The papers of Edward M. Coffman are divided into three series: Benjamin Morgan, Military History, and Personal Collection.
Benjamin Morgan (1968-1969) consists of the letters and ephemera that Morgan sent to Coffman while he served in Vietnam. Morgan was a student of Coffman's at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (and a member of the Naval ROTC) in the late 1960's, but chose to quit school and enlist in the Navy. He wrote letters to Coffman while training at Camp Pendleton (San Diego) and while stationed at Da Nang, Vietnam in the hopes of maintaining a high level of critical writing for his return to college after the war. Morgan wrote about such varied topics as the culture shock he felt upon arriving in Vietnam, Vietnamese traffic conditions and traditional religions, as well as drug use and the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases among U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. His letters reflect his gradual disillusionment with the war; he wrote that the United States would gain nothing, would change nothing, and their efforts were not appreciated. While this series isn't large, it is extremely rich. Included with the letters is memorabilia that Morgan sent to Coffman, including a safe conduct pass, some unused postcards of Vietnamese scenery, and numerous “Nguyen Charlie” comic strip clippings. The photographs consist of seven photographs that he sent to Coffman. There is one photo of Morgan, dated 1969. The other photos depict a “rough terrain forklift in operation,” the north gate of Camp Tien Sha, a Korean soldier, “Naval support activity's LARC Annex, a “skivvy house,” and four of the five Vietnamese natives that Morgan supervised.
Military History (1967-2002) documents Coffman's involvement in the scholarly field of American military history. The largest part of this series relates to Coffman's work to get the late General Lucian Truscott's autobiographical manuscript, originally titled Fiddler's Green, published in the late 1980's. Included is a portion of the original manuscript that Coffman marked up with grammatical corrections and content suggestions. Also in this series are his handwritten, biographical notes about Truscott and the manuscript and a photocopy of the forward that he eventually wrote for the final published work, which is titled The Twilight of the U.S. Cavalry: Life in the Old Army, 1917-1942. Also included are five full-length proofs of military history books that Coffman reviewed before publication, as well as fliers and brochures advertising Coffman's writings and public appearances. Among these are a proof of interviews with George C. Marshall and a student paper written about the Union Rest Civil War cemetery in Madison, Wisconsin. An audio tape containing two oral history interviews conducted by Coffman was separated into the Wisconsin Veterans Oral History Project. The interviews were with Edward Wescott, a Spanish-American War veteran who later served as Custodian of G.A.R. Memorial Hall in Madison, Wisconsin and Mark Ingraham, a World War I veteran who later became a prominent mathematics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and had a building named after him.
Personal Collection (circa 1917) contains war-related items that Coffman collected. Of particular interest are the World War I-era “Our Boys in France” manuscript and slides. During the First World War, the U.S. federal government's Committee on Public Information (also known as the Creel Committee) tried to gain public support of the war; one of their methods was to distribute the “Our Boys in France” presentation package to prominent citizens in communities, who would then show the slides at social gatherings. Coffman acquired the presentation set that had been given to Edmund Wescott, who later served as Custodian of G.A.R. Memorial Hall. The slides depict, and the manuscript describes, the conditions and situations faced by members of the American Expeditionary Force in France. Also in this series are thirty-one slides of World War I maps, several sketches of West Point Academy, and a map of the battle of Waterloo.
