"This intriguing study traces the evolution of Confederate command and how it affected the shifting strategic situation and general course of the war. The emphasis is on the functioning of headquarters and staff-the central nervous system of any military command. This was especially so for the Trans-Mississippi which assumed a unique and vital role among Confederate military departments and provided a focus for continued Confederate resistance west of the Mississippi River"-- Provided by publisher.

The Confederate Northwest frontier : May 1861-August 1861 --Divided command and divided counsels in Missouri : August 1861 -- Continued command problems on the Northwest frontier and a New Year's promise of solution : August 1861-January 1862 -- Texas : the first year -- Increasing isolation and a new command in the Trans-Mississippi West, January 1862-May 1862 -- Hindman and Hebert divide command while the Trans-Mississippi Department awaits a Department Commander, June-July 1862 -- General Holmes fails to create a department, August 1862-February 1863 -- Holmes, Arkansas, and the defense of the lower river, August 1862-February 1863 -- The department faces total isolation, February-July 1863 -- Isolation, July to December, 1863 -- Kirby Smith's war department, 1864 -- Kirby Smithdom, 1864 -- Military command and the campaigns of 1864 -- Decline and collapse, December 1864-June 1865.