Jo Shelby's Iron Brigade Hardcover - 2007

From the rear cover

The toughest, most accomplished cavalry brigade west of the Mississippi River was Gen. Jo Shelby's Iron Brigade. This factual, fully documented account traces the Confederate unit's history from its origin through the end of the Civil War. Free of romanticized exaggerations, this work is the most reliable historical source on the subject. Every march, camp, and battle that could be identified from source material is recorded in this story of leadership, brotherhood, and the American West.

Deryl P. Sellmeyer spent two decades researching the true story of the illustrious military unit in which his great-great-grandfather served as a private. He self-published a brief biography of his ancestor's Civil War service in his first book, Saline County Soldier. After he retired, Mr. Sellmeyer completely devoted his time to his research, and the story of Jo Shelby is the result. Sellmeyer is a lifelong resident of the Kansas City area.

From the jacket flap

When the Confederacy collapsed, Gen. Joseph Orville Shelby refused to surrender. The nucleus of Shelby's Brigade of the Confederate States Army began as a company in Missouri in 1861 and grew into the greatest Confederate cavalry brigade west of the Mississippi. This book follows its triumphs all the way to the crossing of a contingent of the brigade into Mexico at the end of the war.

A planter and rope manufacturer from Kentucky, Shelby operated entirely in the trans-Mississippi West. He served in the Missouri State Guard as a company commander at Carthage, Wilson's Creek, and Pea Ridge. He then returned to Missouri to raise a regiment. Shelby became a colonel in charge of one of John S. Marmaduke's mounted division brigades, fighting at Prairie Grove and Helena. He conducted a daring raid to the Missouri River in the fall of 1863, which earned him a promotion to brigadier general and the command of a division. Shelby's Brigade fought valiantly at the Battle of Westport, the Gettysburg of the West, and repeatedly saved Gen. Sterling Price's army from capture on the retreat south.

While other soldiers were demoralized by hunger, disease, and the events of war, Shelby's Brigade conducted themselves with valor and integrity. After the war, they went their separate ways, but in later years many of the old veterans attended the brigade's annual reunions.

Shelby served in Kansas City as the United States marshal for western Missouri in 1893. In 1895, he was appointed commander of the United Confederate Veterans of Missouri. His funeral in 1897 drew four thousand mourners, a record for nineteenth-century Missouri.

A descendant of a Shelby's Brigade member, Deryl P. Sellmeyer offers an objective and evenhanded view of this impressive military leader and his men. The author's decades-long research of Shelby's life and his principal officers is evident as he details the history of the famous brigade.

Sellmeyer is a lifelong resident of the Kansas City, Missouri, area. He served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve from 1967 to 1972. A graduate of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, he was employed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 1978 until his retirement in 2003.