William B. Hesseltine

William Best Hesseltine (February 21, 1902 in Brucetown, Virginia - 1963) was an American historian known for his work on the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the American South, and mid-19th century United States history. He was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Originally from Virginia, Hesseltine studied at the Ohio State University. He was for a time an active member of the Socialist Party of the United States, accepting its nomination for U.S. vice president in 1948. He opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt's foreign policy in the years before the United States entered World War II.

A number of his doctoral students at Madison went on to be influential historians in their own right, including Kenneth M. Stampp, Frank Freidel, Richard N. Current, Stephen E. Ambrose, and T. Harry Williams. In addition, Hesseltine influenced the development of the field of rhetoric through his mentoring of Robert G. Gunderson.

In 1945 Hesseltine wrote ““Writing intellectual history is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.”

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