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.

Castilian law developed during the Reconquest of Spain. Women received certain legal rights to persuade them to move to the villages on the expanding frontier. These legal rights were codified in Las Siete Partidas, the monumental work of Castilian law, compiled in the thirteenth century. Under Queen Isabella, Castilian law became the law of all Spain. As Spain discovered, explored, and colonized the New World, Castilian law spread. The Recopilacidn de Los Leyes de Las Indias complied the laws for all the colonies. Texas, as the last area in North America settled by Spain, retained Castilian law. Case law from the Bexar Archives proves this for the Villa of San Fernando(present-day San Antonio). Castilian laws and customs persisted even on the Texas frontier.

This thesis explores the activities of the U.S. Marine defense battalions from October 1939 to December 1942. More specifically, it explains why Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC) decided to continue the defense battalions as separate entities when, by mid-1943, it needed additional men to replace its combat losses and to create new divisions. In this process HQMC disbanded other special units, such as the raider battalions, parachute battalions, barrage balloon squadrons, and the glider squadrons. It retained, however, the defense battalions because of their versatility and utility as demonstrated during the various operations they conducted in Iceland and the Central and South Pacific. In these locations defense battalions performed as: (a) island garrisons, (b) antiaircraft artillery units, and (c) landing forces. Their success in carrying out these missions led to their retention as separate entities throughout World War II.

The effect of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the southern planter elite remains a topic of interest to historians. Did the war ruin the planter class? Or, did they maintain economic, geographic, or social persistence? This study focuses on the persistence from 1850 to 1880 of five East Texas large planter families who owned one hundred or more slaves in 1860. An analysis of data primarily from county, state, and federal records formthe basis of this study. Four families persisted as wealthy influential members of their postbellum communities. One family remained geographically persistent but not wealthy. The experiences of these families suggest that large East Texas planter families found it possible to persist in spite of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The 1944 German Ardennes offensive failed. It was overly ambitious, built on erroneous assumptions, insufficiently supported by logistics, and depended on the weather for success. Yet, the offensive achieved more than it should have given the strength and combat experience of the Allied armies in Europe. Previous attempts to explain the limited success of the German offensive have emphasized the failure of Allied strategic intelligence - Ultra. Intelligence is an accurate, but incomplete explanation for initial German success in the Ardennes. Three conditions allowed the Wehrmacht, approaching its manpower and logistical end, to crush the US First Army. First, coalition warfare so weakened the First Army that it became vulnerable to attack. Second, the Allies failed to develop a unified intelligence network capable of assessing the information that indicated the timing and target of the German attack. Finally, a well-executed German security and deception plan surprised the Allies. The well-executed German offensive manipulated both Allied intelligence and the Anglo-American coalition.

Bonnie Singleton, wife of United States Air Force helicopter rescue pilot Jerry Singleton, saw her world turned upside down when her husband was shot down while making a rescue in North Vietnam in 1965. At first, the United States government advised her to say very little publicly concerning her husband, and she complied. After the capture of the American spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea, and the apparent success in freeing the naval prisoners when Mrs. Rose Bucher, the ship captain's wife, spoke out, Mrs. Singleton changed her opinion and embarked upon a campaign to raise public awareness about American prisoners of war held by the Communist forces in Southeast Asia. Mrs. Singleton, along with other Dallas-area family members, formed local grass-roots organizations to notify people around the world about the plight of American POWs. They enlisted the aid of influential congressmen, such as Olin "Tiger" Teague of College Station, Texas; President Richard M. Nixon and his administration; millionaire Dallas businessman Ross Perot; WFAA television in Dallas; and other news media outlets worldwide. In time, Bonnie Singleton, other family members, and the focus groups they helped start encouraged North Vietnam to release the names of prisoners, allow mail …

This thesis focuses upon the impact of war upon the progressive movement in Texas during 1914-1918. Chapter I defines progressivism in Texas and presents an overview of the political situation in the state as relating to the period. Chapter II discusses the negative impact that the first two years of World War I had upon the reform movement. Chapter III examines the revival of the Anti-Saloon League and the 1916 Democratic state convention. Chapter IV covers the war between James E. Ferguson and the University of Texas. Chapter V tells how the European war became a catalyst for the reform movement in Texas following America's entry, and its subsequent influence upon the election of 1918. Chapter VI concludes that James E. Ferguson's war with the University of Texas as well as World War I were responsible for the prohibitionist victory in the election of 1918.

This dissertation describes the various military outposts on the Texas frontier between 1866 and 1886. It is arranged geographically, with each chapter covering a major fort or geographical area and the smaller posts associated with it. Official military records and government reports serve as the primary sources of data. In 1866 when the United States Army returned to the defense of Texas after four years of civil war, the state's frontier lay open to depredations from several Indian tribes and from lawless elements in Mexico. The army responded to those attacks by establishing several lines of major forts to protect the various danger areas of the frontier. To extend its control and protection to remote, vulnerable, or strategically important points within its jurisdiction, each major fort established outposts. Two main categories of outposts existed in Texas, subposts and picket stations. Subposts served as permanent scouting camps or guarded strategic points or lines of communication. Picket stations protected outlying locations, such as stage stations, that were particularly vulnerable to attack. Because Indians raiding in Texas usually operated in fairly small groups, garrisons at outposts were similarly small. Company-sized detachments generally garrisoned subposts, and picket stations seldom held more than a dozen …

This study focuses on modern-day attempts to preserve the site where Union volunteers from Colorado defeated a Confederate army from Texas at the 1862 Battle of Glorieta Pass to curtail Confederate expansion westward. When construction workers in 1987 accidently uncovered remains of the war dead, a second battle of Glorieta Pass ensued. Texas and New Mexico officials quarreled over jurisdiction of the war casualties. Eventually Congress authorized the National Park Service to expand the Pecos National Park through purchase and donation of land to include the battlesite. Sources include local records, newspapers, federal and state documents, and interviews with preservation participants.

Jane Maria Eliza McManus, born near Troy, New York, educated at Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary, promoted the American maritime frontier and wrote on Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean affairs. Called a "terror with her pen," under the pen name of Cora Montgomery, she published 100 columns in 6 newspapers, 20 journal articles and book reviews, 15 books and pamphlets, and edited 5 newspapers and journals between 1839 and 1878.

This study concentrates on the social status of women in one southern town during the late nineteenth century and the Progressive Era.

This study examines the social and economic characteristics of the men who joined the Confederate Fourteenth Texas Infantry Regiment during the Civil War and provides a narrative history of the regiment's wartime service. The men of the Fourteenth Infantry enlisted in 1862 and helped to turn back the Federal Red River Campaign in April 1864. In creating a portrait of these men, the author used traditional historical sources (letters, diaries, medical records, secondary narratives) as well as statistical data from the 1860 United States census, military service records, and state tax rolls. The thesis places the heretofore unknown story of the Fourteenth Texas Infantry within the overall body of Civil War historiography.

The Mexican Revolution probably affected Texas more than any other state. As the Revolution intensified, Texans responded with increased efforts to shape the Mexican policies of the Woodrow Wilson administration. Some became directly involved in the Revolution and the U.S. reaction to it, but most Texans sought to influence American policy toward Mexico through pressure on their political leaders in Austin and Washington. Based primarily on research in the private and public papers of leading state and national political figures, archival sources such as the Congressional Record and the Department of State's decimal file, major newspapers of the era, and respected works, this study details the successes and failures that Texans experienced in their endeavors to influence Wilson's Mexican policies.

The American Revolution was a war of movement over great distances. Timely intelligence regarding the strength and location of the enemy was vital to the commanders on both sides. Washington gained his early experience in intelligence gathering in the wilderness during the French and Indian War. By the end of the American Revolution, Washington had become a skilled manager of intelligence. He sent agents behind enemy lines, recruited tory intelligence sources, questioned travelers for information, and initiated numerous espionage missions. Many heroic patriots gathered the intelligence that helped win the War for Independence. Their duties required many of them to pose as one of the enemy, and often incur the hatred of friends and neighbors. Some gave their lives in helping to establish the new American nation. It is possible that without Washington's intelligence service, American independence might not have been won.

This thesis combines a traditional narrative history of a Confederate artillery battery with a socio-economic study of its members. A database was constructed using the Compiled Service Records, 1860 census, and county tax rolls. The information revealed similarities between the unit's members and their home area. Captain James M. Daniel organized the battery in Paris, Texas and it entered Confederate service in January 1862. The battery served in Walker's Texas Division. It was part of a reserve force at the Battle of Milliken's Bend and was involved in the battles of Bayou Bourbeau, Mansfield, and Pleasant Hill. The battery also shelled Union ships on the Mississippi River. Daniel's Battery officially surrendered at Natchitoches, Louisiana, in May 1865.

The relationship between Texas Baptists and slavery is studied with an emphasis on the official statements made about the institution in denominational sources combined with a statistical analysis of the extent of slaveholding among Baptists. A data list of over 5,000 names was pared to 1100 names of Baptists in Texas prior to 1865 and then cross-referenced on slaveownership through the use of federal censuses and county tax rolls. Although Texas Baptists participated economically in the slave system, they always maintained that blacks were children of God worthy of religious instruction and salvation. The result of these disparate views was a paradox between treating slaves as chattels while welcoming them into mixed congregations and allowing them some measure of activity within those bodies. Attitudes expressed by white Baptists during the antebellum period were continued into the post-war years as well. Meanwhile, African-American Baptists gradually withdrew from white dominated congregations, forming their own local, regional, and state organizations. In the end, whites had no choice but to accept the new-found status of the Freedmen, cooperating with black institutions on occasion. Major sources for this study include church, associational, and state Baptist minutes; county and denominational histories; and government documents. The four …

During the Korean War, US-Japan relations changed dramatically from the occupation status into one of a security partnership in Asia. When North Korea invaded South Korea, Washington perceived Japan as the ultimate target. Washington immediately intervened in the Korean peninsula to protect the South on behalf of Japanese security. Japanese security was the most important objective of American policy regarding the Korean War, a reality to which historians have not given legitimate attention. While fighting in Korea, Washington decided to conclude an early peace treaty with Japan to initiate Japanese rearmament. The issue of Japanese rearmament was a focal point in the Japanese peace negotiation. Washington pressed Japan to rearm rapidly, but Tokyo stubbornly opposed. Under pressure from Washington, the Japanese government established the National Police Reserve and had to expand its military forces during the war. When the Korean War ceased in July 1953, Japanese armed forces numbered about 180,000 men. The Korean War also brought a fundamental change to Japanese economic and diplomatic relations in Asia. With a trade embargo on China following the unexpected Chinese intervention in Korea, Washington wanted to forbid Sino-Japanese trade completely. In addition, Washington pressed Tokyo to recognize the Nationalist regime in Taiwan …

John Hancock was a Texas Unionist. After the Civil War, he became an opponent of the Radical Republicans. He was elected to Congress in 1871 and had some success working on issues important to Texas. As the state was redeemed from Radical Republican rule, Hancock was increasingly attacked for his Unionism. This led to a tough fight for renomination in 1874, and losses in races for the U.S. Senate and renomination in 1876. He was an unsuccessful congressional candidate in 1878, but was elected again in 1882. By then his political influence had waned and he did not seek renomination in 1884. Hancock had the potential to be a major political leader, but lingering resentment to his Unionism hampered his political career.

This study describes the development of the black business and professional community with emphasis on the period from 1920 to 1930, the riot itself, and the impact of the episode on the local black community. It utilizes traditional historical research methods, county records, contemporary newspapers, and oral history.

This thesis examines the letters, proclamations, and addresses of the four presidents of the Republic of Texas, David G. Burnet, Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and Anson Jones, to determine how these men faced the major crises of Texas and shaped policy regarding land, relations with Native Americans, finances, internal improvements, annexation by the United States, and foreign relations. Research materials include manuscript and published speeches and letters, diaries, and secondary materials.

World War II was a watershed in American history, altering Americans' perceptions of their place in society. This study focused on Bowie County, Texas, during the twenty-five-year period that began with America's entry into the war. The construction of two defense plants there, Red River Army Depot and Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant, brought immediate changes to surrounding communities, and local residents faced many challenges as they struggled to adjust. This study used extensive primary sources, including archival materials from Red River and Lone Star, oral histories from former employees, census information, minutes from the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce, and local newspapers, to document the social and economic impact of these plants on Bowie County. The body of this dissertation contains nine chapters. Chapters two and three describe how Bowie County obtained and constructed its defense plants, and chapters four through six focus on changes precipitated by the plants during the war years. Chapters seven through nine explore the social and economic impact of the defense presence on Bowie County through 1965. The impact of the defense industries on Bowie County was significant. Plant construction brought thousands of workers into the county, and local residents faced housing, transportation, and sanitation …

This study examined the status of women in Texas from 1860 to 1920. Age, family structure and composition, occupation, educational level, places of birth, wealth, and geographical persistence are used as the measurements of status. For purposes of analysis, women are grouped according to whether they were married, widowed, divorced, or single.

Beginning in 1954, the United States Army attempted to build a viable armed force in South Vietnam. Until the early 1960s, other areas commanded more American attention, yet this formative period was influential in later United States involvement in Vietnam. This thesis examines United States advisory efforts from 1955 to 1960 by analyzing the tenure of Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams as Chief of the Military Assistance Advisory Group in South Vietnam. During Williams's tenure, the communist forces in the north began the guerrilla insurgency in earnest. Williams's failure to respond to this change has been justly criticized; yet his actions were reflective of the United States Army's attitude toward insurgencies in the late 1950s.

This thesis concentrates on a local union of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), District Lodge 776, of Fort Worth, Texas, during the war years. The main argument of the thesis runs along three basic lines. First, it demonstrates that the experiences of the Fort Worth Machinists clearly fit into the national labor movement during the war years. Second, it argues that the existence, survival, and strength of the union depended greatly on outside forcesan expanding national economy, a powerful national union, and a generally labor-friendly government. Third, it shows that union officers and rank-and-file members used their bases of strengththe national economy, the national IAM, and the federal governmentto build an effective local labor organization.