"A volunteer officer with the 9th Texas Cavalry Regiment from 1861 to 1865, James Campbell Bates saw some of the most important and dramatic clashes in the Civil War's western and trans-Mississippi theaters. During his service, Bates rode thousands of miles, fighting in the Indian Territory; at Elkhorn Tavern in Arkansas, at Corinth, Holly Springs, and Jackson, Mississippi; at Thompson's Station, Tennessee; and at the crossing of the Etowah River during Sherman's Atlanta campaign. College educated and unusually articulate, he recorded his impressions in a detailed diary and dozens of long letters to his mother, sister, brother-in-law, and future wife, who waited at home in Paris, Texas. Publication of Bates's writings, which remain in the possession of family descendants, treats scholars to a documentary treasure trove and all readers to a fresh, first-person dose of American history."--BOOK JACKET. "From his first diary entry to nearly his last letter, he was convinced the Confederacy could not lose the war. The defeats the South met with at Elkhorn Tavern, New Orleans, Memphis, Corinth, Vicksburg, and even Atlanta he saw only as detours and delays on the way to eventual victory."--BOOK JACKET.