Born into rural Tennessee and schooled at Asbury College (BA, 1928) and Yale University (PhD, 1933), Bell Irvin Wiley became a historical officer of the Second Army in World War II and taught history the University of Mississippi, Louisiana State University, Oxford University, and Emory University. He published groundbreaking works, such as Southern Negroes, 1861-65 (1938), was named President of the Southern Historians Association (1955), and became chairman of President Eisenhower's National Civil War Centennial Commission (1961). He died in 1980.
