In Rebel Watchdog, Kenneth Radley draws from more than four hundred primary sources to detail the workings of the Confederate States Army Provost Guard. Sanctioned by the Articles of War in 1861 to assist the South in the establishment of discipline over the vast numbers of hurriedly organised and untrained soldiers, the provost system became one of the most highly praised and controversial components of the Confederate army. It was charged with marshaling the South's available resources for war while simultaneously accommodating the region's marked predisposition toward individualism and against any semblance of a strong central government.