a "salvage yard" for dumping "malcontents and incompetents." Shelby's Iron Brigade was effective at the quick attack-and-retreat style in the face of the Union's superior numbers, establishing Shelby's reputation as fierce and reckless. Refusing to acknowledge Southern surrender, he forayed into Mexico in June 1865 with a band of about 300 "hard cases on the prowl and bristling with weapons," looking to incite the Mexicans under Benito Juarez against the Union, then switched sides and offered their services to Maximilian and the French invaders, who rejected them. Arthur fashions a dignified portrait of this troublesome character and knowledgeably delves into a little-studied period of post-Civil War machinations with Mexico. An evenhanded biography of an unlovable figure of Civil War history. Agent: Deborah Grosvenor/Kneerim & Williams AgencyBook Details
Published
May 1, 2012
Publisher
University of Nebraska Press
Pages
296
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780803240773