Dickison fought during the Civil War in Florida, which was basically told to fend for itself. Using geurilla combat and skirmishing, his band of soldiers became the only people to blow up a gunship from land during the Civil War.

In this masterpiece of research, a splendid supplement to Ezra J. Warner's Generals in Gray, Bruce S. Allardice brings to light a neglected class of officers: the Confederacy's "other" generals -- men who attained their rank outside the usual avenue of appointment by President Jefferson Davis and who had been virtually forgotten as a consequence. Explaining that the process of becoming a general was fraught with politics, lobbying, intrigue, accident, mismanagement, and chance, Allardice identifies six main categories of legitimate claimants to the rank of Confederate General -- two more than historians have traditionally recognized. He presents a substantial biographical sketch of 137 generals not found in Warner's original and a short bibliography of each. For the vast majority, his is the first treatment ever published.