John Adams is best remembered as one of the four Confederate generals who lay on the porch of the Carnton House, dead, when the Battle of Franklin ended on December 1, 1864. Unfortunately he did not leave much in the way of personal papers, and this biography has been pieced together from Army records and other sources, including accounts of his contemporaries.

Adams's career in the U.S. Army gives us a good look at the military, the concept of Manifest Destiny, and the relations with those conquered by the Army, the Indians. This book also considers one of the more debated topics in Civil War history: why did a man who served the United States for most of his life resign his commission and side with the Confederacy?