
The Pate Award Committee of the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table is proud to announce that The Seventh Star of the Confederacy: Texas During the Civil War edited by Kenneth Howell has been awarded the Pate Award for 2009.
This anthology with 18 contributing authors incorporates the latest scholarly research on how Texans experienced the War. Chapters cover topics from how Texas entered the War to what Texans were confronted with in combat and on the homefront. Also explored are well-known battles that took place in or near Texas, such as the Battle of Galveston, the Battle of Nueces, the Battle of Sabine Pass and the Red River Campaign.
Past Pate Award Winner, Professor Jerry Thompson of Texas A&M International University, had this to say of the book:
“Howell has managed to gather eighteen of the very best Texas Civil War historians for this fine publication that is certain to attract considerable attention. It surpasses similar edited versions of the the war in Texas and may well be one fo the very best books on the subject.”
And this from Andrew Wagenhofer of Civil War Books and Authors:
“This is the best Texas essay compilation I have ever read. It is really one of the best anthologies on any Civil War subject in recent years. It is broad and detailed with no real weaknesses among the chapters.”
Chapters include:
“The Impact of New Studies about Texas and Texans on Civil War Historiography” by Alwyn Barr
“The Civil War and the Lone Star State: A Brief Overview” by Archie P. McDonald
“The Impending Crisis: A Texan Perspective on the Causes of the Civil War” by James M. Smallwood
“The Knights of the Golden Circle in Texas, 1858-1861: An Analysis of the First (Military) Degree Knights” by Linda S. Hudson
“Frontier Defense: Enlistment Patterns for The Texas Frontier Regiments in the Civil War” by John W. Gorman
“Reckoning at the River: Unionists and Secessionists on the Nueces, August 10, 1862” by Mary Jo O’Rear
“Without a Fight: The Eighty-four-day Union Occupation of Galveston, Texas” by Donald Willett
“Nothing but Disaster: The Failure of Union Plans to Capture Texas” by Edward Cottam
“Hide your Daughters: The Yankees Have Arrived at the Coastal Bend” by Charles D. Spurlin
“Defending the Lone Star: The Texas Cavalry in the Red River Campaign” by Gary Joiner
“Prison City, Camp Ford: Largest Confederate Prisoner-of-war Camp in the Trans-Mississippi” by James Smallwood
“The Confederate Governors of Texas” by Kenneth Hendrickson, Jr.
“A Sacred Charge upon Our Hands: Assisting the Families of Confederate Soldiers in Texas, 1861-1865” by Vicki Betts
“On the Edge of First Freedoms: Black Texans and the Civil War” By Ronald Goodwin and Bruce Glasrud
“Feed the Troops or Fight the Drought: The Dilemma Texas Beef Contractors Faced in 1861-1865” by Carol Taylor
“Distress, Discontent, and Dissent: Colorado County, Texas, during the Civil War” by Bill Stein
Kenneth Howell will be receiving the Pate Award for the book. However, each of these authors made a major contribution. It was the feeling of the Committee that this book represented the very essence of the original research that the Award is intended to encourage.