| CONFEDERATE
GUERRILLA
The Civil War Memoir of Joseph M. Bailey
Edited by T. Lindsay Baker
Reminiscences
of a Confederate soldier and guerrilla
This
belated but welcome collaboration between scholar and long-dead
veteran yields as rich and thoughtful an account of the war
in the West as any left by the generals and politicians. .
. . Bailey’s highly perceptive, firsthand account is
a genuine historical treasure.”
—from the series editors’ preface
Joseph M. Bailey’s memoir, Confederate Guerrilla,
provides a unique perspective on the fighting that took place
behind Union lines in Federal-occupied northwest Arkansas
during and after the Civil War. This story—now published
for the first time—will appeal to modern readers interested
in the grassroots history of the Trans-Mississippi war. Bailey
participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge and the siege of Port
Hudson, eventually escaping to northwest Arkansas where he
fought as a guerrilla against Federal troops and civilian
unionists. After Federal forces gained control of the area,
Bailey rejoined the Confederate army and continued in regular
service in northeast Texas until the end of the war.
Historians
will find the descriptions of military campaigns and the observations
on guerrilla war especially valuable. According to Bailey,
Southern guerrillas were motivated less by a sense of loyalty
to either the Confederate or Union side than by a determination
to protect their families and neighbors from the “Mountain
Federals.” This partisan war waged between the rebel
guerrillas and Southern Unionists was essentially a “struggle
for supremacy and revenge.”
Comprehensive annotations are provided by editor T. Lindsay
Baker to illuminate the clarity and reliability of Bailey’s
late-life memoir.
T. Lindsay Baker is the W. K. Gordon Endowed
Chair in Texas Industrial History and the director of the
W. K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas, Tarleton
State University. He is the author and editor of numerous
books, including the award-winning Lighthouses of Texas
and the forthcoming American Windmills: An Album of Historic
Photographs.
May
2007
6 x 9, 157 pages, 3 photographs, 1 illustration, index
$34.95 (s) cloth
978-1-55728-838-7
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