Edward M. Coffman

Edward M. Coffman (January 27, 1929 –), military historian, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Emeritus, was born in Hopkinsville, KY and earned his BA, MA, and PhD at the University of Kentucky. He served as an Infantry officer in the U.S. Army in 1951-53. He taught at Memphis State University for two years and the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1961–92). He was Forrest Pogue's research assistant on the first volume of his biography of George C. Marshall. He spent a year each as a visiting professor at Kansas State University, U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, Army War College, and the Army Command and General Staff College. He has served on the History Book Club advisory committee since 1987. A member of the Society for Military History since 1956, he has held several offices including president. He served on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (1972-76) and the Department of the Army History Committee for six years and as chair for an additional four years. He received a Southern Faculty Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a member of the UK Phi Beta Kappa chapter and is an Honorary Graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College. Over the years the Army awarded him the Commander's Award for Public Service, Outstanding Civilian Service Award, and Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He was named a University of Kentucky Distinguished Graduate and the Wisconsin State Assembly gave him a citation for his contributions as a teacher and historian. The Society for Military History gave him the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for his contribution to military history and the distinguished book award for The Regulars. ABC-CLIO gave him the Spencer Tucker Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Military History.

Coffman's research interests are the American participation in World War 1 and the social history of the Regular Army, including not only officers and soldiers but the wives and children who lived on the posts. He has published numerous articles since 1956. In addition to research in secondary scholarly works, he depended on unpublished and published memoirs and records as well as oral history and correspondence, particularly in his books on World War 1 and his most recent book about the Regular Army. His books are The Hilt of the Sword: The Career of Peyton C. March (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), The War To End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War 1 (New York: Oxford University Press,1968; reprinted by the University of Wisconsin Press in 1986, and by the University Press of Kentucky in Lexington, KY in 1998), The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1986) and writings in the Journal of Military History, and The Regulars: The American Army 1898-1941 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).