When the Civil War began the basic structure of the infantry was as follows: I. 3 to 5 regiments formed a Brigade A. Commanded by a Brigade General II. 2 to 5 brigades made a division A. Commanded by a Major General III. 2 or more divisions made a Corps A. Commanded by a Lt. … Continue reading Class Notes
Author: James Finck
Dr. James W. Finck was raised in the shadows of history in the great state of Virginia. Growing up it was difficult to travel too far without running into a monument or battlefield from the Revolutionary or Civil War. In this environment, Finck developed a love for studying the past and from his youth knew that he wanted to make it his life’s work. Finck received a B.A. from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He then studied under James I. Robertson and William C. Davis at Virginia Tech, while earning a Master’s degree. Finally, he received his Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas, under the direction of Daniel Sutherland. For five years, Finck taught at the University of Texas-Pan American before accepting his current position as American Historian at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma in 2011. At a small liberal arts institution, Finck considers himself a generalist in history, but his specialties are the Civil War and American Politics. Finck has established himself in Oklahoma with the creation of the Oklahoma Civil War Symposium, which has brought in leading Civil War scholars for the past eight years, and he has spoken at many venues around Oklahoma, especially working with the Honey Spring Battlefield. Finck is the author of Divided Loyalties: Kentucky’s Struggle for Armed Neutrality in the Civil War, as well as Images of America: Chickasha. Finck is also the author of the syndicated newspaper column “Historically Speaking.”
Class Notes
As the nation moved into the 1880s it began to shift its Indian policy. In an effort to reform its years of mistreatment of natives, the new Progressive movements decided that instead of separating Indians it should help them by trying to make them more like themselves. The new idea was to education native children … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
There are many reasons why the South lost the Civil War, but none more than population. The north had 22 million people while the south had only 5 ½ million. The south mobilized 70% of their manpower. The south also lost about half that population to death and permanent injury. By the end of the … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
Before the 1850s the United States was divided in half with the western half set aside for Native Americans. However, around the mid-1850s Americans began to move west into these lands causing conflict. To settle the conflicts the government decided it was best to isolate Natives on to their own land where they would be … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
We tend to follow the myth that surrounds the cowboy as a loner and western ranchers as rugged individuals. While there is certainly some truth to that, the cow drives of legend were actually started by eastern entrepreneurs who saw a simple problem of supply and demand, terms we don’t tend to associate with cow … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
In 1858 the upstart Abraham Lincoln ran against incumbent Stephen Douglas for senator of Illinois. Both were champion orators and the two held a series of debates across the nation. The most important debate was held in Freeport, IL. At Freeport, Lincoln asked Douglas how he could support the idea of popular sovereignty (the idea … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
One law that helped build the west was the Homestead Act. In order to build towns, they needed population and money and the Homestead Act did both. It brought in new people and those people had to pay property taxes. Homestead basically gave anyone 160 acres of land. You were expected to develop the land, … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
One area in which the 19th Century was superior to us was in compromises. Whereas today compromise means do what I want, in the 19th Century, especially with Henry Clay there were gains for both sides. A good example of this was the 1850 Compromise. When California had the population required for statehood it opened … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
In the years after the Civil War, towns and cities in the great plains had to convince settlers to move in. They needed the sale of land to fund the current towns. One way to convince settlement was to create cleaver ads that would convince people of the fertility of these areas. In the Oklahoma … Continue reading Class Notes
Class Notes
With the growth of abolitionism, southern slave holders found the need to protect slavery more than they ever had before. They used history, religion, and biology to make a defense of slavery, but their most important weapon was paternalism. The idea of paternalism was that slaves were basically children. Just as plantation masters had to … Continue reading Class Notes
