This set was written by distinguished men of the South, producing a work which truly portrays the times and issues of the Confederacy. It was edited by Gen. Clement A. Evans of Georgia. Two volumes--the first and the last--comprise such subjects as the justification of the Southern States in seceding from the Union and the honorable conduct of the war by the Confederate States government; the history of the actions and concessions of the South in the formation of the Union and its policy in securing the existing magnificent territorial dominion of the United States; the civil history of the Confederate States, supplemented with sketches of the President, Vice-President, cabinet officers and other officials of the government; Confederate naval history; the morale of the armies; the South since the war, and a connected outline of events from the beginning of the struggle to its close. We have combined these two volumes into one "Causes of the War" volume. There are also individual volumes for each state: Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas & Florida. There is also a separate volume for the Confederate Navy. Each state being treated in a separate history allows space for details concerning its peculiar story, its own devotion, its own heroes, and its battlefields. These volumes contain information on each unit; where, when, and by whom the unit was formed. There are also some Rosters.
About the Author: Oran Milo Roberts (July 9, 1815 - May 19, 1898), was the 17th Governor of Texas from January 21, 1879 to January 16, 1883. Roberts County, Texas, is named after him. Oran M. Roberts was born in Laurens District, South Carolina. He studied at the University of Alabama and graduated in 1836, and was admitted to the bar the following year. After serving a term in the Alabama legislature, he moved to Texas, where he opened a successful law practice. In 1844 he was appointed a district attorney by President Sam Houston. In 1846, after Texas had become a state, he was appointed district judge by Governor James Pinckney Henderson. In 1856 Roberts ran for and won a position on the Texas Supreme Court. During this time Roberts became a spokesman for states' rights, and when the secessionist crisis appeared in 1860, he was at the center of the pro-Confederate faction. In January 1861 he was unanimously elected president of the Secession Convention in Austin, a meeting that he had been influential in calling. Along with colleagues Roberts led the passage of the ordinance removing Texas from the Union in 1861. In 1862 he resigned his seat on the bench and entered the Confederate army, and was elected colonel of the Eleventh Texas infantry, with which he served the Trans Mississippi Department, "Walker's Division," during the greater part of the campaigns in Arkansas and Louisiana. In 1864, and while he was with his command, Governor Roberts was elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Roberts wrote several professional works, among them a text, The Elements of Texas Pleading (1890), which was used for decades after his retirement from teaching. In 1893 he left the university and moved to Marble Falls, where he turned his attention to more general historical writings. Among his works are his essay The Political, Legislative, and Judicial History of Texas for its Fifty Years of Statehood, 1845-1895 which was published in an early general history of the state, Comprehensive History of Texas, 1685 to 1897 (1898), edited by Dudley G. Wooten; and chapters on Texas in volume eleven of Confederate Military History (1899). He participated in forming the Texas State Historical Association and served as its first president. Roberts was married to Francis W. Edwards of Ashville, Alabama, from 1837 until her death in 1883. They were the parents of seven children. In 1887 Roberts married Mrs. Catherine E. Border. He is buried at the Oakwood Cemetery in Austin, Texas.