David Curtis Skaggs

David Curtis Skaggs (1937-) was born in Topeka, KS and raised in the western Kansas county seat of Pratt where his father was a local hardware dealer. After receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kansas he joined the US Army to see the world and Lieutenant Skaggs served at Fort Sill, OK and Fort Riley, KS. After receiving his doctorate from Georgetown University he taught at Bowling Green State University from 1965 to 2001. His latest book is William Henry Harrison and the Conquest of the Ohio Country: Frontier Warfare in the War of 1812 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). He is also the author of Roots of Maryland Democracy, 1753-1776 (Greenwood Press, 1973), Thomas Macdonough: Master of Command in the Early U. S. Navy (Naval Institute Press, 2002), Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy (Naval Institute Press, 2006) and co-author of A Signal Victory: The Lake Erie Campaign, 1812-1813 (Naval Institute Press, 1997, paperback 2000). The latter was a History Book Club alternate selection. It and the Perry biography won North American Society for Oceanic History's prizes for naval history. He is the editor or co-editor of several other books including: The Old Northwest in the American Revolution (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1977), The Poetic Writings of Thomas Cradock, 1718-1770 (University of Delaware Press, 1983), In Defense of the Republic: Readings in American Military History (Wadsworth Publishing, 1991), War on the Great Lakes (Kent State University Press, 1991, paperback 2000), The Sixty Years' War for the Great Lakes (Michigan State University Press, 2001, paperback 2010), The Battle of Lake Erie and Its Aftermath (Kent State University Press, 2013) and a translation of Hessian Captain Johann Ewald's Treatise on Partisan Warfare (Greenwood Press, 1991), which was originally published in Germany in 1785. His numerous scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Journal of American History, William and Mary Quarterly, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Journal of Military History, Armed Forces and Society, and in several anthologies and encyclopedias. He is the recipient of the USS Constitution Museum Foundation's Samuel Eliot Morison Award and the Ohio Academy of History's Distinguished Historian Award. A frequent contributor to "Naval History" magazine, he received that popular history journal's "author of the year" award in 2013. He retired as a colonel in the Army Reserve in 1991. Dr. Skaggs married his college sweetheart Margo Tipton in 1961 and they have two married sons and five grandchildren. She is affectionately known under the pseudo-military acronym as CINCFAM. They divide their time between homes on Burt Lake, Michigan, and in New Bern, NC.