In 1824 a young Virginia aristocrat named Richard Thompson Archer migrated to Mississippi. Joining in the boom years of expansion in the Magnolia State in the 1830s, Archer built a vast cotton empire. He and his wife, Ann Barnes, raised a large family at Anchuca, their home plantation in Claiborne County, Mississippi. From there Richard Archer ruled a domain that included more than 500 slaves and 13,000 acres of land. On the eve of the Civil War he was one of the wealthiest men in the South. This work examines the life of Richard Archer from his origins in Amelia County, Virginia, to his death in Mississippi in 1867. It takes as its thesis the theme of Archer's life: his burdens as proprietor of a vast cotton empire and as father figure and provider for a large extended family. This theme weaves together the strands of Archer's life, including his rise to the position of great planter, his duties as husband and father, and his political beliefs and activities. Archer's story is told against the background of the history of Mississippi and of the South, from their antebellum heyday, through the Civil War, and into the early years of Reconstruction. …

This thesis is the about the life of Rudder. The emphasis of this work, however, is that Rudder was successful primarily because of his character and leadership style. Much of the study was drawn from primary sources. Secondary sources were also consulted. This thesis opens with a brief Introduction, which discusses the need for this work. Chapter 1 discusses Rudder's life prior to WW II, emphasizing particular characteristics that benefited his leadership ability. Chapter 2 examines the 2nd Ranger Battalion's transformation under Rudder's leadership and guidance. Chapter 3 chronicles the 2nd Ranger Battalion's assault on the Pointe du Hoc battery, ending in December 1944, when Col. Rudder was reassigned to the 109th Infantry Regiment. Moreover, the controversy surrounding the Ranger's mission is also examined in this chapter. Chapter 4 describes Col. Rudder's leadership with the 109th in the Battle of the Bulge. A chapter accounting Rudder's political career and leadership follows. Chapter 6 examines his term as chancellor and president of the Texas A&M University system, until his death in 1970, and the major institutional changes that he enacted during his tenure, which resulted in A&M becoming the respected research university it is today. This significance and recapitulation of Rudder's …

The debate over the display of the Confederate battle flag in public places throughout the South focus on the flag's display by state governments such South Carolina and Mississippi. The state of Texas is rarely placed in this debate, and neither has the debate adequately explore the role of high schools' use of Confederate symbols. Schools represent the community and serve as a symbol of its values. A school represented by Confederate symbols can communicate a message of intolerance to a rival community or opposing school during sports contests. Within the community, conflict arose when an opposition group to the symbols formed and asked for the symbols' removal in favor of symbols that were seen more acceptable by outside observers. Many times, an outside party needed to step in to resolve the conflict. In Texas, the conflict between those in favor and those oppose centered on the Confederate battle flag, and the memory each side associated with the flag. Anglos saw the flag as their school spirit. African Americans saw hatred.

From the earliest civilizations, victorious armies would loot defeated cities or nations. the practice evolved into art theft as a symbol of power. Cultural superiority confirmed a country or empire’s regime. Throughout history, the Greeks and Romans cultivated, Napoleon Bonaparte refined, and Adolf Hitler perfected the practice of plunder. As the tides of Second World War began to shift in favor of the Allied Powers, special commissions, established to locate the Germans’ hoards of treasure, discovered Nazi art repositories filled with art objects looted from throughout Europe. the Soviet Union Trophy Commission and the Western Allies Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Commission competed to discover Nazi war loot. the two organizations not only approached the subject of plunder as a treasure hunt, but the ideology motivating both commissions made uncovering the depositories first, a priority. the Soviet trophy brigades’ mission was to dismantle all items of financial worth and ship them eastward to help rebuild a devastated Soviet economy. the Soviet Union wished for the re-compensation of cultural valuables destroyed by the Nazis’ purification practices regarding “inferior” Slavic art and architecture; however, the defeated German nation did not have the ability to reimburse the Soviet State. the trophy brigades implemented …

After conquering Belgium and the Rhineland in 1794, the French Army of the Sambre and Meuse faced severe logistical, disciplinary, and morale problems that signaled the erosion of its capabilities. The army’s degeneration resulted from a revolution in French foreign policy designed to conquer the natural frontiers, a policy often falsely portrayed as a diplomatic tradition of the French monarchy. In fact, the natural frontiers policy – expansion to the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the Alps – emerged only after the start of the War of the First Coalition in 1792. Moreover, the pursuit of natural frontiers caused more controversy than previously understood. No less a figure than Lazare Carnot – the Organizer of Victory – viewed French expansion to the Rhine as impractical and likely to perpetuate war. While the war of conquest provided the French state with the resources to survive, it entailed numerous unforeseen consequences. Most notably, the Revolutionary armies became isolated from the nation and displayed more loyalty to their commanders than to the civilian authorities. In 1797, the Sambre and Meuse Army became a political tool of General Lazare Hoche, who sought control over the Rhineland by supporting the creation of a Cisrhenan Republic. Ultimately, …

White women who inhabited the West Indies in the eighteenth century fascinated the metropole. In popular prints, novels, and serial publications, these women appeared to stray from “proper” British societal norms. Inhabiting a space dominated by a tropical climate and the presence of a large enslaved African population opened white women to censure. Almost from the moment of colonial encounter, they were perceived not as proper British women but as an imperial “other,” inhabiting a middle space between the ideal woman and the supposed indigenous “savage.” Furthermore, white women seemed to be lacking the sensibility prized in eighteenth-century England. However, the correspondence that survives from white women in Jamaica reveals the language of sensibility. “Creolized” in this imperial landscape, sensibility extended beyond written words to the material objects exchanged during their tenure on these sugar plantations. Although many women who lived in the Caribbean island of Jamaica might have fit the model, extant writings from Ann Brodbelt, Sarah Dwarris, Margaret and Mary Cowper, Lady Maria Nugent, and Ann Appleton Storrow, show a longing to remain connected with metropolitan society and their loved ones separated by the Atlantic. This sensibility and awareness of metropolitan material culture masked a lack of empathy …

The materials of war, defined as what soldiers carry into battle and off the battlefield, have much to offer as a means of identifying and analyzing the culture of those combatants. The Vietnam War is extremely rich in culture when considered against the changing political and social climate of the United States during the 1960s and 70s. Determining the meaning of the materials carried by Vietnam War soldiers can help identify why a soldier is fighting, what the soldier’s fears are, explain certain actions or inactions in a given situation, or describe the values and moral beliefs that governed that soldier’s conduct. “Carry,” as a word, often refers to something physical that can be seen, touched, smelled, or heard, but there is also the mental material, which does not exist in the physical space, that soldiers collect in their experiences prior to, during, and after battle. War changes the individual soldier, and by analyzing what he or she took (both physical and mental), attempts at self-preservation or defense mechanisms to harden the body and mind from the harsh realities of war are revealed. In the same respect, what the soldiers brought home is also a means of preservation; preserving those …

Between 1960 and 1968 the United States conducted intensive psychological operations (PSYOP) in Vietnam. To date, no comprehensive study of the psychological war there has been conducted. This dissertation fills that void, describing the development of American PSYOP forces and their employment in Vietnam. By looking at the complex interplay of American, North Vietnamese, National Liberation Front (NLF) and South Vietnamese propaganda programs, a deeper understanding of these activities and the larger war emerges. The time period covered is important because it comprises the initial introduction of American PSYOP advisory forces and the transition to active participation in the war. It also allows enough time to determine the long-term effects of both the North Vietnamese/NLF and American/South Vietnamese programs. Ending with the 1968 Tet Offensive is fitting because it marks both a major change in the war and the establishment of the 4th Psychological Operations Group to manage the American PSYOP effort. This dissertation challenges the argument that the Northern/Viet Cong program was much more effective that the opposing one. Contrary to common perceptions, the North Vietnamese propaganda increasingly fell on deaf ears in the south by 1968. This study also provides support for understanding the Tet Offensive as a …

In this thesis I look at the Arkansas Project and more specifically the racial dynamics within the project and the surrounding communities in Arkansas where SNCC engaged to assist the residents fight for their civil rights. In addition, I analyze how the differences in the urban and rural communities were affected by the racial dynamics of the project's leadership. The Arkansas project was led by William Hansen, a white man, which made him and the project unique from not only other SNCC projects, but other civil rights organizations. This distinction made the strategy that had to be implemented with the project staff internally and also externally in the Arkansas communities different because his race had to be taken into consideration for all purposes. Another aspect that came into play in Arkansas was the fact that some of their activities occurred in urban communities and others occurred in rural communities. These difference in communities affected not only how the local blacks received the SNCC volunteers, but also affected how local whites received the SNCC volunteers. Although the fact that the Arkansas Project had a white field director made it unique and the racial dynamics worthy of scholarly investigation, Bill Hansen's racial …

Eagles Overhead provides a critical history of US Air Force Forward Air Controllers and examines their role, status, and performance in the Air Force's history. It begins by examining the US's initial adoption of air power, and American participation in aerial combat during World War I and traces the FACs' contributions to every US Air Force air campaign from the Marne in 1918 to Mosul in 2017. However, since 2001 FACs' contributions have been sporadic. Eagles Overhead asks why, despite the critical importance of FACs, have they not been heavily used on US battlefields since 2001? It examines the Air Force FAC's theoretical, doctrinal, institutional, and historical frameworks in the first nine chapters to assess if the nature of air warfare has changed so significantly that the concept and utility of the FAC has been left behind. Or, has the FAC been neglected since 2001 because the Air Force dislikes the capability as it clouds the service's doctrinal preferences? From these examinations, Eagles Overhead draws conclusions about the potential future of Air Force FACs.