Rugged And Sublime

Rugged and Sublime explores Arkansas's major clashes and locales of the Civil War. Richly illustrated with maps and photographs and containing an appendix of Civil War properties in Arkansas, it is especially useful as a guidebook to the Civil War battlefields of Arkansas.

The son of a North Carolina governor, Theophilus Hunter Holmes graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1829 and served on the frontier during the Trail of Tears. He fought in the Second Seminole War and in the U.S.-Mexican War. In 1859, he became the U.S. Army's chief recruiting officer and was assigned to Governors Island at New York City. Only days before resigning from the U.S. Army, he helped organize the naval expedition sent to relieve Fort Sumter from the Confederacy's blockade. But then casting his lot with his native state, Holmes led a Confederate brigade at First Manassas and a division during the Peninsular Campaign, commanded armies in the Trans-Mississippi, and organized North Carolina's young boys and old men into the Confederate Reserves. Holmes served with some of America's most notable historic figures: Zachary Taylor, Winfield Scott, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. In modern times, however, he is virtually unknown. The man and the soldier possessed traits of both triumph and tragedy, as demonstrated in this biography.

Civil War Arkansas endured many forms of irregular or guerilla warfare including activity that approached insurgency. It was a complex arena that resembles the present day and it illustrates much of contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine. Arkansas was a Southern state with a significant Unionist population and this divide fueled and shaped much of the conflict. Arkansas was unique in that the Confederate commander seeking to make up for conventional weakness, initiated guerilla warfare directed at Union forces. In response, Union commanders who were merely to protect lines of communication responded with punitive actions against individuals and communities which did little to reduce guerilla activity and served to alienate the local population. As the war progressed, however, guerilla bands shifted from military targets becoming progressively more terrorist, criminal, and once a Unionist state government was installed, insurgent. The Union army’s role also changed as the main war moved on from the Mississippi basin and Arkansas became an early field for Lincoln’s plan to reincorporate rebel states. The army’s emphasis thus shifted to extending Federal authority and its organization and tactics evolved into a successful combination of locally raised troops, intelligence led operations, isolation of the guerillas, and political reconciliation.

The struggle for control of the Mississippi River was the longest and most complex campaign of the Civil War. It was marked by an extraordinary diversity of military and naval operations, including fleet engagements, cavalry raids, amphibious landings, pitched battles, and the two longest sieges in American history. This fast paced, gripping narrative of the Civil War struggle for the Mississippi River is the first comprehensive single-volume account to appear in over a century.

Combining classic theory with current discourse surounding art history's infamous S word, this colection contains some of today's most highly esteemed critics', artists', and poets' approaches to contemporary sublime.