Thomas lawrence connelly biography sample

Thomas Lawrence Connelly February 14, — January 18, was an American historian and author who specialized in the Civil War era. As a boy, he visited the Nashville Civil War battlefield. Growing up in the Nashville area gave him a love of country music and spurred his desire to write more about the war in Tennessee. Connelly became one of the most prominent scholars of the war in the western theater in a scholarly field dominated by books about Virginia and its military leaders.

Part of his mission to highlight the war in the West was personal. He was frustrated by the fact that his own family's Civil War history was shrouded in rumor and legend. Connelly attended Rice University , where he obtained his master's degree and Ph. He graduated in His dissertation, done under the supervision of Frank E. Complete with illustrations by Campbell Grant, the book offered a humorous take on Civil War culture and Confederate heritage groups.

According to Emory Thomas, publication of the book around the time of the JFK assassination was unfortunate: the book's ironic tone found a small audience in a country grieving over a fallen president. The book is now a collector's item.

Thomas Connelly writes a seminal work

While teaching in Columbia, he published several books, including The Marble Man , Autumn of Glory , which was the second in his two-volume history of the Army of Tennessee, and a book on activist and preacher Will Campbell. In addition to his teaching duties, he wrote weekly columns for a Columbia newspaper. Hall and Bob McDill and wrote country songs himself.