Much of the Civil War west of the Mississippi was a war of waiting for 
action, of foraging already stripped land for an army that supposedly 
could provision itself, and of disease in camp, while trying to hold out 
against Union pressure. There were none of the major engagements 
that characterized the conflict farther east. Instead, small units of 
Confederate cavalry and infantry skirmished with Federal forces in 
Arkansas, Missouri, and Louisiana, trying to hold the western 
Confederacy together. The many units of Texans who joined this fight 
had a second objective—to keep the enemy out of their home state by 
placing themselves "between the enemy and Texas." Historian Anne 
J. Bailey studies one Texas unit, Parsons's Cavalry Brigade, to show 
how the war west of the Mississippi was fought.

  Historian Norman D. Brown calls this "the definitive study of 
Parsons's Cavalry Brigade; the story will not need to be told again."

    Exhaustively researched and written with literary grace, Between the 
Enemy and Texas is a "must" book for anyone interested in the role of 
mounted troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department.

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ANNE J. BAILEY, a native Texan, is professor of history at Georgia 
College & State University in Milledgeville and the author of seven 
books on the Civil War. Her most recent book is In the Saddle with the 
Texans: Day-to-Day with Parsons's Cavalry Brigade, 1862-1865.