Bruce S. Allardice brings to light a class of officers never before covered in any book: the Confederacy's "other" generals. They are the men who attained their rank outside the usual avenue of appointment by President Jefferson Davis - and who have been virtually lost to history as a consequence. In his Introduction, Allardice answers in depth the question "Who was a Confederate general?" Explaining that the process of appointment was fraught with politics, lobbying, intrigue, accident, mismanagement, and plain dumb luck, he identifies six main categories of legitimate claimants to the rank of Confederate general - two more than historians traditionally have recognized. He thus redeems from obscurity the titles of 137 Confederate generals, men whose appointments went the nonpresidential route but whom, the evidence shows, contemporaries considered to be generals. For each of the 137, Allardice presents a substantial biographical sketch and a short bibliography. For the vast majority, his is the first treatment ever published. In about half the cases, he has traced the officer's descendants and obtained a wealth of new information and never-before-seen photographs.

Among those "other" generals are the Confederacy's most famous naval hero, Raphael Semmes; its first war martyr, Francis Bartow; and "Rip" Ford, the commander of its forces in the last battle of the war. Allardice includes the most up-to-date research on Jeff Thompson (the "Swamp Fox"), Tom Munford, Henry Kyd Douglas, and more. He covers many lesser-known leaders, too, shedding new light on little-studied aspects of the Civil War such as smaller campaigns and state armies and militias.