Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River, 1861–1865

By Thomas W. Cutrer

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Mar 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781469631578

Thomas W. Cutrer

Thomas W. Cutrer is professor emeritus of history at Arizona State University.

Reviews for Theater of a Separate War

[bobbre · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book attempts to be a comprehensive work on the American Civil War west of the Mississippi River. To an extent it succeeds, while still leaving areas for improvement.One of those areas deals not with the book’s content but with a lackluster effort of proofreading. There are instances where repetitious text occurs in successive paragraphs, muddied references to directions, and sometimes confusing narrative.To me, a serious deficiency is the lack of any useful maps. The one map provided does have several locations denoted but they are not numerous. While some battles described are given limited but adequate coverage, others are delved into more deeply, such as those in Louisiana, yet there are no accompanying maps to help develop a picture of what areas were deemed critical to defend, and more importantly why they were so.The opening of the work concerns itself with the move for secession of the states in the trans-Mississippi region and does describe the politics involved. What is lacking is a concomitant discussion of the Federal steps (if any) to retain those areas for the Federal government.Another of the problems encountered is that there is a lack of describing events that occurred simultaneously and how they impacted each other. I found this troublesome since a campaign might cover several months only to have the next chapter discuss actions happening before those in the previous chapter, or else extending to a time after the war ended.I realize that the scope of the book is vast, and I do applaud the author in taking on such a challenge. Overall, the book does provide insights into the personalities involved, the atmosphere of the region, the involvement of and cost to native peoples, and many other aspects not normally covered in books about the ACW. I recommend this work if one desires a readable overview of that theater of the war.