James Alex Baggett (born February 2, 1932^[1]) is an American historian, author, and former university dean. He worked at Union University and wrote a book about it.

In 2003 his talk on his book about "Scalawags" was aired on C-Span.^[2] He discussed the book at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. He has written several entries for the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook.^[3]

He is married to Lillian Faulkner Baggett, a fellow educator and author.^[4]

William Harris Bragg described his book on "Scalawags" as "detailed, balanced, and convincing."^[5] Michael Perman called it groundbreaking.^[6] Union University holds an annual history research paper competition in his honor.^[7]

Work

• The rise and fall of the Texas radicals, 1867-1883^[8]
• Bemis: Continuity and Change in a West Tennessee Cotton Mill Town (1992)
• Memories of Madison County (1993)
• So Great a Cloud of Witnesses: Union University, 1823-2000
• Homegrown Yankees: Tennessee's Union Cavalry in the Civil War
• The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction LSU Press (2004)^[9][10]

Articles

• "The Constitutional Union Party in Texas” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 82 (January 1979)