The beginning of recently retired Michael Ballard’s interest in Civil War history is, as he said, a study in irony: it began with an overstuffed chair once used by the namesake of his future workplace.
“It’s really ironic that the one thing in the (Vicksburg Courthouse) Museum that was always the first place I went as a kid was an old leather chair that had stuffing coming out of it; they had it in a glass case, and it was a chair that (General Ulysses S.)Grant supposedly used when he was in Vicksburg,” Ballard said. “I loved that chair. There was something about it. I can’t tell you why, but years and years after I wound up working for Grant papers.”
Ballard, a native of Ackerman, Miss., received three degrees from Mississippi State University: a B.A. in history in 1975, an M.A. in history/archives in 1976 and a Ph.D. in history in 1983. Ballard joined university staff in archives in 1983, going on to become university archivist, coordinator of the Congressional and Political Research Center and associate editor of Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library publishing projects. As well as making a sizable contribution to MSU through archive work, Ballard has also authored 11 books centered on the Civil War, an interest, which he said, stemmed from a childhood in history-steeped Mississippi.
“When I was a kid I had one brother, and my parents used to take us to Vicksburg occasionally; I immediately fell in love with the town and the battlefields,” he said.
Ballard also visited battlefields with a cousin to search for Civil War relics buried in the ground. Heading to Port Gibson, Miss., to hunt for animals as well as relics, Ballard said these searches got him rooted in another location: the pages of books.
“That’s what got me to reading; I really got interested in the war. I wanted to know where the troops were when we got to the battlefield,” he said.
Ballard changed his major from music to history once beginning college, taking his first Civil War class under John Marszalek, and beginning another ironic cycle that Marsalek, current director and managing editor of Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, said Ballard had laughed about for years.
“He used to (jokingly) tell people, ‘I thought I got rid of Marszalek when I got my degree, and here we are working together in the same place,'” he Marszalek.
Marszalek, also a Civil War expert with a list of credentials including 13 books published, has worked with him since Ballard’s doctoral dissertation, including together co-founding the Civil War Historians-Western Theater group. Aside from the extensive list of scholastic achievements of Ballard (his vita is 20 pages long), Marszalek said his good nature shone through all else. Even at a reception honoring his retirement, Marszalek said Ballard focused attention onto others, and away from himself.
“The library had a big reception for him we were all talking about him, and what does he do? He said, ‘Some of you may or may not know that a group of Marszalek’s graduate students put together a book, and this book has just been published, and I want to present it to you,'” Marszalek said. “It’s his retirement, and he’s deflecting attention, and he’s putting it on the editors, nice enough to put my wife (and my own) picture in it, and dedicate the book to my wife and me.”
Ballard’s focus on his friends and colleagues is also revealed in his attention to the humanity of the Civil War, his quickness to share stories of soldier diaries and correspondence he has studied and the unimaginable trials they endured.
Ballard said one soldier left behind an account of blisters on his feet so large that he could not fit them into boots salvaged from a deceased solider that would have otherwise fit him perfectly.
Ballard spoke often of how fascinating and enjoyable his work has been, and said he will continue to research the Civil War, because, it’s what he is interested in.
He said he plans to seek out a few other interests, as well, including possibly publishing a work of fiction he wrote and working on a bit of music.
“I’ve been writing Southern Gospel songs, which I love, I’d like to learn a language or two, get better at the guitar, which I can only strum,” he said.
Marszalek said Ballard’s retirement is a huge loss to MSU, but he also spoke of what he said Ballard means to him and his colleagues as a person.
“He’s a really special person to me and to a lot of people. It’s an amazing, amazing thing, the kind of good human he is.”