American History Notes

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A Selection of Articles
from Various American History Journals

This section of my site collects a few articles that either captured my fancy, or, sometimes, were referred to elsewhere onsite — so that it finally seemed a bit unfair not to provide the text of them onsite as well. I'll be adding to the collection from time to time.

At the time I input these articles, some of them were not online anywhere; others were available in partial, garbled, or otherwise inferior versions, or only as raw scans; many were online, yet not available to the general public, but only to authorized staff and students at participating universities.

You may be coming here from my site on American Catholic History; articles more particularly relevant to that field are marked on this page with a ✠.

Copyright

All journal articles onsite are in the public domain, of course.

In the case of articles originally published in the United States, the copyright of those of 1922 and earlier has lapsed; of those from 1923 to 1963 inclusive, they are in the public domain if the publisher failed to renew, which I have verified in each instance. (Details here on the copyright law involved.)

The copyright status of articles originally published outside the United States follows different rules; generally, those published after 1922 entered the public domain 70 years after the death of their authors. I've checked the dates in each case, and where that information governs the copyright status of the article, you will find it in the public domain notice in the page's header bar.

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

Frederick J. Turner: Geographic Sectionalism in American History

16:85‑93
Jun. 1926

Academy of American Franciscan History: The Americas

Walter N. Breymann: Review of the 1962 reissue of Spain in America, 1450‑1580 by E. G. Bourne

19:333‑334
Jan. 1963

American Historical Review

Frederick J. Turner: The Origin of Genet's Projected Attack on Louisiana and the Floridas The notorious French ambassador to the United States in 1793 was not a loose cannon acting on his own account, but working on the express instructions of his government.	3:650‑671 Jul. 1898
Carl Evans Boyd: The County of Illinois Qui trop embrasse, mal étreint: Virginia, having conquered what there was to conquer in the Northwest, sets up a government, but there are just too few people to make it work — Frenchmen, at that, who are sheep rather than citizens — and Virginia gives up.	4:623‑635 Jul. 1899
Walter L. Fleming: The Buford Expedition to Kansas In 1855‑1856, Major Jefferson Buford of Alabama financed and organized a group of emigrants to Kansas to bolster the pro-slavery vote when time came for Kansas to achieve statehood.	6:38‑48 Oct. 1900
W. H. Isely: The Sharps Rifle Episode in Kansas History The Boston-based "New England Emigrants Aid Company" was in fact running weapons and ammunition into Kansas; the author of the paper views this as a good, even laudable thing.	12:546‑566 Jul. 1907
Herbert Bolton: The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish-American Colonies ✠ An overall view of how the Spanish Catholic missions functioned in America, from a practical, political, and organizational standpoint.	23:42‑61 Oct. 1917
Oliver L. Spaulding, Jr.: The Military Studies of George Washington George Washington is often said to have had no military training. This article, by a top U. S. Army historical researcher, details Gen. Washington's technical reading.	29:675‑680 July 1924

American Medicine

Charles E. Woodruff: The Nervous Exhaustion due to West Point Training

A graduate of the Naval Academy, the writer has given us a very peculiar and anecdotal approach to the rigors of cadet life at West Point and their consequences. Rambling, unsubstantiated, it contains a few good points amid the rest.

1:12:558‑562
June 22, 1901

The Catholic Historical Review

Camillus Maes: Flemish Franciscan Missionaries in North America ✠ The first of what was to be a series of biographical sketches of missionary priests. Fr. Hennepin, usually thought of as French, was in fact Flemish.	1:13‑16 Apr. 1915
Rt. Rev. Camillus P. Maes, D. D. ✠ Biographical sketch (obituary).	1:125‑127 Jul. 1915
H. C. Schuyler: The Apostle of the Abnakis: Father Sebastian Rale, S. J. (1657‑1724) ✠ Biographical sketch of a French priest and pioneer evangelist of what is now Maine, killed by the British.	1:164‑174 Jul. 1915
Victor F. O'Daniel: Archbishop John Hughes, American Envoy to France (1861) ✠ The Catholic prelate was sent to Europe by Secretary of State William Seward to investigate and promote European support for the Union in its war against the Confederacy.	3:336‑339 Oct. 1917
Gabriel Oussani: The Earliest Known Mesopotamian Traveller in America ✠ A Chaldean priest from Mosul (now in Iraq) roams the Americas in the 17c; a summary, alas.	3:446‑447 Jan. 1918
Victor F. O'Daniel: Fathers Badin and Nerinckx and the Dominicans in Kentucky ✠ A sharp rebuttal by a Dominican Father to the view of the pioneer Dominicans in Kentucky presented in Maes's biography of Fr. Charles Nerinckx. The supporting documents (annotated by the same author) are presented on a separate webpage: Some Letters of Fathers Badin and Nerinckx to Bishop Carroll	6:15‑45 and 6:66‑88 Apr. 1920
Pere Antoine, Supreme Officer of the Holy Inquisition of Cartagena, in Louisiana ✠ Fr. Antonio de Sedella's blackmail of Governor Miró.	8:59‑63 Apr. 1922
Raphael N. Hamilton: The Significance of the Frontier to the Historian of the Catholic Church in the United States ✠ A stiff response to Turner's theory of the frontier: the frontier was largely pre-civilized and formed by the conscious organized efforts of the Catholic church, and the Anglo-Saxon pioneers often came well afterwards.	25:160‑178 Jul. 1939

Hispanic American Historical Review

Herbert E. Bolton: James Wilkinson as Advisor to Emperor Iturbide Two documents found by Bolton in the Mexican State Archives, transcribed. (In Spanish)	1:163‑180 May 1918
Osgood Hardy: The Itata Incident In the Chilean revolution of 1891, one side tried to buy weapons in the United States. They got them on a ship, and actually got them to Chile — but were made to return them. Blow-by-blow account of the chase by U. S. authorities, which nearly embroiled the two countries in a war.	5:195‑226 May 1922
J. Lloyd Mecham: The Papacy and Spanish-American Independence In the 1820's, the Spanish American republics were transitioning to independence, posing problems of political recognition and the national patronage of ecclesiastical appointments. This paper describes the careful process by which the Vatican, the South American countries and Spain adjusted to the new reality until formal diplomatic recognition.	5:154‑175 May 1929
A. P. Whitaker: Antonio de Ulloa A detailed biographical sketch, focusing not on Ulloa's well-covered governorship of Louisiana, but on his South American experiences and his publications.	15:155‑194 May 1935

Journal of the American Military History Foundation

Thomas D. Roberts: Resaca de la Palma

A one-stop retelling, with map, of the Mexican War battle.

1:101‑107
Autumn 1937

Journal of Higher Education

Leroy T. Patton: Military Education in the United States

The author's careful critique of the academic environment at West Point leads him to a proposal to improve military education on the lines of medical education: pre-military general education to be given in civilian colleges, and USMA to serve as a specialized higher-level military university.

8:425‑434
1937

Journal of Negro History

Walter L. Fleming: The Defeat of the Secessionists in Kentucky in 1861 Secessionism was stronger than Union sentiment at the outbreak of the Civil War; but thru a policy of neutrality Kentucky bought time in which eventually to consolidate its pro-Union position.	1:377‑391 Oct. 1916
Notes on Connecticut as a Slave State Peaking in the late 18c, slavery in Connecticut is abolished in 1848.	2:79‑82 Jan. 1917

Journal of Southern History

Journal of the First Kentucky Convention (edited by Thomas P. Abernethy) The very first time men from Kentucky met to ponder whether they might become a state separate from Virginia: the manuscript journal of their Convention.	1:67‑78 Feb. 1935
George Fort Milton: Stephen A. Douglas' Efforts For Peace Douglas was a moderate, who worked very hard to preserve the Union with peace; the Civil War was largely brought about by Buchanan and Lincoln.	1:261‑275 Aug. 1935

Louisiana Historical Quarterly

See separate index page:

20 articles, about 300 printed pages.

Louisiana History

Edwin C. Bearss: The Seizure of the Forts and Public Property in Louisiana

A straightforward narrative of the forcible transfer of property from Federal to State hands in January 1861.

2:401‑409
Autumn 1961

Mississippi Valley Historical Review

A Ku Klux Document (presented by Walter L. Fleming) A brief official document of a local Louisiana KKK group in the 1870's: the ceremony for swearing in a new member.	1:575‑578 Mar. 1915
Work on the Cumberland Road (edited by Earl G. Swem) Brief, but the very first record of the building of that important artery.	2:120‑122 Jun. 1915
E. Merton Coulter: The Efforts of the Democratic Societies of the West to open the Navigation of the Mississippi In 1793‑1795, frontier Americans, mostly Kentuckians, organize grass-roots lobbying groups to get what they want, whether by pressuring the federal government or otherwise.	11:376‑389 Dec. 1924
[Review:] Two 1924 biographies of Woodrow Wilson: David Lawrence, The True Story of Woodrow Wilson Josephus Daniels, The Life of Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924	11:414‑419 Dec. 1924
Verner W. Crane: Projects for Colonization in the South, 1684‑1732 Although they didn't come to anything directly, there were a few British schemes for colonizing what would soon become Georgia under Oglethorpe.	12:23‑35 Jun. 1925
[Review:] A pair of books by Dwight Lowell Dumond: Southern Editorials on Secession The Secession Movement	19:430‑432 Dec. 1932

New Englander [and Yale Review]

Robert P. Keep: The System of Instruction at West Point: Can It Be Employed in Our Colleges?

A careful description of the method of instruction practiced at the U. S. Military Academy, with an assessment and suggestions as to its possible extension to civilian colleges.

28:106:1‑18
Jan. 1869

Political Science Quarterly

William R. Shepherd: Review of Spain in America, 1450‑1580 by E. G. Bourne, and The South American Republics by T. C. Dawson

20:329‑333
Jun. 1905

Tennessee Historical Quarterly

See separate index page:

8 items, about 230 printed pages.

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

William Dunbar and Thomas Jefferson: Description of a singular Phenomenon seen at Baton Rouge

A large unidentified flying object.

6:25
1802

William & Mary Quarterly

Ralph M. Brown: A Sketch of the Early History of Southwestern Virginia

Misleadingly titled, the paper details some of the most important explorations and events in the westward expansion from Virginia in the 17‑18c. Maps.

2d ser. 17:501‑513
Oct. 1937

Technical Details About This Site

Printed Sources

I am transcribing my selection from original exemplars of the journals, and only of course those now in the public domain (see above). Unless otherwise stated, any illustrations are those accompanying the original article in the journal.

Proofreading

As almost always, I retype texts by hand rather than scanning them — not only to minimize errors prior to proofreading, but as an opportunity for me to become intimately familiar with them, an exercise which I heartily recommend: Qui scribit, bis legit. (Well-meaning attempts to get me to scan text, if successful, would merely turn me into some kind of machine: gambit declined.)

These transcriptions have been minutely proofread. In the table of contents above, the articles are shown on blue backgrounds, indicating that I believe the text of them to be completely errorfree; red backgrounds would indicate they had not been proofread. As elsewhere on this site, the header bar at the top of each chapter's webpage will remind you with the same color scheme.

Very occasionally the proofreaders of the original articles nodded off, and I've therefore had the opportunity to make a few corrections, marking the correction each time with a bullet like this:º as elsewhere on my site, glide your cursor over the bullet to read the variant.

Most of these typos were of a minor and obvious kind; but I've marked them nonetheless, as a reminder that there must surely be quite a few other errors that I could not catch: numbers, proper nouns.

Where an error is manifest, but for some reason I couldn't fix it, or where it is uncertain whether it is poor proofreading of the translated text or it might just have been made in the original documents (which I usually have not seen), or again where there might otherwise be some latitude, I marked it º. Inconsistencies in punctuation have been corrected to the text's usual style, in slightly brighter blue — barely noticeable on the page, but it shows up in the sourcecode as <FONT CLASS="emend">. Finally, a number of odd spellings, curious turns of phrase, etc. have been marked <!‑‑ sic ‑‑> in the sourcecode, just to confirm that they were checked.

Any other mistakes, please drop me a line, of course: especially if you have a copy of the printed book in front of you.

Pagination and Local Links

For citation and indexing purposes, the pagination is shown in the right margin of the text at the page turns (like at the end of this linep57); these are also local links. Sticklers for total accuracy will of course find the anchor at its exact place in the sourcecode.

In addition, I've inserted a number of other local links: whatever links are required to accommodate the author's own cross-references, as well as a few others for my own purposes. If in turn you have a website and would like to target a link to some specific passage of the text, please let me know: I'll be glad to insert a local link there as well.

The icon I use to indicate this subsite is a detail of the papers on the desk in the John Trumbull painting, Signing of the Declaration of Independence, in the rotunda of the U. S. Capitol in Washington.

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