The Break-up of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Army, 1865

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Unlike other Confederate armies at the conclusion of the Civil War, General Edmund Kirby Smith's Trans-Mississippi Army disbanded, often without orders, rather than surrender formally. Despite entreaties from military and civilian leaders to fight on, for Confederate soldiers west of the Mississippi River, the surrender of armies led by Generals Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston ended the war. After a significant decline in morale and discipline throughout the spring of 1865, soldiers of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department chose to break-up and return home. As compensation for months of unpaid service, soldiers seized both public and private property. Civilians joined the soldiers to create disorder that swept many Texas communities until the arrival of Federal troops in late June.
Date: May 2001
Creator: Clampitt, Brad R.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
"Victory is Our Only Road to Peace": Texas, Wartime Morale, and Confederate Nationalism, 1860-1865 (open access)

"Victory is Our Only Road to Peace": Texas, Wartime Morale, and Confederate Nationalism, 1860-1865

This thesis explores the impact of home front and battlefield morale on Texas's civilian and military population during the Civil War. It addresses the creation, maintenance, and eventual surrender of Confederate nationalism and identity among Texans from five different counties: Colorado, Dallas, Galveston, Harrison, and Travis. The war divided Texans into three distinct groups: civilians on the home front, soldiers serving in theaters outside of the state, and soldiers serving within Texas's borders. Different environments, experiences, and morale affected the manner in which civilians and soldiers identified with the Confederate war effort. This study relies on contemporary letters, diaries, newspaper reports, and government records to evaluate how morale influenced national dedication and loyalty to the Confederacy among various segments of Texas's population.
Date: May 2008
Creator: Lang, Andrew F.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Morale in the Western Confederacy, 1864-1865: Home Front and Battlefield

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
This dissertation is a study of morale in the western Confederacy from early 1864 until the Civil War's end in spring 1865. It examines when and why Confederate morale, military and civilian, changed in three important western states, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. Focusing on that time frame allows a thorough examination of the sources, increases the opportunity to produce representative results, and permits an assessment of the lingering question of when and why most Confederates recognized, or admitted, defeat. Most western Confederate men and women struggled for their ultimate goal of southern independence until Federal armies crushed those aspirations on the battlefield. Until the destruction of the Army of Tennessee at Franklin and Nashville, most western Confederates still hoped for victory and believed it at least possible. Until the end they drew inspiration from battlefield developments, but also from their families, communities, comrades in arms, the sacrifices already endured, simple hatred for northerners, and frequently from anxiety for what a Federal victory might mean to their lives. Wartime diaries and letters of western Confederates serve as the principal sources. The dissertation relies on what those men and women wrote about during the war - military, political, social, or otherwise - …
Date: May 2006
Creator: Clampitt, Brad R.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Confederate Command Problem in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1862 (open access)

The Confederate Command Problem in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1862

This thesis is a study of the Confederate command problem in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1861-1862.
Date: May 1960
Creator: Dickey, Raymond D.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Americans who did not wait: the American Legion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1915-1917 (open access)

Americans who did not wait: the American Legion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1915-1917

This study examines the five American Legion battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force formed in 1915 specifically to recruit American volunteers for the Canadian overseas contingent of the First World War. This study reviews the organization of Canada's militia and Anglo-American relations before examining the formation of the American Legion, the background of its men, and the diplomatic repercussions it sparked. This study is based largely on material in the Public Archives of Canada including war records and the personal papers of several participants. During its brief existence, the American Legion precipitated constitutional, diplomatic, and political problems. The issues the American Legion raised were mostly solved by America's entry in the war. The episode hastened the maturity of Canada as a nation.
Date: May 1996
Creator: Smylie, Eric
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Mexican Connection: Confederate and Union Diplomacy on the Rio Grande, 1861-1865 (open access)

The Mexican Connection: Confederate and Union Diplomacy on the Rio Grande, 1861-1865

This study examines the efforts of the Union and Confederate diplomatic agents to influence the events along the Rio Grande during the Civil War. The paper compares the successful accomplishments of Confederate agent Jose Quintero to the hindered maneuverings of the Union representatives, Leonard Pierce and M. M. Kimuey. Utilizing microfilmed sources from State Department records and Confederate despatches, the paper relates the steps Quintero took to secure the Confederate-Mexico border trade, obtain favorable responses from the various ruling parties in northern Mexico, and hamper the Union agents' attempts to quell the border trade.
Date: May 1978
Creator: Fielder, Bruce M.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
United States Psychological Operations in Support of Counterinsurgency: Vietnam, 1960 to 1965. (open access)

United States Psychological Operations in Support of Counterinsurgency: Vietnam, 1960 to 1965.

This thesis describes the development of psychological operations capabilities, introduction of forces, and the employment in Vietnam during the period 1960-1965. The complex interplay of these activities is addressed, as well as the development of PSYOP doctrine and training in the period prior to the introduction of ground combat forces in 1965. The American PSYOP advisory effort supported the South Vietnamese at all levels, providing access to training, material support, and critical advice. In these areas the American effort was largely successful. Yet, instability in the wake of President Ngo Dinh Diem's overthrow created an impediment to the ability of psychological operations to change behaviors and positively affect the outcome.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Roberts, Mervyn Edwin, III
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mr. Stanton's Navy: the U. S. Army Ram Fleet and Mississippi Marine Brigade, 1862-1864 (open access)

Mr. Stanton's Navy: the U. S. Army Ram Fleet and Mississippi Marine Brigade, 1862-1864

The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate the importance of the military principle of unity of command by examining the military history of a Union army unit during the Civil War. The Mississippi Marine Brigade and its predecessor, the Ellet Ram Fleet, being a creation of the War Department, and yet conducting tactical operations within the scope of the Navy Department, vividly illustrates the problems inherent in joint army-navy operations. The brigade's primary mission was to counter guerrilla warfare in the Mississippi River valley. The text describes the organization, administration, and major operations of the brigade as a mobile, independent, private military force.
Date: May 1975
Creator: Mangrum, Robert G.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
A History of Smith County, Texas (open access)

A History of Smith County, Texas

This thesis gives an overview of the history of Smith County, Texas. The chapters, according to the Table of Contents: Topography and Earliest Indian Life; The Cherokees; The Expulsion of the Cherokees; The Exploration and Beginnings of Smith County; Frontier Smith County, 1846-1851; The Ante-Bellum Period, 1860-1874; The Railroads and Their Influences, 1870-1900; Post Civil War Politics and Society, 1870-1900; and The Major Industrial Period.
Date: May 1944
Creator: Ward, William R.
Object Type: Book
System: The Portal to Texas History
The Coming of Conscription in Britain (open access)

The Coming of Conscription in Britain

The subject of this thesis is the conscription debate in Great Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, defined in a social-cultural context. The basic assumption is that a process of cultural conditioning works to determine human actions; actions therefore can be understood by examining cultural conditioning. That examination in this thesis is limited to a study of social and intellectual influences relating to conscription as they acted upon various groups in the English community prior to the Great War. The thesis also discusses the 1915-1916 crisis over actual adoption of conscription, in light of these influences.
Date: May 1972
Creator: Baker, Suzanne Helen
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The West Gulf Blockade, 1861-1865: An Evaluation (open access)

The West Gulf Blockade, 1861-1865: An Evaluation

This investigation resulted from a pilot research paper prepared in conjunction with a graduate course on the Civil War. This study suggested that the Federal blockade of the Confederacy may not have contributed significantly to its defeat. Traditionally, historians had assumed that the Union's Anaconda Plan had effectively strangled the Confederacy. Recent studies which compared the statistics of ships captured to successful infractions of the blockade had somewhat revised these views. While accepting these revisionist findings as broadly valid, this investigation strove to determine specifically the effectiveness of Admiral Farragut's West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Since the British Foreign Office maintained consulates in three blockaded southern ports and in many Caribbean ports through which blockade running was conducted, these consular records were vital for this study. Personal research in Great Britain's Public Record Office disclosed valuable consular reports pertaining to the effectiveness of the Federal blockade. American consular records, found in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. provided excellent comparative reports from those same Gulf ports. Official Confederate reports, contained in the National Archives, various state archives and in the published Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies revealed valuable statistical data on foreign imports. Limited use was made of …
Date: May 1974
Creator: Glover, Robert W.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Clarence R. Huebner: An American Military Story of Achievement (open access)

Clarence R. Huebner: An American Military Story of Achievement

In the eyes of the American public excellence is often overshadowed by brilliance of personality. This is particularly true in the portrayal of many of the country's military leaders in World War II. A prime example of this phenomenon is Douglas MacArthur, whose larger than life persona made him a newspaper fixture during the war despite a series of strategic and tactical blunders that would have led to the sacking of a less visible (and publicly popular) leader. At the level of divisional commanders, this triumph of brilliance over excellence is best exemplified by the two primary leaders of the country's 1st Infantry Division, Terry de la Mesa Allen and Clarence R. Huebner. One was a hard-drinking, swashbuckling leader who led by almost the sheer force of his personality; the other, a plain spoken, demanding officer who believed that organization, planning and attention to detail were the keys to superior battlefield performance. The leadership differences between Allen and Huebner have been documented in multiple publications. What has not been documented is the life of the truly overshadowed general - Huebner. Huebner's transition to the leadership of the 1st Infantry Division (1st ID) constitute only a small period in a military …
Date: May 2006
Creator: Flaig, Steven
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Oran M. Roberts

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
This thesis analyzes the political career of Oran M. Roberts during the critical period from 1850 to 1873. Through a reassessment of Roberts's extensive personal papers in the context of modern historical scholarship, the author explains how Roberts's political philosophy reflected the biases and prejudices typical of his era, as well as his own material interests and ambitions. Topic areas covered include Roberts's position on the Compromise of 1850, his constitutional philosophy, his involvement in the secession movement in Texas (including his service as president of the state secession convention), his military career during the Civil War, his participation in Presidential Reconstruction, his views on Congressional Reconstruction, and his role in the process of "redemption" in Texas.
Date: May 2004
Creator: Klemme, A. Christian
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Counterinsurgency Dilemma: The Causes and Consequences of State Repression of Human Rights in Civil Wars (open access)

The Counterinsurgency Dilemma: The Causes and Consequences of State Repression of Human Rights in Civil Wars

In this project a theory of adaptive differential insurgency growth by the mechanism of repression driven contagion is put forth to explain variation in the membership and spatial expansion of insurgencies from 1981 to 1999. As an alternative to the dominant structural approaches in the civil war literature, Part 1 of the study proposes an interactive model of insurgency growth based on Most and Starr's opportunity and willingness framework. The findings suggest that state capacity, via its impact on state repressive behavior, plays an important gatekeeping function in selecting which minor insurgencies can grow into civil war, but contributes little to insurgency growth directly. In Part 2 of the study, I directly examine variation in insurgency membership and geographical expansion as a function of repression driven contagion. I find that repression increases the overall magnitude of insurgency activity within states, while at the same time reducing the density of insurgency activity in any one place. Despite an abundance of low intensity armed struggles against a highly diverse group of regimes around the world, I find an extremely strong and robust regularity: where repression is low - insurgencies don't grow.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Quinn, Jason Michael
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
General Paul Von Lettow-vorbeck’s East Africa Campaign: Maneuver Warfare on the Serengeti (open access)

General Paul Von Lettow-vorbeck’s East Africa Campaign: Maneuver Warfare on the Serengeti

General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s East African Campaign was a conventional war of movement. Lettow based his operations on the military principles deduced from his thorough German military education and oversea deployments to China and German South West Africa. Upon assignment to German East Africa, he sought to convert the colony’s protectorate force from a counterinsurgency force to a conventional military force. His conventional strategy succeeded early in the war, especially at the Battle of Tanga in October 1914. However, his strategy failed as the war in East Africa intensified. He suffered a calamitous defeat at the Battle of Mahiwa in November 1917, and the heavy losses forced Lettow to adopt the counterinsurgency tactics of the colonial protectorate force.
Date: May 2012
Creator: Nesselhuf, F. Jon
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The German Officer Corps and the Socialists, 1918-1920: A Reappraisal (open access)

The German Officer Corps and the Socialists, 1918-1920: A Reappraisal

This work attempts to examine the relationship shared by two ideologically opposed groups during the post-World War I period in Germany. The officer corps is viewed as a relic of the traditional imperial state while the socialists represented the harbinger of the modern, democratic, industrialized state. Although it should seem evident that these two factions of society would be natural enemies, the chaos of World War I pushed these ideological, opposites into the same corner.
Date: May 1973
Creator: Pierce, Walter Rankin
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
"On the Precipice in the Dark": Maryland in the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861 (open access)

"On the Precipice in the Dark": Maryland in the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861

This dissertation is a study of the State of Maryland in the secession crisis of 1860-1861. Previous historians have emphasized economic, political, societal, and geographical considerations as the reasons Maryland remained loyal to the Union. However, not adequately considered is the manner in which Maryland understood and reacted to the secession of the Lower South. Historians have tended to portray Maryland's inaction as inevitable and reasonable. This study offers another reason for Maryland's inaction by placing the state in time and space, following where the sources lead, and allowing for contingency. No one in Maryland could have known that their state would not secede in 1860-61. Seeing the crisis through their eyes is instructive. It becomes clear that Maryland was a state on the brink of secession, but its resentment, suspicion, and anger toward the Lower South isolated it from the larger secession movement. Marylanders regarded the Lower South's rush to separate as precipitous, dangerous, and coercive to the Old Line State. A focus on a single state like Maryland allows a deeper, richer understanding of the dynamics, forces, and characteristics of the secession movement and the federal government's response to it. It cuts through the larger debates about the …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Hamilton, Matthew K.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Collective Security and Coalition: British Grand Strategy, 1783-1797 (open access)

Collective Security and Coalition: British Grand Strategy, 1783-1797

On 1 February 1793, the National Convention of Revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain and the Netherlands, expanding the list of France's enemies in the War of the First Coalition. Although British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger had predicted fifteen years of peace one year earlier, the French declaration of war initiated nearly a quarter century of war between Britain and France with only a brief respite during the Peace of Amiens. Britain entered the war amid both a nadir in British diplomacy and internal political divisions over the direction of British foreign policy. After becoming prime minister in 1783 in the aftermath of the War of American Independence, Pitt pursued financial and naval reform to recover British strength and cautious interventionism to end Britain's diplomatic isolation in Europe. He hoped to create a collective security system based on the principles of the territorial status quo, trade agreements, neutral rights, and resolution of diplomatic disputes through mediation - armed mediation if necessary. While his domestic measures largely met with success, Pitt's foreign policy suffered from a paucity of like-minded allies, contradictions between traditional hostility to France and emergent opposition to Russian expansion, Britain's limited ability to project power …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Jarrett, Nathaniel
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Ranchero. (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 28, 1863 (open access)

The Ranchero. (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 28, 1863

Weekly newspaper from Corpus Christi, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: May 28, 1863
Creator: Maltby, H. A.
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Causes of the Jewish Diaspora Revolt in Alexandria: Regional Uprisings from the Margins of Greco-Roman Society, 115-117 CE (open access)

Causes of the Jewish Diaspora Revolt in Alexandria: Regional Uprisings from the Margins of Greco-Roman Society, 115-117 CE

This thesis examines the progression from relatively peaceful relations between Alexandrians and Jews under the Ptolemies to the Diaspora Revolt under the Romans. A close analysis of the literature evidences that the transition from Ptolemaic to Roman Alexandria had critical effects on Jewish status in the Diaspora. One of the most far reaching consequences of the shift from the Ptolemies to Romans was forcing the Alexandrians to participate in the struggle for imperial patronage. Alexandrian involvement introduced a new element to the ongoing conflict among Egypt’s Jews and native Egyptians. The Alexandrian citizens consciously cut back privileges the Jews previously enjoyed under the Ptolemies and sought to block the Jews from advancing within the Roman system. Soon the Jews were confronted with rhetoric slandering their civility and culture. Faced with a choice, many Jews forsook Judaism and their traditions for more upwardly mobile life. After the outbreak of the First Jewish War Jewish life took a turn for the worse. Many Jews found themselves in a system that classified them according to their heritage and ancestry, limiting advancement even for apostates. With the resulting Jewish tax (fiscus Judaicus) Jews were becoming more economically and socially marginalized. The Alexandrian Jews were …
Date: May 2016
Creator: Vargas, Miguel M.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Theological Higher Education in Liberia: a Case Study of the Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary (open access)

Theological Higher Education in Liberia: a Case Study of the Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary

The Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary (LBTS), opened on March 4, 1976, exists to train men and women for Christian ministry. It offers four-year degree programs leading to bachelor of arts in theology, bachelor of arts in religious education, and bachelor of divinity. Three major periods characterized its growth and development. the first, from 1976 to 1989, was a period of growth and prosperity. the second, from 1990-2003, was a time of immense challenge for the seminary because of the Liberian Civil War. the final period, from 2003 to the present, shows the seminary attempting to re-position itself for the future as a premier Christian higher education institution in Liberia. One of the challenges remaining, however, is the lack of historical documentation on factors impacting the growth of the seminary. This historical case study research sought to provide a comprehensive overview of the LBTS within the context of theological higher education in Liberia and the Liberian Civil War. the four major purposes guiding this research were: 1. Historical—to document and evaluate the rise, survival, developments and achievements of LBTS; 2. Institutional—to gain insight into how the seminary operates; 3. to document the effects of the 13-year civil war on the seminary; …
Date: May 2012
Creator: Manyango, Wilfred M.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Great Hanging (open access)

The Great Hanging

"The Great Hanging" is a documentary film that tells the story of the largest extra-legal mass hanging in U.S. History. This story is told through stage play recital of "October Mourning" written by historian and professor Dr. Pat Ledbetter. Using the stage play as a vehicle, the film showcases cinematic re-enactments based in the events in Gainesville, Texas during October 1862. These events show how a small community became overwhelmed by the fog of war and delved into madness as the Civil War crept closer and closer to their doorstep.
Date: May 2016
Creator: Martin, Johnathan Paul
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Present Conditions in Germany as an Effect of the Treaty of Versailles (open access)

The Present Conditions in Germany as an Effect of the Treaty of Versailles

This is a study of the causes of the rise of the Third Reich, and its attitude toward the Treaty of Versailles.
Date: May 1939
Creator: Schmidt, Jess Edwin
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
May 1856: Southern Reaction to Conflict in Kansas and Congress (open access)

May 1856: Southern Reaction to Conflict in Kansas and Congress

This thesis examines southern reactions to events that occurred in May 1856: the outbreak of civil war in Kansas and the caning of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. I researched two newspapers from the upper South state of Virginia, the Richmond Enquirer and the Richmond Daily Whig, and two newspapers from the lower South state of Louisiana, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the New Orleans Bee to determine the extent to which political party sentiment and/or geographic location affected southern opinion towards the two events. Political party ties influenced the material each newspaper printed. Each newspaper worried that these events endangered the Union. Some, however, believed the Union could be saved while others argued that it was only a matter of time before the South seceded.
Date: May 2007
Creator: Fossett, Victoria Lea
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library