After serving 43 years in the U.S. Army, Gen. George Marshall planned to retire. He and his wife, Katherine, would spend warm months at their home in Leesburg, VA, and cool months at their home in Pinehurst, NC. Marshall’s days would be occupied gardening, fishing, riding, and spending uninterrupted time with Katherine. After the ceremony […]
She wrote the book on code breaking for the U.S. Army, and taught the first cryptography classes to soldiers in WWI. In three months, she decrypted two years of backlogged Coast Guard messages, using only a pencil and paper. She was the only woman employed by the Coast Guard at the time. She served as […]
It is difficult to imagine Marshall as inhabiting anything but the no-nonsense, resolute persona of his professional life. This image is so pervasive that we are commonly asked if he ever smiled at all. The Marshall Foundation archives house documents and photos that reveal the General’s personal life, including his lighter side. In a 1957 interview with Marshall biographer Forrest C. Pogue, Brigadier General […]
Stamps, often considered miniature works of art, have been issued by world postal services since 1840. October is National Stamp Collecting month. It began in 1981 as a joint venture between the United States Postal Service and the Council of Philatelic Organizations. The Postal Service continues to promote National Stamp Collecting Month and stamp collecting […]
Next Wednesday, October 7th, is #AskAnArchivist Day. This day-long event sponsored by the Society of American Archivists is an opportunity to ask questions (via Twitter) about any and all things archives and have them answered by archivists. The Marshall Library will be participating in the event, so be sure to send your archives questions to […]
During a quiet ceremony in July 1960 that formally transferred a facility from the military to a civilian agency, the United States Army Ballistic Missile Agency began operating as the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. What caused this transfer and why name it after an Army general if it was no longer a military […]
The Katherine Tupper Marshall Rose, a hybrid tea rose, is named in honor of Mrs. George C. Marshall who was an avid gardener. How this came to be involved a little bit of ‘digging,’ only to discover that the naming had to do with the war effort during the second World War. Patented by Jackson […]
Several innocent anecdotes Marshall used to tell about his childhood demonstrate his future leadership capabilities. A favorite concerns Marshall’s first “shipping” crisis in about 1888 or so, about the time the U.S. was beginning its great naval expansion. Young George and Andrew Thompson had convinced a local carpenter to build them a crude […]
The great responsibilities that Marshall had during the war have led some people to conclude that he never took a vacation. While this myth is consistent with Marshall’s tireless work ethic, his appointment books for this period reveal that it has no factual basis. On March 7, 1943, Chief of Staff of the Army George […]
The Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS, is the graduate school for U.S. Army officers primarily. It was established in 1881 by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman as the School for Application of Infantry and Cavalry. It was renamed the School of the Line just as Lt. George Marshall was assigned there in […]
After the United States declared war on the Central Powers April 6, 1917, the first U.S. troops arrived in France at the end of June 1917. Gen. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces commander, refused to allow American soldiers to be used to fill in shorthanded Allied units, and the French and British were leery of the […]
There’s an issue with this photo. Do you see it? Hint: Look at their uniform collars. “Uniform” means everything should be worn the same, which isn’t happening in this photo. Most generals wear stars on both collar points. Sometimes, Gen. Marshall wore his stars on the right, as above, but sometimes on the left. I […]
This is a previously published blog. General George S. Patton’s comments at the opening of a British Welcome Club for American soldiers in Knutsford, England, are one of many well-known and controversial episodes from Patton’s army career. U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall’s response to Patton’s comments are less well known. They serve […]
Serving in the Philippines Part 2: Other Duties as Assigned While Marshall must have been glad to be on land after over a month of traveling, Mindoro was not an island paradise, but “was in fact a forbidding place, an island of about four thousand square miles of mountains and jungle. The towns, such as […]
Serving in the Philippines Part 1: Getting There Upon commission in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant in 1902, George Marshall’s first station was on the island of Mindoro, in the Philippines, with Company G of the 30th Infantry. On March 17, 1902, Marshall traveled by train from New York to San Francisco, and […]
George Marshall never led troops into battle, and this fact disappointed him. In World War I, though he asked to be assigned to combat troops, he was pulled from 1st Division to General Headquarters after planning the pivotal attack at Cantigny. His superiors felt that his talent for planning and logistics was more valuable on […]
One hundred years ago, it became illegal to stop off at the corner bar for a beer – the Volstead Act, commonly called Prohibition, outlawed the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-123257 Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into […]
Guest blog by Cadet Mike Morrison, VMI ’20 and Marshall Foundation social media intern. With the Rat Mass of 19+3’s (freshmen) breakout accomplished on February 2nd, 2019, we look back at Marshall’s own “ratline” in his first year at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in 1889. Though the ratline was much less structured and regulated […]
This blog was originally published on November 28, 2014. On May 27, 1942, the first of seven documentary films, Prelude to War, was released. This documentary series, Why We Fight, was commissioned by the United States Army. In a letter to President Roosevelt, General Marshall states the films would “replace the series of lectures given […]
This month, August 19th, sees the 76th anniversary of the (overwhelmingly) British-Canadian raid on the French port of Dieppe. This assault on the French town also featured small contingents of French, Czech and Polish troops as well as some 50 U.S. Army Rangers. Although a tactical defeat for the Allies, in strategic terms, it was […]
In December 1945, Katherine Tupper Marshall accompanied her husband, General George C. Marshall, to the airport for his departure to China. A few weeks earlier, President Harry Truman had asked General Marshall to serve as a special envoy to China to negotiate peace between the country’s Communist and Nationalist parties. Not wanting to face the crowds that had assembled, Mrs. Marshall watched from the car as General Marshall’s luggage was loaded into the plane, […]
On July 5, 1946, George C. Marshall proposed Dr. John Leighton Stuart to be the United States Ambassador to China. Marshall believed that the great respect that both Communists and Nationalists had for Dr. Stuart would be tremendously helpful during the China Mission’s ongoing negotiations. In a top-secret message to Dean G. Acheson, Marshall stated, “I am requesting War Department to delay Wedemeyer’s departure […]
This blog was originally posted on May 5, 2017 In Winchester, Virginia this week, the 90th annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is in full swing. The festival that celebrates the arrival of spring and the pink-and-white apple blossoms started in 1924 as a one-day event and, except for the war years 1942-1945, has been held […]
Secretary of the Army Frank Pace was asked personally to relieve General Douglas MacArthur until President Truman learned the announcement was to be preempted by a news leak. In what was to become its own ‘day of infamy,’ Truman hastily arranged a press conference to announce MacArthur’s relief. MacArthur himself learned of his fate from […]
The new exhibition at the George C. Marshall Museum, “Hope for Those Who Need It,” was featured in the Travel section of USA Today on April 3 as one of the “Best museum exhibits in the U.S. this spring.” https://usat.ly/2Gub3PZ Mentioned as one of 13 exhibits, “Hope for Those Who Need It,” celebrates the Marshall […]
Next Wednesday, October 4th, is #AskAnArchivist Day. This day-long event sponsored by the Society of American Archivists is an opportunity to ask questions (via Twitter) about any and all things archives and have them answered by archivists. The Marshall Library will be participating in the event, so be sure to send your archives questions to […]
This post was originally published on July 8, 2016. According to the U.S. National Park Service, there are conflicting views as to the origin of the name Fire Island. The island may have been named after Fire Island Inlet, which appeared on a deed in 1789, and the inlet’s name may have started as a […]
In Winchester, Virginia this week, the 90th annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival is in full swing. The festival that celebrates the arrival of spring and the pink-and-white apple blossoms started in 1924 as a one-day event and, except for the war years 1942-1945, has been held every year since then. It is one of the […]
Seventy-five years ago this week, the Stars and Stripes newspaper had its second renaissance. The first paper with the name Stars and Stripes was started by a Union soldier during the Civil War in 1861. The Union army captured a newspaper plant in Missouri and produced only 4 papers. The newspaper was again revived during […]
In the photo to the left, Secretary of Defense Marshall is receiving a poppy from Mrs. Genevieve Frye, President of the Auxiliary of American Legion Post 109 in 1951. The remembrance poppy is an artificial flower that has been used since 1921 to commemorate military personnel who have died in war, and represents a common […]
International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th commemorates the victims of the Holocaust during World War II. It was designated by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005 during a special session that marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops. After liberation, displaced persons camps […]
PURPLE, the name given to the Japanese diplomatic cipher system used during World War II, is not as well-known as the ENIGMA system used by the Germans but was considered the most complex cipher system of its time. Despite its complexity, a team of U.S. codebreakers led by William F. Friedman produced their first deciphered […]
The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) prepares college students to be commissioned officers in the United States Armed Forces. The Army ROTC, as it exists today, began with President Wilson’s signing the National Defense Act of 1916. There are three types of ROTC programs. The first type includes programs at the six senior military colleges, […]
General George S. Patton’s comments at the opening of a British Welcome Club for American soldiers in Knutsford, England, are one of many well-known and controversial episodes from Patton’s army career. U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall’s response to Patton’s comments are less well known. They serve as an example of his leadership. […]
On March 23, 2016, the Marshall Plan Speech was one of 25 recordings added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s remarks at Harvard University were a crucial first step in the United States’ efforts to help rebuild Europe after World War II and certainly represent […]
Tomorrow we will be honored to host Lt. Col. Robert Friend, who is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. It should be a remarkable afternoon. As Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall was directly involved in establishing the military program for aviation at the Tuskegee Institute. Correspondence between Marshall and Frederick D. […]
As a result of the influence of Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, women of color joined the Women’s Army Corps’ 6888th Central Postal Battalion. During World War II, 850 African-American women served overseas, in Birmingham, England, to sort and deliver backed-up mail to millions of soldiers in Europe. Army Major Charity Adams, […]
Occasionally visitors to the Marshall Foundation will ask staff to verify a story that they heard about George C. Marshall. As with any historic figure certain stories about Marshall have become widely accepted as true even though they do not have any factual basis. This post will be the first in an occasional series exploring […]
The Marshall Foundation is expanding access to its vast collections through digital technologies. As a part of the effort to bring Marshall’s legacy online, the Foundation has created the Digital Lab. Housed in the library, the Digital Lab is a dedicated space for digitization projects. The lab brings together both new and old technologies that […]
Stamps, often considered miniature works of art, have been issued by world postal services since 1840. October is National Stamp Collecting month. It began in 1981 as a joint venture between the United States Postal Service and the Council of Philatelic Organizations. The Postal Service continues to promote National Stamp Collecting Month and stamp collecting […]