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Ligon, Lucy Ann (Parker) Robbins, 1833-1891 - Letters To (Sc 3278), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescripts (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3278. Letters to Lucy Ann Robbins Ligon, the daughter of Fulton County, Kentucky judge Josiah Parker and his wife Lucy A. Parker, written while she lived in Crittenden County, Arkansas with her late husband’s brother, and in Hickman, Kentucky after her remarriage. Lucy’s parents relay news of her siblings and of pre-Civil War Hickman, and at the outbreak of war dramatically describe the division of loyalties, the townspeople’s fear and uncertainty as invasion threatens from the North, the enlistment of local men, two destructive fires, economic conditions, …

Complicating The Civil War Narrative: The Lincoln Lyceum Lecture, Savannah Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

On October 3rd, the 2018 Lincoln Prize-winning author and historian, Edward Ayers, gave a talk on his most recent book, The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America. Ayers began the process of writing this book in 1991 while driving through the Shenandoah Valley and wondering how places so naturally beautiful could go to war with each other so quickly. In his book, he attempts to answer that question by looking at how the Civil War was experienced on the ground by normal, everyday people. He does this by following two communities …

"Two Years Below The Horn: Operation Tabarin, Field Science, And Antarctic Sovereignty, 1944–1946 (Book Review)" By Andrew Taylor, Edited By Daniel Heidt And P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Matthew S. Wiseman

Canadian Military History

Review of Two Years Below the Horn: Operation Tabarin, Field Science, and Antarctic Sovereignty, 1944–1946 by Andrew Taylor, edited by Daniel Heidt and P. Whitney Lackenbauer.

"Waste Into Weapons: Recycling In Britain During The Second World War (Book Review)" By Peter Thorsheim, Alex Souchen

Canadian Military History

Review of Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War by Peter Thorsheim.

"American Grand Strategy In The Mediterranean During World War Ii (Book Review)" By Andrew Buchanan, Alexander Salt

Canadian Military History

Review of American Grand Strategy in the Mediterranean during World War II by Andrew Buchanan.

"No Free Man: Canada, The Great War, And The Enemy Alien Experience (Book Review)" By Bohdan S. Kordan, Richard Roy

Canadian Military History

Review of No Free Man: Canada, the Great War, and the Enemy Alien Experience by Bohdan S. Kordan.

"Filling The Ranks: Manpower In The Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918 (Book Review)" By Richard Holt, Curtis B. Robinson

Canadian Military History

Review of Filling the Ranks: Manpower in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918 by Richard Holt.

"Vimy: The Battle And The Legend (Book Review)" By Tim Cook, Katrina J. Pasierbek

Canadian Military History

Review of Vimy: The Battle and the Legend by Tim Cook.

"The Bytown Gunners: The History Of Ottawa’S Artillery, 1855-2015 (Book Review)" By Kenneth W. Reynolds, Major (Ret'd) M.R. Mcnorgan

Canadian Military History

Review of The Bytown Gunners: The History of Ottawa’s Artillery, 1855-2015 by Kenneth W. Reynolds.

"Unwanted Warriors: The Rejected Volunteers Of The Canadian Expeditionary Force (Book Review)" By Nic Clarke, Mark Humphries

Canadian Military History

Review of Unwanted Warriors: The Rejected Volunteers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force by Nic Clarke.

"Invisible Scars: Mental Trauma And The Korean War (Book Review)" By Meghan Fitzpatrick, Russell W. Glenn

Canadian Military History

Review of Invisible Scars: Mental Trauma and the Korean War by Meghan Fitzpatrick.

"Creating Canada’S Peacekeeping Past (Book Review)" By Colin Mccullough, Thirstan Falconer

Canadian Military History

Review of Creating Canada’s Peacekeeping Past by Colin McCullough.

"Reluctant Warriors: Canadian Conscripts And The Great War (Book Reivew)" By Patrick Dennis, David Borys

Canadian Military History

Review of Reluctant Warriors: Canadian Conscripts and the Great War by Patrick Dennis.

"Zombie Army: The Canadian Army And Conscription In The Second World War (Book Review)" By Daniel Byers, Brian Bertosa

Canadian Military History

Review of Zombie Army: The Canadian Army and Conscription in the Second World War by Daniel Byers.

'Whatsoever A Man Soweth:' Sex Education About Venereal Disease, Racial Health, And Social Hygiene During The First World War, Brent Brenyo

Canadian Military History

In 1917, the British War Office released a film directed by Joseph Best titled Whatsoever a Man Soweth. The 38-minute silent film used intertitles to convey dialogue, and the film’s narrative, which focuses on three Canadian soldiers on leave in London, England, was intended to provide sex education for soldiers. This paper examines how the film reflected and constructed a wartime reality through cultural representations, as increased attention was paid to the threat of venereal disease and its impact on racial health and the British Empire during the First World War. Ultimately, this sex education film provided soldiers with …

“The Most Vivifying Influence:” Operation Delta In Preparing The Canadian Corps For The Hundred Days, William F. Stewart

Canadian Military History

Preparation and training for Operation Delta in May and June 1918 provided the Canadian Corps with vital experience for the types of operations conducted during the Hundred Days. Delta was a proposed attack on the southern portion of the Lys salient formed by the German April offensive in Flanders. The operation represented a clear break with the operational concepts employed in 1917 prior to Cambrai. It was a difference between seeing a play diagrammed on a blackboard and actually running it in conditions just short of combat. Having a concrete plan to prepare schemes against was an invaluable element in …

Ballew, William A., 1842-1915 (Sc 3277), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3277. Letter, 12 November 1864, from William A. Ballew to Thomas Hopkins, Clinton County, Kentucky. Writing from Spring Hill, Tennessee, where he is serving with the 12th Kentucky Infantry, Ballew notes his regiment’s support of presidential candidate George B. McClellan (“little mack”). Although they were not yet enfranchised, he cites a mock election held by African Americans in Nashville as evidence for President Abraham Lincoln’s likely reelection. He notes the good health of his fellow soldiers, including Hopkins’ two sons, Lewis and Shelby.

Fry, Samuel Van Buren, 1840-1903 (Sc 3276), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3276. Letter, 31 July 1864, of Samuel V. Fry, 16th Kentucky Infantry, to Ruth Jane Sapp. From Dalton, Georgia, he writes of engaging Confederate forces near Atlanta in a "big fight every day” and hopes to see her if he survives the war. He urges her not to “give me up for lost and take some other gentle man in my place.”

Hopkins, Lewis Franklin, 1841-1921 (Sc 3275), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3275. Letter, 18 April 1864, to his parents in Clinton County, Kentucky, from Lewis F. Hopkins, 12th Kentucky Infantry. Encamped at Burnside’s Point, Kentucky, he reports on the construction of fortifications and the soldiers’ demand for horses. He finds the food plentiful, but is unhappy that civilians in the vicinity who have come from Tennessee and are likely to have Confederate sympathies are drawing from the camp commissary.

Messer, George, 1833-1863 (Sc 3254), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3254. Letter, 4 January 1863, of George Messer to his wife Lottie, written while encamped with the 107th Illinois Infantry at Woodsonville, Hart County, Kentucky. He notes recent Confederate attacks that resulted in interrupted mail, a shortage of food rations, bridge burnings, and some of his regiment being captured. He reports a delay in receiving his pay due to an officer’s negligence, and fears that a box of provisions sent to him has fallen into enemy hands.

Running Wires: Digital History In The Classroom And The Field, Ian A. Isherwood, Amy E. Lucadamo, R.C. Miessler

All Musselman Library Staff Works

The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs is a digital history project that publishes the letters of a British World War I officer 100 years to the day they were written. By telling the story of one person, we have aimed to humanize a dehumanizing war and supported the effort to commemorate the centennial of the conflict. While the project was conceived with pedagogy in mind, it has grown beyond the letters and crossed boundaries: from the analog to the digital, from the classroom to the public, and from the archives to the field.

To Liberty, Honor, And…Cufflinks?: The Grand Army Of The Republic, Savannah Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Borne of the Civil War, one fraternal organization quickly assumed such great authority that it re-shaped cultural prescriptions of manhood, dictated the northern public’s memory of the war, and even influenced presidential elections. This organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), was formed in Illinois in 1866 by veteran Benjamin Franklin Stephenson and its number of posts in the United States quickly increased. In order to be a member, one simply had to be a Union veteran. By the 1890s, there were 7,000 GAR posts around the country; approximately 1.3 million men, half of all Union veterans, were group …

Bonding Images: Photography And Film As Acts Of Perpetration, Christophe Busch

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Historical and contemporary cases of collective violence show an incremental use of photography and film to capture and disseminate violent acts. Recording cruelty during conflict seems to be a highly ritualised practice that urges the question what communicative and psychological functions these acts have? Why and how does perpetrator photography shape a binding moral world that divides 'us' versus 'them'? These visualising acts are commonly seen as proof of power that desensitises the perpetrators and dehumanises the victims. This contribution focuses on the imagery of the Holocaust, looks into the functions that capturing and sharing cruelty has on the evolution …

Vietnam: A War With Two Fronts, Justin D. Winkel

Student Publications

The Vietnam War is viewed by many historians as a turning point in American war memory. Never before had there been such an outstanding opposition to a military endeavor by the United States' own citizens, government officials, soldiers, and veterans. Drawing from the first hand accounts of PFC Steven Warner and the work of numerous historians, this paper offers an examination into the ways in which some high profile events of the Vietnam War (such as the Cambodia Campaign and the Kent State Shootings) created an environment that negatively impacted United States soldiers and veterans of the Vietnam War.

Emasculated Men: The Perception And Treatment Of Shell-Shocked Soldiers During World War I, Courtney Kramer

Senior Honors Theses

World War I differed from wars of the past in a variety of ways. Thus, it created a host of modern medical and psychological problems for soldiers, military leaders, and physicians to overcome such as shell shock. Since shell shock was a relatively new phenomenon in warfare, the medical and military communities were uncertain about how to interpret its appearance and decrease its occurrence in their armed forces. As a result, shell shock fell victim to several social constructs of the time. One of the main societal factors that fueled the negative stigmatization of shell-shocked soldiers during the war was …

Nineteen Minutes Of Horror: Insights From The Scorpions Execution Video, Iva Vukušić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

After the fall of Srebrenica in summer of 1995, the Scorpions unit, dispatched to support the Bosnian Serb Army as it took over the enclave, shot six men in Trnovo. The men, three of whom were underage, were some of thousands of Bosnian Muslims that fell into the hands of Bosnian Serb troops, and that were executed in the days and weeks following July 11th. A member of the unit filmed the execution. Fragments of the video were first shown during the Slobodan Milosevic trial, and multiple times in the years after, in the courtrooms in The Hague and Belgrade. …

Tearing The Guts Out Of The Wehrmacht: A Re-Examination Of The Russo-German War, Randall Wells, Jr.

Masters Theses

Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Hitler’s plan to annihilate Germany’s Eastern neighbor and populate the vast Russian expanse with his own people was as ambitious as it was adventuristic. Although it began successful, the Russo-German War quickly devolved into a quagmire as Russian troops outfought their German opponent and beat them back to Berlin. Contrary to prevailing historiography, the Wehrmacht’s loss on the Eastern Front cannot be solely attributed to a failure to equip German troops with proper winter clothing, an inadequate logistics network or Hitler’s interference in military decisions. For an army that had …

The Octofoil, October/November/December 2018, Ninth Infantry Division Association

The Octofoil

The Octofoil is the offical publication of the Ninth Infantry Division Association, Inc., an organization formed by the officers and men of the 9th Infantry Division in order to perpetuate the memory of fallen comrades, preserve the esprit de corps of the Division, promote peace and serve as an information bureau about the 9th Infantry Division. The Association is made up of 9th Infantry veterans from WWII and Vietnam, spouses, widows and lineal descendants.

2018 Annual Dinner Program, The O'Callahan Society, College Of The Holy Cross

O'Callahan Society Annual Dinner Program

Eighteenth annual dinner sponsored by The O'Callahan Society. This year's event departed from the standard format of a keynote speaker in order to give four individuals, whose lives were dramatically impacted by the Vietnam conflict, the opportunity to speak. Medal of Honor Recipient Captain Thomas G. Kelley, USN (ret) HC ‘60; his wife, Commander Joan Kelley, USNR (ret); former POW Commander Timothy B. Sullivan, USN (ret) HC ’65, and Marine veteran Harry Kustigian have agreed to share their experiences and insights.

This year is dedicated to remembering the men and women who served in Vietnam a half century ago.

Living Through Rat Hell: The Lives And Escape Attempts Of Soldiers At Libby Prison, Blake Davis

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

This paper examines the lives and experiences of the men who survived the horrors of the Confederate prisoner of war camp, Libby Prison. Located inside the Confederacy’s capital city, the camp housed captured Union officers from its establishment in 1862 until the fall of Richmond in 1865. Under the command of the Major Thomas Turner and the dreaded Warden Richard Turner, Libby foreshadowed the horrors of concentration camps which would be run by other Germans eighty years later. Unlike a normal officer’s prison, the conditions faced by the officers at Libby were incredibly deplorable. By the war’s end, the camp …