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Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February-May 1863
Donald S. Frazier
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Description for Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February-May 1863
Hardback. Num Pages: 368 pages, Illustrations, maps. BIC Classification: 1KBBSL; HBJK; HBLL; HBWJ. Category: (Y) Teenage / Young Adult. Dimension: 152 x 162 x 51. Weight in Grams: 1164.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis hoped one of his commanders could baffle the enemy in his designs on the Mississippi Valley. Confederate Major General Richard Taylor knew that the only long- term solution to protecting the twin river citadels at Vicksburg and Port Hudson was an active offensive. To that end he had already built a modest but well-supplied army while his powerful Rebel gunboat flotilla grew daily. Taylor just needed time. With the enemy army under General Nathaniel P. Banks fixated east of the Mississippi, Taylor believed he might just see his plans put into action With ... Read moreluck, the Confederate army might regain territory lost in Louisiana and its flag might once against float over New Orleans. The Union army would then have much larger issues to worry about. Taylor had cause to be optimistic. The Federal Army and navy had been trying the direct approach against Vicksburg and Port Hudson with mounting casualties, lost ships, and growing frustration. There is no use longer deceiving the public, for the Banks expedition is a failure, wrote a Massachusetts journalist. Much as I admire Gen. Banks I am forced to admit that he is not the soldier I judged him to be nor the general this department needs. As Rebel plans matured, time grew short for Union efforts. Banks needed to redeem himself, and his officers suggested an indirect approach west of the Mississippi, working from enclaves captured the previous fall, as the the key to victory. The Teche county was to the war in Louisiana what the Shenandoah Valley was to the war in Virginia Captain John William De Forest of the 12th Connecticut Infantry noted. It was sort of a back alley, parallel to the main street wherein the heavy fighting must go on . Instead of wasting his army against enemy entrenchments and prepared positions, Banks decided instead to roll up Bayou Teche, destroy Taylor's small army, and isolate Port Hudson from its groceries. Capturing places like Franklin, New Iberia, Opelousas, and Alexandria, he might even open the possibility of cooperation with the army under General Ulysses S. Grant operating against Vicksburg. Taylor, caught by surprise and beaten to the punch, reacted with typical pugnacity To retreat without fighting was . . . to abandon Louisiana , he wrote. Unless his army held its ground, the way across the Pelican State lay open to Union invasion with potentially catastrophic results for the fight for the lower Mississippi River. If Union land and naval forces gained control of the Red River, they would shut off the steady supply of corn, hogs, and beef heading into the forts across the river.In the spring of 1863, the opening act of the final scene of the Mississippi Valley campaign would play out in southwestern Louisiana among the bayous and swamps of the massive Atchafalaya Basin. Donald S. Frazier, author of the award-winning Fire in the Cane Field, expands up his Louisiana Quadrille with the release of book two, Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February-May 1863. The better known stories of the campaigns for Vicksburg and Port Hudson grow richer and more nuanced by taking a look at the fighting west of the river as part of a larger picture. Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
State House Press
Place of Publication
Abilene, United States
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
About Donald S. Frazier
DONALD S. FRAZIER is the award-winning author of Blood and Treasure; Cottonclads!; Fire in the Cane Field; and Thunder Across the Swamp. His other work include serving as co-author of Frontier Texas and editor of Love and War: The Civil War Letters and Medicinal Book of Augustus V. Ball.
Reviews for Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February-May 1863
Don writes well and has done a tremendous amount of research in primary and secondary sources. This work fills a large void in the literature of the Civil War and describes events that either have not received adequate coverage in the past or have not appeared before in print.
Arthur W. Bergeron
(06/28/2006) ... Read moreThunder Across the Swamp displays outstanding narrative skills, superb scholarship, and contains a wide ranging use of previously unpublished primary sources from both Union and Confederate viewpoints. Anyone with a desire to know more about the much neglected portion of the Civil War in Louisiana west of the Mississippi River in early 1863 should read this book. It will be exceptionally valuable to scholars as well as more casual readers of the War in the West.
Gary D. Joiner, Ph.D.
(10/17/2010) This book is a must for the dedicated Civil War buff.
Mary Beth Jones, The Facts, Brazos Living Book Beat
Marie Beth Jones The Facts, Brazos Living Book Beat (02/05/2012) This second volume of Donald Frazier's 'Louisiana Quadrille' series establishes him as the premier chronicler of the war in the bayous, bottomlands, and sawgrass prairies between the Sabine and Mississippi rivers.
Gordon Berg
Gordon Berg Civil War Times (10/01/2012) .. .a very impressive campaign study which is presented in a lively, narrative style, accompanied by an array of well executed tactical maps along with some outstanding photographs of the principal actors in the 1863 drama. Without questions, [Frazier] moved the war in Louisiana 'the back alley' to the front burner.
David Ward, Edsel Ford Library
(12/07/2011) In the vast arena of books on the Civil War there appears, once in a while, a well done piece on a little known but critically important part of this great struggle [Louisiana's Civil War]. Frazier has accomplished this with his well done work, Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February 1863-May 1863. This volume is the perfect companion piece to Frazier's previous work, Fire in the Cane Field.
Dale Phillips, Civil War Book Review, LSU Libraries' Special Collections
(04/04/2012) Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February-May 1863 is a powerful story of an aspect of the Civil War that has until this time received little attention from scholars. This book is an original and significant contribution to understanding the strategic importance of the struggle for control of Louisiana near the confluence of the Red and Mississippi rivers. It fills a void in an otherwise neglected historical account, overshadowed at the time by the Union campaign against Vicksburg. Although the author is writing about little-known events that cover only a few months, he paints a picture of war on the river that is readable, human, and backed by detailed research. He tells a fascinating story with skill and grace; the elegance of the writing makes the events come alive and allow, what might be considered unimportant actions, seem vital. At a time when Ulysses S. Grant was moving against Vicksburg and Robert E. Lee was planning his invasion of Pennsylvania, it is understandable that these military actions drew little attention in comparison. What the author has done is to breathe life into the war on the Mississippi below Vicksburg. Anne J. Bailey, Ph.D. Show Less
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