LTC Rory McGovern Associate Professor Division Chief, American and Military History History rory.mcgovern [at] westpoint.edu About Education Research & Publications LTC Rory McGovern is an Academy Professor in the Department of History at West Point. He commissioned from Boston College in 2005. As a field artillery officer, he held a variety of assignments in the 1st Cavalry Division and 3rd Infantry Division at every level from company fire support team up to division headquarters, including two deployments to Baghdad, Iraq. Subsequently, he served as an Instructor and Assistant Professor in the Department of History, and then as the Deputy G-5 for 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Kaiserslautern, Germany before returning to the department.LTC McGovern holds a BA in Political Science from Boston College, a Masters in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, and an M.A. and Ph.D in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a specialist in American military history whose published work focuses on processes of change and reform in the United States Army from the Civil War through World War I. Ph.D in History - University of North CarolinaM.A. in Strategic Studies - U.S. Army War CollegeM.A. in History - University of North CarolinaB.A. in Political Science - Boston College Research Interests American military history, World War I, U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, military reform and innovation, American historical memory Current Research USCT service during the Civil War, U.S. Army preparation and mobilization for World War I Selected Publications McGovern, Rory and Tony McGowan, eds. Henry O. Flipper: West Point's First Black Graduate. West Point Press, 2025.McGovern, Rory. George W. Goethals and the Army: Change and Continuity in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. University Press of Kansas, 2019.McGovern, Rory, Makonen Campbell, and Louisa Koebrich. "'I Hope to Have Justice Done Me or I Can't Get Along Here': James Webster Smith and West Point." The Journal of Military History 87 (October 2023): 964-1003.McGovern, Rory. "The School of Experience: George W. Goethals and the U.S. Army, 1876-1907." The Journal of Military History 81 (April 2017): 395-424.