Trans-Mississippi Department

This article is about the territorial department of the Confederate States Army. For the field army of the Confederate States, see Army of the Trans-Mississippi.

Trans-Mississippi Department
Active	1862–1865
Disbanded	May 26, 1865
Country	Confederate States
Branch	Army
Type	Territorial department
Headquarters	Little Rock, Arkansas (1862–63) Shreveport, Louisiana (1863–65) Houston, Texas (May 1865)
Wars	American Civil War Trans-Mississippi Theater

The Trans-Mississippi Department was a territorial department of the Confederate States Army that included Arkansas, Louisiana west of the Mississippi river, Texas (including what is now New Mexico and Arizona), and the Indian Territory. ^[1] It was the last department to surrender to United States forces at the end of the American Civil War.

History

The Trans-Mississippi Department was established pursuant to War Department General Orders No. 39, dated May 26, 1862, ^[1] with headquarters at Little Rock, Arkansas. On April 24, 1863, the department moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where it remained before finally relocating to Houston, Texas, on May 18, 1865. ^[2]

Following the Union capture of the remaining strongholds at Vicksburg and Port Hudson resulting in the closing of the Mississippi to the Confederacy, General E. Kirby Smith was virtually cut off from the Confederate capital at Richmond. He had to command a nearly independent area of the Confederacy, with all the inherent administrative problems. The area became known in the Confederacy as "Kirby Smithdom". ^[3] He was thought of as a virtual military dictator and negotiated directly with foreign countries. ^[4]

Commanding officers

Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department (from 1863)

• Brigadier-General Paul O. Hébert (May 26, 1862 –June 20, 1862)
• Major-General John B. Magruder (assigned June 20, 1862, but did not accept)
• Major-General Thomas C. Hindman (June 20, 1862 –July 16, 1862)
• Lieutenant-General Theophilus H. Holmes (July 30, 1862 –February 9, 1863)
• General E. Kirby Smith (March 7, 1863 –April 19, 1865)
• Lieutenant-General Simon Bolivar Buckner (April 19, 1865 –April 22, 1865)
• General E. Kirby Smith (April 22, 1865 –May 26, 1865)

References

1. Confederate States of America. War Department. (1862). Report of the Secretary of War. Richmond. p. 31. Retrieved February 19, 2025– via Internet Archive.
2. Confederate States of America. Army. Trans-Mississippi Dept. (1865). General orders. Shreveport, La. p. 96. Retrieved February 19, 2025– via Internet Archive.
4. Monaghan, Jay (April 1974). "Review of Robert L. Kerby, Kirby Smith's Confederacy : the Trans-Mississippi South, 1863–1865". American Historical Review . 79 (2): 588–589. JSTOR   1850453.

Further reading

• Baker, T. Lindsay, ed. (2007). "Chapter 6: Collapse of the Confederacy". Confederate Guerrilla: The Civil War Memoir of Joseph M. Bailey. Civil War in the West. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press. ISBN   978-1-55728-838-7. OCLC   85018566. OL   8598848M.
• Jones, Terry (2002). Historical Dictionary of the Civil War. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. p. 785. ISBN   9780810841123.

External links

• Media related to Trans-Mississippi Department at Wikimedia Commons