Kendall D. Gott

The lands along the Kansas-Missouri border saw hostilities and violence years before the Civil War officially erupted in April of 1861. People had to choose a side as neutrality was not tolerated by either belligerent. Those who tried to stay out of the fight were swept away. After the Camp Jackson affair in St. Louis, a young merchant decides it is time to cast his lot with the secessionists to defend his home and business. Carried away from his mercantile by war, he finds the brief conflict he expected was not to be. The months become years of battles, deadly political intrigue, and a journey of thousands of miles. Suffering great loss in body and spirit, his search for retribution becomes something else entirely. This story is a historically true account of the South's waning years and Sterling Price's raid through Missouri in 1864. The battles and all the locations were real ones, as well as the characters with proper names.

This is the story of a young man with the ambition to crawl his way up in Victorian society by leaving the farm and signing onto a steamboat. After becoming a certified pilot, he is quickly swept up in the war he does not understand that divides the country and threatens his goals. He witnesses the militarization of the steamboat trade and the coming rise of the railroads. When the boat is acquired by the War Department for conversion to a "tinclad" gunboat, he and other skilled men are contracted to the Navy and find themselves in the thick of the fighting on the western rivers. There, they must grapple with the moral complexities and the human and economic consequences of the war. The battles and locations are real, and the tale reveals the trials and tribulations of forming a navy on the western rivers. Such topics as boat acquisition, manning, and arming are presented in detail. Others such as leadership and race relations of the era are as well. This story is a unique and colorful over-the-shoulder look at steamboat life and the war on the rivers.

With the collapse of the Confederate defences at Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, the entire Tennessee Valley was open to Union invasion and control. These Northern victories set up the 1864 Atlanta Campaign that cut the Confederacy in two. Had Confederate planning and leadership been better, no one can say what difference it might have made to the Civil War in the West and the outcome of the war itself. Where The South Lost The War is a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of the Fort Henry–Fort Donelson Campaign. Kendall D. Gott examines in detail the preparation, logistics and events that led to a large Confederate surrender and to the eventual defeat of the entire Confederate force. About the Author Kendall D. Gott is a military historian for the Combat Studies Institute at the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is the author of several articles and studies on American military history, including In Glory's Shadow: The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment during the Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991.