Böcker av Michael J. Forsyth

The Confederacy had a great opportunity to turn the Civil War in its favor in 1864, but squandered this chance when it failed to finish off a Union army cornered in Louisiana because of concerns about another Union army coming south from Arkansas. The Confederates were so confused that they could not agree on a course of action to contend with both threats, thus the Union offensive advancing from Arkansas saved the one in Louisiana and became known to history as the Camden Expedition. The Camden Expedition is intriguing because of the "might-have-beens" had the key players made different decisions. The author contends that if Frederick Steele, commander of the Federal VII Army Corps, had not received a direct order from General Ulysses S. Grant to move south, disaster would have befallen not only the Army of the Gulf in Louisiana but the entire Union cause, and possibly would have prevented Abraham Lincoln from winning reelection.

In 1864, General Sterling Price with an army of 12,000 ragtag Confederates invaded Missouri in an effort to wrest it from the United States Army's Department of Missouri. It was the South's last invasion of Northern territory. But it was simply too late in the war for the South to achieve such an outcome. This book chronicles the Confederacy's desperate final and ill-fated attempt win a decisive victory.