General James G. Blunt and the Civil War in the Trans-mississippi West�

Abstract

Major General James Gillpatrick Blunt has become a forgotten figure of the American Civil War. He was victorious in seven major federal campaigns in the trans-Mississippi (Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Indian Territory) theater of war, yet no extensive study of his military career exists. Information about his wartime exploits may be gleaned from books on related topics, such as Albert Castel's A Frontier State at War and Wiley Britton's Union Indian Brigade in the Civil War.l To relegate any mention of Blunt to a footnote or chapter, or worse, to ignore him completely, is to neglect a central and influential character in the far-western theater of war.