The Jackson Purchase Historical Society will meet on Saturday, May 16 at the Calloway County Public Library at 710 Main Street in Murray, Kentucky. The meeting will begin at 10:30 am. The program for the meeting will feature a presentation by Richard B. Davis on “Feeling the Hot Breath of History: The Influence of Forrest Carlisle Pogue on US Military History.”
Forrest Carlisle Pogue graduated from Murray State and taught history there from 1933 to May 1942, when he was drafted into the army. He was quickly assigned to a historical unit and sent to Europe. He was initially assigned to write the history of the Second US Army and interviewed wounded soldiers and others at Normandy, Bastogne, and other sites close to the front lines. He was then assigned to write the history of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force from 1945 to 1946. He was later assigned by Dwight D. Eisenhower to write the official history of the Supreme Command in Europe. Pogue spent seven years as a military historian, and two conducting operations research at United States Army Garrison Heidelberg with the Operations Research Office at Johns Hopkins University. He returned to teach at Murray State in 1954. In 1956, Pogue was hired by the George C. Marshall Foundation to write the official biography of George C. Marshall, completing four volumes. He was also director of the Marshall Foundation from 1956 until 1974 when he became director of the Eisenhower Institute for Historical Research.
Richard B. Davis is a graduate of Murray State University who completed his PhD in history at Florida State University. He retired from the Kentucky Army National Guard as a Major with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is currently Curator at the General George Patton Museum of Leadership at Fort Knox. He previously served as Curator of the US Army Adjutant General’s Corps Museum at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
In 1958, a group of historians met in Murray, Kentucky led by faculty from Murray State University and University of Tennessee-Martin and formed the Jackson Purchase Historical Society to promote interest, study, and preservation of the regional history of the territory encompassed in the Treaty of Tuscaloosa, known as the Jackson Purchase. The society holds a number of meetings each year with a speaker on Jackson Purchase history and publishes an award-winning journal on local history. Members include a wide range of people who simply share a love of history and a love of the Jackson Purchase area.
The society recently refurbished its website and an array of information about the society and Jackson Purchase history is available there: jacksonpurchasehistoricalsociety.org.
Free electronic access to back issues of the Journal through 2023 is available through the Murray State University Libraries at https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/jphs/ or a link on our webpage.
Articles are welcome for future issues of the JPHS Journal and can be sent to the editor, Bill Mulligan at billmulligan@murray-ky.net. We also welcome inquiries about topics, books for review, or offers to review a book. Copies of the Journal are available from the Jackson Purchase Historical Society, PO Box 531, Murray, KY 42071. The cost is $15.90 including postage and sales tax. Anyone interested in Jackson Purchase history is welcome to join the JPHS.