Public History Commons^™

Review Of Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War In Vietnam, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Nick Turse's Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.

Eating Soup With A Spoon: The U.S. Army As A "Learning Organization" In The Vietnam War, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

Standard Vietnam War narratives often argue that the U.S. Army lost the war because it failed to learn and adapt to the conditions of an unconventional conflict. Based on a reappraisal of learning processes rather than on the outcome of the war, this essay argues that as an organization, the U.S. Army did learn and adapt in Vietnam; however, that learning was not sufficient, in itself, to preserve a South Vietnam in the throes of a powerful nationalist upheaval. A reexamination of the Army's strategic approach, operational experiences, and organizational changes reveals that significant learning did occur during the Vietnam …

Why The "Harvest Of Death" Doesn't Matter (And Why It Does), John M. Rudy

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

I went on a tour a few Sundays ago. It was very tough to explain exactly what I had done (in sensible terms) with my coworkers when I came into the office the next Monday morning. Not just very tough, but embarrassingly tough.

THEM: "What did you do this weekend, John?"

ME: "Well, Sunday I went on a tour of places on the Gettysburg battlefield where one specific photo wasn't taken-"

THEM: *blank stare* [excerpt]

Fear In Illinois: A Father's Grief, John M. Rudy

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

Like a prose poem, the passage leaped off of the page of the Lutheran and Missionary as I scanned the newspaper's columns. Sitting in the reading room of the Abdel Ross Wentz Library at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, my heart raced. It's not often that you find new words penned by someone you've been studying for years. [excerpt]

Divided Maryland: Antietam 150th Interpretive Talk, John M. Rudy

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

A few weeks ago, I spent an amazing weekend interpreting the Dunker Church. Not many of you were able to visit that amazing place on that amazing weekend.

For those of you out there who didn't get to see my talks that weekend, or for those of you who would like to live them again, check out this MP3 recording of the presentation, with added music and sound. [excerpt]

Four Days In Heaven Spending Four Days In Hell, John M. Rudy

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

I spent four days this past weekend wallowing in the depths of hell. Around me swirled the maelstrom of battle, a spinning vortex of blood, death, destruction and loss. Outside the windows, every patch of ground is a reminder of the sacrifice and heartache.

If you squinted your eyes, or better yet closed them completely, you could see it all. [excerpt]

Sharpsburg, Maryland: 150 Years Later, John M. Rudy

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

If you are somewhere in the mid-Atlantic region over this next weekend, are obsessed with studying and understanding the Civil War and aren't going to be trying your damnedest to be in Sharpsburg, Maryland this weekend, you might want to check your pulse. [excerpt]

An 1858 Patent Office Report: The Joy Of Being Wrong, John M. Rudy

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

I love being wrong. I think every historian should love that feeling. Finding that one small piece of evidence that puts a crack in your perception of the past and makes you restructure your view of the flow of history is a joy.

I had one of those moments a few weeks ago at Adams County Historical Society, digging through the vertical files for random things. I go digging every week or so, simply immersing myself in the raw material of the past and seeing what floats to the surface. [excerpt]

Dead Is Dead: Why 20% Doesn't Matter, John M. Rudy

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

Over at Cosmic America, Keith Harris beat me to the punch on this one. But Jake can attest to the fact that, since the "news" of the revision of Civil War dead up by 130,000 broke, I have been grumbling on and off.

Once Upon A Time In Gettysburg: Sometimes It Works, John M. Rudy

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

Monday night, I took my class out on the 'battlefield.' I know some of them are taking my class because, "it's Gettysburg College and I should take a Civil War class before I leave." I couldn't resist the siren call to show them where they have lived for four years and transform the meanings of that ground for them. So we went on a campus tour, the battlefield they walk everyday when they go to class or dinner or out to party on a Friday night. [excerpt]

Guest Post: Fear And Loathing At Shiloh, Vanessa Smiley

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

Everyone is and has been talking about the Shiloh 150th commemoration, whether it be the NPS event starting this week or the battle reenactment that took place this past weekend. It has been called the 'Antietam of the West.' All the events surrounding its 150th anniversary have been heralded as being one of 'the big ones' this year. Over 23,000 casualties of both sides in two days - a pretty significant and bloody battle. [excerpt]

Confederates In The Dorm: Hidden In Plain Sight, John M. Rudy

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

You can imagine the terror in the young 21-year-old's eyes as he realized who was charging down the Cashtown Pike into Gettysburg on the 26th of June. You can feel the chill that might have run down his spine as he realized that the rebel army he had deserted, the one he had escaped by running to the Federal lines, was crashing down upon him again. And the deserter's fate during this war was simple: execution. [excerpt]

0794: The Bon Ton Bullets In The Service, 1943-1945, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection consists copies of nineteen editions of a Huntington, West Virginia area newsletter titled, “The Bon Ton Bullets in the Service” published between 1943 and 1945. The newsletter describes activities of area service members during World War II, and published excerpts from letters sent from servicemen, news from home, addresses, and miscellanea. Also included is an index of individuals mentioned in many of the newsletters.

On Lewis Sorley's Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, by Lewis Sorley.

Manassas: Why They Fought Here, John M. Rudy

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

Another quick observational post on the Sesquicentennial event at Manassas last month. This time, it all revolves around the Confederate living history camp adjacent to the Henry House, and more directly to the exhibit there which the reenactors entitled, "Flags of Manassas." Curiously, the flags of Manassas were only rebel banners, with nary an American flag in sight. But that's another discussion completely. [excerpt]

Manassas: Heat Of The Moment, John M. Rudy

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

Before I go any further, I need to make something clear: they tried. Oh, they tried so hard. The deck was stacked against them and they gave it the old Harvard try. Heat, a weekday and more... They tried so valiantly. But they came up short. [excerpt]

No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness And Progress In The Vietnam War, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Conventional wisdom holds that the US Army in Vietnam, thrust into an unconventional war where occupying terrain was a meaningless measure of success, depended on body counts as its sole measure of military progress. In No Sure Victory, Army officer and historian Gregory Daddis looks far deeper into the Army's techniques for measuring military success and presents a much more complicated-and disturbing-account of the American misadventure in Indochina.

"...Never Forget What They Did Here": Memorial Day 2011, John M. Rudy

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

One of my pleasures on this holiday is to buy and place a flag on the monument to the 14th U.S. Regulars in the valley of death. Along the banks of Plum Run, the Regulars held back an onslaught from a pell-mell group of charging Confederates in what would be the final phase of the fight in the Wheatfield and Devil's Den area on July 2nd, 1863. As they retreated back across the swampy lowlands, Confederates hot on their heels, their own gunners on the slopes of the hill had no choice but to fire into the mangled mess of …

How To Sap The Romance: America's National Killingfield Parks, John M. Rudy

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

"Maybe they should call them Killingfields instead of Battlefields..." [excerpt]

Review Of A Question Of Command: Counterinsurgency From The Civil War To Iraq, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

A review of A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq, by Mark Moyar.

"The Last Full Measure Of Devotion": The Battle Of Gettysburg And The New Museum In Schmucker Hall, Bradley R. Hoch, Gerald Christianson

Adams County History

Schmucker Hall offers an unprecedented opportunity to interpret the role of religion in the Civil War and the American expenment in democracy. In particular it can give palpable expression to major themes in Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address concerning the battle itself, the conflict as a time of testing, the sacrifices of those who fought here, and the hope these sacrifices bring to the young nation for a new birth of freedom.

Built in 1832 and named for an abolitionist and founder of Gettysburg Seminary, Samuel Simon Schmucker, it is the original structure on the oldest continuously-operating Lutheran seminary in the …

Annotations On - An Errand To The South In The Summer Of 1862, By William Wyndham Malet, John Benjamin Burroughs

HCAC Research

The Rev. William Wyndham Malet visited South Carolina in the summer of 1862. He left his vicarage at Ardeley, Hertfordshire, England, to come to South Carolina to tell his sister, Mrs. Plowden C. J. Weston (formerly Emily Frances Esdaile), of a death in their family. While in South Carolina he spent the summer in Conwayboro (Conway) at Snow Hill, the war time refuge of Plowden C. J. Weston (Lt. Gov. of S.C. 1862-1864). Weston had evacuated his home, Hagley Plantation, on the lower Waccamaw River and moved his wife and approximately forty of his slaves upriver to Snow Hill in …

Adams County History 2007

Adams County History

No abstract provided.

Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections Oral History Collection, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

This collection consists of the transcripts, original cassette tape recordings of public speeches, lectures, and oral history interviews spanning from 1962-2007. Interviews were conducted and recorded by Georgia Southern University’s Department of History and Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections. Those interviewed are mostly locals to Bulloch County and neighboring counties. Interviewees discuss their personal and family lives, historical events they were a part of, and circumstances surrounding their successes. The public speeches and lectures originated from an assortment of sources.

Find this collection in the University Libraries' catalog.

Review Of The Battle Of An Loc, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

A review of The Battle of An Loc, by James H. Willbanks.

Annotations On - Travels In The Confederation [1783-1784], Journal Of Johann David Schoepf, John Benjamin Burroughs

HCAC Research

Johann David Schoepf was born in 1752 in the German principality of Bayreuth. Educated as a physician and natural scientist, he arrived at New York in 1777 as chief surgeon of the Ansbach troops in the service of George III. Returning to Europe in 1784, Schoepf died in 1800 while serving as president of the United Medical Colleges of Ansbach and Bayreuth. In these selected passages, Schoepf describes his travel along the north-eastern coastline of South Carolina, through what is now Horry County, and along the beach of Long Bay, now known as Myrtle Beach. He gives a description of …

Armageddon’S Lost Lessons: Combined Arms Operations In Allenby’S Palestine Campaign, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

In September 1918, the EEF concluded its campaign in Palestine by routing the Turkish forces at the battle of Megiddo. Under command of British general Allenby, the EEF successfully executed one of the most decisive engagements in any theater of World War I. Ably employing and synchronizing infantry, cavalry, and air forces, Allenby provided future military professionals and historians with a shining illustration of the efficacy of combined arms operations. In terms of surprise, concentration, and operational balance of forces, the culmination of the Palestine campaign was a foreshadowing of the German blitzkrieg used in World War II.

Unfortunately, the …

0742: John E. Wellman Photograph Collection, 1943-1988, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection is primarily composed of digital copies of a photograph album containing photographs taken by John E. Wellman, a combat photographer with the 571st Bomb squadron, 390th Bombing group, 8th Air Force, 1943-1945. Photographs show B-17s and fighter planes in formation, bombing runs, aerial views of bombs and ground attacks, and anti-aircraft fire during World War II. Other materials in the album include a 1943 class photo from the Army Air Force Technical Training School at Lowry Field, group and training photographs, a certificate signifying service in the 390th bomb group, and a 1988 color photograph featuring Wellman at …

0703: Rosanna A. Blake Collection, 1818-2000, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection consists of manuscript and other paper items collected by Rosanna A. Blake. Included are letters, diaries, correspondence, unit rosters, Confederate imprint forms and currency, 1860-1865. Also included are 3D items including firearms, edged weapons, tin soldiers, original Civil War art work, the Volck shield, and Southern periodicals relating to the Civil War. Notably, the collection includes 3 original Robert E. Lee letters, 1 Jefferson Davis letter, and 2 general orders dictated by Lee. The O'Brien sub-collection contains Civil War pamphlets and booklets, over 300 monographs and books, photos, CDV's, original Civil War art work, the Volck shield, ambrotypes …