This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

THE*? INDEPENDENT
Dominic Lawson: The schools that simply do not believe in failure
Stephen Ambrose
Historian and author of 'Band of Brothers'
Monday, 14 October 2002
THREE TIMES over, in the Ambrose family of central Wisconsin, the eldest son followed in his father's footsteps as a country doctor. Stephen Ambrose, as an eldest son, grew up knowing he would be a country doctor too, and went up to Wisconsin State University at Madison to read Medicine. His tutor told him he had to take one non-medical subject in his first year; he picked history from a list, without looking at it. The history tutor told him to write an essay on Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler. Ambrose came back with the	essay,	and
a demand to change faculties; thereafter he devoted himself to history, and became a prolific	historical	author
as well as a university professor.
Three times over, in the Ambrose family of central Wisconsin, the eldest son followed in his father's footsteps as a country doctor. Stephen Ambrose, as an eldest son, grew up knowing he would be a country doctor too, and went up to Wisconsin State University at Madison to read Medicine. His tutor told him he had to take one non-medical subject in his first year; he picked history from a list, without looking at it. The history tutor told him to write an essay on Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler. Ambrose came back with the essay, and a demand to change faculties; thereafter he devoted himself to history, and became a prolific historical author as well as a university professor.
His first book, Upton and the Army, came out in 1964: a short life, based on his doctoral thesis, of a dedicated professional, who graduated from West Point in 1861 and was a major-general at 25, rising by sheer ability in the northern armies during the American civil war. He later wrote a life of Halleck, Lincoln's chief of staff, and a history of West Point called Duty, Honor, Country.
Turning to the Indian wars, he wrote a dual biography Crazy Horse and Custer (1975), about the Indian chief and the term-mate of Upton's, who also ended the civil war a major-general, who confronted each other at Little Big Horn in 1876, with disastrous results to the general and to two squadrons of the 7th US Cavalry, wiped out with him.
This book happened to be President Dwight D. Eisenhower's bedside reading at the end of his term. He liked it so much that he sent for Ambrose - who by this time was Professor at the University of New Orleans - and invited him to become his official biographer.
Ambrose's two volumes on Eisenhower, as general and as president, admirably frank, were widely read. They were based on a full understanding of war and of statesmanship, as well as the presidential archives. His publisher wrote to invite him, as he seemed good with republican presidents, to write a life of Richard Nixon as well. Ambrose replied that he had voted for Kennedy, and abominated Nixon. An advance of $400,000 persuaded him to change his mind; three volumes on Nixon duly appeared, and by the end of them Ambrose thought he had made a mistake in his vote in 1960.
He liked to alternate books on strategy with books on tactics. He rested from his life of Eisenhower by
Stephen Edward Ambrose, historian: bom j : Decatur, Illinois 10 'January 1936; Professor of History, University of j New Orleans 1971-95 (Emeritus); married j (three sons, two :daughters); died Bay Sty Louis, Mississippi 13 j October 2002.	_	I
Stephen Ambrose - Obituaries, News - The Independent
1 of 2