Tarnished Cavalier: Major General Earl Van Dorn, The

The Tarnished Cavalier: Major General Earl Van Dorn, C.S.A. By Arthur B. Carter. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999. xiv, 247 pp. $42.00. ISBN 1-57233-047-3.

Retired army officer Arthur Carter's new biography of Earl Van Dorn, one of the Confederacy's most colorful and least successful generals, sheds welcome light on an officer whose Civil War career reveals the dark side of the romantic military myths of that era. Van Dorn earned a distinguished reputation for bravery as a lieutenant during the Mexican War and as a captain fighting the Comanches in Texas. In January 1861, soon after Mississippi's secession, Van Dorn resigned from the federal army and offered his services to the Confederacy.

Van Dorn's sparkling reputation quickly faded, however. In March 1862 federal forces at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, soundly defeated troops under his command. Union troops under William S. Rosecrans repulsed poorly coordinated attacks by Confederates led by Van Dorn and Sterling Price at the Battles of Iuka and Corinth in September and October of the same year, further tarnishing Van Dorn's reputation. His illegal declaration of martial law in July 1862 in portions of Louisiana and Mississippi under his command drew widespread criticism and was quickly overruled by the War Department, adding to his woes.

Although Van Dorn reclaimed some of his lost reputation by leading successful cavalry raids in late 1862 and early 1863, the circumstances surrounding his May 1863 murder ensured that he would forever be remembered as a "tarnished cavalier," to quote Carter's apt title. A Tennessee doctor shot and killed the general and afterwards alleged that Van Dorn had been having an affair with his wife. The Confederate governor of Tennessee pardoned Van Dorn's killer, and newspapers throughout the South denounced Van Dorn for violating the sanctity of another man's home.

Carter shrewdly identifies Van Dorn's main failings as a general. Van Dorn did not give sufficient attention to important details, nor did he have the capacity to learn from his mistakes. Carter's analysis of Van Dorn's personal life and assassination is less successful. Carter takes the position that the general probably did not have an affair with his killer's wife, although abundant circumstantial evidence indicates his guilt. Also, Carter fails to address adequately the damaging facts that Van Dorn had an earlier extramarital affair, which produced three children before the war, and seemingly avoided the company of his legal wife and children whenever possible. Carter's biography may not be the last word on Van Dorn's life, but it does bring us much closer to an understanding of this troubled, troublesome man than previous works have done.

MICHAEL THOMAS SMITH

Louisburg College

Copyright University of Alabama Press Oct 2001
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