Confederate Colonels: A Biographical Register, by Bruce S. Allardice

Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 2008. Pp. x, 436 . Illus, appends, notes. $49.95. ISBN:0826218091.

In this work Bruce S. Allardice, author of More Generals in Gray, does for Confederate colonels what Ezra Warner did for more senior officers in his classic Generals in Gray. 

To be sure, given the far greater number of men who have to be covered, each entry in Confederate Colonels is less extensive than those in Warner's work.  But Allardice nevertheless manages to cram an impressive amount of material into the nearly 1,600 entries, including some notable anecdotes about some of these men. 

The book covers officers who held commissions as colonels in Confederate service who were not subsequently promoted to general.  Three appendices list colonels who were promoted to general, men holding state commissions, and some men of ambiguous status.  The introduction provides a useful analysis of the origins and background of the men listed, and there is a very helpful section titled "Using the Register."

Reviewer: A. A. Nofi   Buy it at Amazon.com