James R. Smither is a Professor of History at Grand Valley State University and is the Director of Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project. He has conducted over 1,000 oral history interviews with military veterans, including over 100 with veterans of the Ripcord campaign. He is co-editor of A Surgeon's Civil War: The Civil War Letters of Daniel M. Holt, M.D. and editor of Death and Life in the Big Red One.