An oil portrait of General George C. Marshall, painted by Mrs. Christine Brown Pogue, still hangs in the George C. Marshall Research Library at Lexington, Virginia. (photo from the Pogue Library collection)

Pogue married the former Christine Brown of Fulton, Kentucky, who graduated "magna cum laude" from Murray in 1936. In 1955-56 she was a critic teacher in art at Murray Training School and part-time instructor at the college. Her oil portrait of George C. Marshall hangs in the research library. Both Pogue and his wife, Christine, served as editor of The College News at Murray.

The Association of the U.S. Army awarded him a Certificate of Achievement in 1964 for his volumes, The Supreme Command and Education of a General, and other military writings. The two books, appearing in 1956 and 1963, respectively, were his first on the men and events of World War II. The first book is the Department of the Army’s official account of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decisions and operations in northwest Europe, 1944-45; the second is the first of a multi-volume work on the life of General George C. Marshall.

A pioneer of oral history techniques, Dr. Pogue recorded approximately 40 hours of interviews with Marshall himself and encountered more than 300 people who had known him, including many prominent figures. Pogue often is referred to as the “congenial historian” in articles and histories.

Dr. Forrest Carlisle Pogue, historian and Gen. Marshall's official biographer. (photo from the Pogue Library collection)

According to www.arlingtoncemetery.com, George Catlett Marshall was one of the great American sportsmen of the century. He played a crucial role in international affairs from 1939 to 1951, the years that shaped the second half of the 20th century. Until 1945 he was in the military service of the United States. As Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army from 1939 to 1945, he was, in the words of Winston Churchill, the “true architect of victory” in the West European arena of World War II.

Marshall was born on December 21, 1880, in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901. Afterwards, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. On September 1, 1939, he was promoted to chief of staff with the rank of general. Marshall was named General of the Army on December 16, 1944.

Although he spent most of his life in the U.S. military, Marshall is best remembered as a true internationalist who sought peace for the world through cooperation and understanding among nations. It was a fitting tribute to a splendid career spent on pursuing this ideal that Marshall received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953. Marshall died on October 16, 1959, and he was buried in Section 7 of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

Forrest C. Pogue’s subsequent books were: George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope; 1939-42 (1966); George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943-45 (1973); (co-author) The Meaning of Yalta (1956); D-Day: The Normandy Invasion in Retrospect (1970); The Continuing Revolution (1975); The War Lords (1976); and he contributed to Bicentennial History of the United States (1977), Essays in Honor of George H. Blakeslee (1949), and to other volumes and various publications. He was contributing editor to the Guide to American Foreign Relations in 1983.

The Army citation was for his “…many achievements in the field of military history, his knowledge of military affairs, and his standards of historical scholarship,” (which) have “been of inestimable benefit to the United States Army.”

Pogue served as director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Institute for Historical Research, Museum of History and Technology, and the Smithsonian Institution (from which he retired in 1984). He began his career as a military historian for the Second Army (Memphis), and in 1944-45 was combat historian with units of the First Army in the European Theatre of Operations, from Omaha Beach to Pilzen, Czechoslvakia. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Croix de Guerre for combat interviewing, Bronze Arrowhead for participation in the Normandy invasion, and campaign stars for France, Rhineland, Ardennes, and Germany.

He was a member of the historical section, U.S. Forces European Theatre, Paris and Frankfort, 1945-46, and a Department of the Army historian, 1946-52, and a Department of the Army historian, 1946-52. He was operations research analyst with Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, under contract with the U.S. Army with assignment to Headquarters, U.S. Army, Europe, Heidelberg, 1952-54.

Pogue was director of the George C. Marshall Research Center, 1956-64, and upon completed of the Marshall Library building in 1964, was named executive director of the George C. Marshall Research Library. He continued in this capacity until 1974. He was a life trustee of the George C. Marshall Foundation.

He was a member of the Kentucky Bicentennial Oral History Commission, and he was president of the Advisory Committee, United States Senate Historical Office. He was a Fellow of the American Military Institute. Also, trustee, U.S. Commission for Military History; honorary fellow, U.S. Army Military Research Institute; adjunct fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; active trustees, U.S. Capitol Historical Society; former chairman, American Committee on the History of the Second World War, and former president, Oral History Association, and the American Military History Institute.

As a founder and president of the Oral History Association and president of the American Military Institute (now the Society for Military History), Pogue inspired a new generation of historians and proved to be a generous mentor. Appropriately, Stephen E. Ambrose, who liberally used oral histories in the his epic D-Day; June 6, 1944, dedicated the book to Pogue as a man who “touched our lives as a person and made us better at our craft.”

Forrest Carlisle Pogue was named to the Hall of Distinguished Alumni at the University of Kentucky in February 1965.

The Forrest C. Pogue Special Collections Library occupies the upper three floors of the original library building on the Murray State University campus. It was opened in 1931 and served the college library until 1978, when the Waterfield Library was opened as the general library. The building, which was rededicated in 1980 as the Special Collections Library, was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1983. It was named in honor of Dr. Forrest C. Pogue, alumnus and former professor at Murray State University, who in 1989 donated his books, papers, and memorabilia to the library.

The tombstone of Dr. Forrest C. Pogue marks his grave in the Frances Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Crittenden County, Kentucky. (photo by Matthew T. Patton)

Pogue died October 6, 1996, in Murray, Kentucky, where he had retired. He is buried at the Frances Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Frances, Kentucky.

The Pogue Library contains much more material than just the Pogue War and Diplomacy Collection. The library contains a great deal of historical and genealogical information as well. The library is open Monday-Friday, 8-4:30, Saturdays 10-3, and Sundays 1-5. Because the library hours vary during breaks, holidays and vacations, it is recommended that interested patrons call ahead before making a trip to Murray for research at (270) 762-6152.

Matthew T. Patton is a relative of Forrest C. Pogue. Information from this article comes from various sources, including the University of Kentucky alumni Web site, the Murray State University Library Web site and brochures, www.arlingtoncemetery.com, Murray State Alumnus (October 1963 and October 1969), Filson Club History Quarterly (July 1986), and from Crittenden County History and Families, Vol. 2. A very special thanks to Ernie R. Bailey of the Pogue Library, who graciously shared information for this article.