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Coombs Family Collection (Mss 349), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 349. Correspondence, photographs, business records and miscellaneous papers of the Coombs, Robertson and related families of Warren and Simpson counties in Kentucky and of Alabama, Texas and Tennessee. Includes correspondence, personal papers and research of Elizabeth Robertson Coombs, librarian at the Kentucky Library, Western Kentucky University. Several documents from this collection have been scanned are available for viewing by clicking on the "Additional Files" below.

Review Of Patrick K. O’Donnell, Dog Company: The Boys Of Pointe Du Hoc—The Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day’S Toughest Mission And Led The Way Across Europe, Jared Dockery Ph.D.

Faculty Research & Publications

No abstract provided.

The War Of 1812: The End Of An Uncommon Alliance, Ryan Barrett

History Theses

The War of 1812 was a struggle between three groups: Americans, British, and Native Americans. The British and the Native Americans were brought together in their necessity to fight the Americans. The alliance began during the French and Indian War while defeating the French. Throughout the rest of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century the British and Natives would support each other in a mutually beneficial alliance. The end of the War of 1812 would also be the end of the once great alliance.

Just Good Advice: The American Advisors In The Vietnam War, Anna Rikki Nelson

Honors Theses

This thesis uses government documents and post-combat interviews to explore the effectiveness of the American Advisory effort during the Vietnam War. This study focuses on the war in 1963 and 1964 before American ground forces entered the war and the advisory effort changed to include supporting American forces. By analyzing the reasons given by each advisor for his successes and failures, the American military could learn why the initial advisory effort failed, and why some American advisors could not work well with their counterparts in the Vietnamese leadership.

Chapter One examines the advisory effort as a whole before and during …

The Military–Masculinity Complex: Hegemonic Masculinity And The United States Armed Forces, 1940–1963, Brandon T. Locke

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The military-industrial complex grew rapidly in the build up to the Second World War and continued to expand in the decades that followed. The military was not only much larger, but had also changed their relationship with American citizens, impacting their lives in new and complex ways. The defensive needs of World War Two and the Cold War made the military an imperative and prestigious institution in the United States, and the Selective Service Draft, beginning in 1940 and running continuously until 1973, gave the military unfettered access to the young men of the nation.

During the same time, government …

Warsaw Uprising Of 1944: A Touchstone In United States And Russian Relations, Jordan Szczygiel

Honors Scholar Theses

On August 1, 1944, when the Armia Krajowa [AK] comprised of Polish partisans, took to the streets against the Germans, the only question in their minds was when Warsaw was going to be liberated. Instead of a quick victory, fighting raged on for sixty-three days ending with the eventual defeat of the AK. Even though the uprising failed to free Warsaw from the grasp of the Nazis, it did become a touchstone in the relationship between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

Civil War, 1861-1865 - Draft (Sc 1090), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1090. Commutation money receipt given to Henry J. McLean, Owensboro, Kentucky. McLean, a colonel drafted into the Union army from Kentucky’s 2nd Congressional District, paid $300 to receive a discharge from further liability for the draft. Receipt signed by George D. Blakey.

Simons, J. R. (Sc 1092), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid, scans and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1092. Three letters, June-December 1863, from J. R. Simons, serving with the Union army near Vicksburg, Mississippi, to his cousins Harriet and Nancy Trout, Elkton, Todd County, Kentucky. He describes the fighting at Vicksburg as well as conditions before and after the battle.

Finding The Good: An Emotional Anniversary, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

I am an exacting judge of interpretive product. I realize this. My boss and I have had a few discussions about how both of our standards, sometimes, might be just a bit too high.

I still am not convinced that pure and utter excellence is not too much to ask for on every interpretive program. All too often, though, I don't find it.

When I do see amazing moments, it thrills me. I get outrageously excited. Through my entire experience as a visitor at the sesquicentennial celebration at Gettysburg, two programs stand out as verging on that sort of gleaming …

Burch, James W., B. 1808? (Sc 1088), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1088. Letter, 23 November 1862, written by Burch, Henry County, Tennessee to his brother, Benjamin D. Burch, relating the economic impact of the war and describing guerrilla activities in his home area. Includes photo of Burch and his wife.

Flood, Edwin Warren, 1921-1944 (Sc 1081), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1081. Six World War II V-Mail letters from Edwin Warren Flood, serving aboard the U.S.S. St. Louis in the Pacific area, to his parents and sister in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Also, three letters from his parents and sister, written before Flood’s death on 14 February 1944. Collection includes materials related to his posthumous awards, a photo of Flood in his U.S. Navy uniform, and negatives.

Truth And Memory In Two Works By Marguerite Duras, Rachel Deborah Hunter

Dissertations and Theses

Published in 1985, Marguerite Duras' La Douleur is a collection of six autobiographical and semi-autobiographical short stories written during and just after the German Occupation. Echoing the French national sentiment of the 1970s and 1980s, these stories examine Duras' own capacity for good and evil, for forgetting, repressing, and remembering. The first of these narratives, the eponymous "La douleur," is the only story in the collection to take the form of a diary, and it is this narrative, along with a posthumously published earlier draft of the same text, that will be the focus of this thesis. In both versions, …

Stewart W. Woods: A Peculiar Casualty At Fort Wagner?, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Captured in the darkness of July 18th on a sandy beach in South Carolina was a native of Adams County. Stewart W. Woods, born in Heidlersburg around 1836, found himself in the hands of the rebels, among a handful of his compatriots in the 54th Massachusetts. The fighting of Woods' war was over and his fate was unclear. Stewart was a free man, born under the folds of the same American flag under which he now fought. At some point, he had drifted over the mountain range and called Carlisle home when the war erupted in 1861. [excerpt]

A New Theory For Battle Landscapes - Toward An Interpretive Future, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

There's a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding has been long and deep. It goes something like this:

Your crusade to destroy the current practice of military history on battlefields is a form of fundamentalism just like the supposed fundamentalism of military history you aim to change. [excerpt]

July 3, 2013 Reflection: A Chance Encounter, Ian A. Isherwood

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In a July 4 letter to his father-in-law, General Alexander Hays expressed reserve. “Yesterday was a warm one for us,” he wrote. “The fight of my division was a perfect success […] We are all sanguine of ridding our soil of the invaders.”

The “perfect success” for Hays was his command’s role in the repulse of Pettigrew’s division in what has become known as Pickett’s Charge. It was an unquestionable victory for his division and the Army of the Potomac. Yet Alex Hays’s matter-of-fact letter was not buoyant with the egoism so easily ascribed to generals after their victories. Hays …

“A Great Weight At My Heart:” A Personal Reaction To Pickett’S Charge, Rebekah N. Oakes

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

“When our great victory was just over the exultation of victory was so great that one didn’t think of our fearful losses, but now I can’t help feeling a great weight at my heart. Poor Henry Ropes was one of the dearest friends I ever had or expect to have. He was one of the purest-minded, noblest, most generous men I ever knew. His loss is terrible. His men actually wept when they showed me his body, even under the tremendous cannonade, a time when most soldiers see their comrades dying around them with indifference.”

When twenty-one year old Henry …

To My Great Great Grand Uncle - On The Occasion Of The 150th Anniversary Of Your Death, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Dear William Henry,

I'm writing this standing near the spot where you died, exactly 150 years ago nearly to the second. I'm typing on a tiny screen, a technological marvel that lets me share the stories of men like you with the world instantly.

They've put up a monument to you and the 17 other men who died along with you along the banks of Plum Run creek. We call this place "The Valley of Death" now. I think you among all people who have walked this green earth would understand why.... [excerpt]

A New Birth Of Freedom, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The president of the United States had been more than usually agitated ever since the news of a major collision of the Union and Confederate armies around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, first flew along the telegraph wires to the War Department on July 1, 1863. For days, he was clouded with “sadness and despondency” until the message arrived, announcing a great victory for the Union. That was followed almost at once by news from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles: another dispatch had come in, “communicating the fall of Vicksburg [Mississippi] on the fourth of July.” At once, Abraham Lincoln’s mood changed, …

Mad Dan, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Did Daniel Sickles, the Union's most notorious general, save the day for the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg? That's exactly what he wanted you to believe.