More Generals in Gray

In this masterpiece of research, a splendid supplement to Ezra J. Warner’s Generals in Gray, Bruce S. Allardice brings to light a neglected class of officers: the Confederacy’s "other" generals—men who attained their rank outside the usual avenue of appointment by President Jefferson Davis and who had been virtually forgotten as a consequence. Explaining that the process of becoming a general was fraught with politics, lobbying, intrigue, accident, mismanagement, and chance, Allardice identifies six main categories of legitimate claimants to the rank of Confederate General—two more than historians have traditionally recognized. He presents a substantial biographical sketch of 137 generals not found in Warner’s original and a short bibliography of each. For the vast majority, his is the first treatment ever published.

AUTHOR BIO: Bruce S. Allardice is the author of Jeff Davis’s Colonels and the coauthor of Texas Burial Sites of Civil War Notables. He has published articles in Civil War History, Civil War Times Illustrated, and North & South, and he teaches history at South Suburban College near Chicago.