Edward M. Coffman (January 27, 1929 – September 16, 2020) was a military historian andUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus.^[1]

He was born inHopkinsville, Kentucky, and earned his BA, MA, and PhD at theUniversity of Kentucky. While an undergraduate member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), he was a member of the National Society ofPershing Rifles as well asScabbard and Blade.^[2]

He served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1953, serving in Japan and Korea.

He taught atMemphis State University for two years and theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison (1961–92). He wasForrest Pogue's research assistant on the first volume of his biography ofGeorge C. Marshall. Coffman spent a year each as a visiting professor atKansas State University,U.S. Military Academy,U.S. Air Force Academy,Army War College, and theArmy Command and General Staff College.

Coffman has served on theHistory Book Club advisory committee since 1987. A member of theSociety 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.

Coffman has received a Southern Faculty Fellowship and aGuggenheim Fellowship. He was a member of the UKPhi Beta Kappa chapter and was an Honorary Graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College. Over the years the Army awarded him theCommander's Award for Public Service,Outstanding Civilian Service Award, andDistinguished 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. In 1991, theSociety for Military History gave him theSamuel Eliot Morison Award for his contribution to military history,^[3] and itsDistinguished Book Award forThe Regulars.^[4] ABC-CLIO gave him the Spencer Tucker Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Military History.^[5]

Coffman's research interests were the American participation inWorld War I and the social history of theU. S. 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 In addition to research in secondary scholarly works, he depended on unpublished and published memoirs and records as well as oral history and correspondence, particularly in his books on World War I and his most recent book about the Regular Army.^{[citation needed]}

His research files have been donated to theGeorge C. Marshall Foundation.^[6] He has been inducted into the University of Wisconsin-Madison Army ROTC Hall of Fame.^[7]

• Edward M. Coffman (1966).The Hilt of the Sword: the Career of Peyton C. March. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.ISBN 0-299-03910-2.
• Edward M. Coffman (1998).The War To End All Wars: the American military experience in World War I. Oxford University Press, NY (re-printed by the University of Wisconsin Press in 1986, and the University Press of Kentucky in 1998).ISBN 978-0-8131-0955-8. (see Army Quarterly, October 1969, p. 126-7 for review)
• Edward M. Coffman (1986).The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784-1898. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-503750-2.
• Edward M. Coffman (2004).The Regulars: the American Army, 1898-1941. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-01299-8.
• Edward M. Coffman (2014).The Embattled Past: Reflections on Military History. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.ISBN 978-0813142661.

• Coffman discussesThe Regulars: The American Army, 1898 - 1941 at thePritzker Military Museum & Library

• 1929 births
• 2020 deaths
• Pershing Riflemen
• United States Army officers
• People from Hopkinsville, Kentucky
• Military personnel from Kentucky
• University of Kentucky alumni
• University of Memphis faculty
• University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
• Writers from Kentucky
• United States Army Infantry Branch personnel
• 20th-century United States Army personnel
• United States Army War College faculty
• United States Army Command and General Staff College faculty

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