Archer Jones

Archer Jones, 79, of Richmond, retired academic administrator and historian, died Monday, January 23, 2006. He was the son of the late Helen Johnston Skinner and Montgomery Osborne Jones and is survived by his wife, Joanne Leach Jones; a son, Caruthers Coleman Jones; and two grandsons. Mr. Jones attended St. Christopher's and Woodberry Forest schools and St. John's and Hampden-Sydney colleges, graduating from the latter in 1949. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from the University of Virginia. Mr. Jones was a member of the Raven and Jefferson societies and Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa. He served in the U.S Army in air defense and military intelligence. After teaching at the University of Virginia, Randolph Macon Woman's College and Hampden-Sydney, he became the first academic dean of Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia and then first chairman of the Department of History and Political Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. In 1968, following two years as Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina, he went to North Dakota State University as the dean responsible for instruction and research in the humanities, social sciences, business administration and education until his retirement in 1985. His duties included director of the Institute for Regional Studies which sponsored research and served as the university's press. Mr. Jones wrote articles on military and economic history and jointly authored Politics of Command, How the North Won, and Why the South Lost, all award-winning books. He also wrote Confederate Strategy from Shiloh to Vicksburg, Civil War Command and Strategy, The Art of War in the Western World, and Elements of Military Strategy: An Historical Approach. He twice received the Museum of the Confederacy's Jefferson Davis Award for distinguished research and writing on the period of the Confederate States of America. Mr. Jones served as a trustee of the American Military Institute, on the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee and as Morrison Professor of History at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was a member of Grace & Holy Trinity Church, the Sons of the Revolution, Society of the Cincinnati, and a former member of the Commonwealth Club, the Country Club of Virginia and the Leland Yacht Club. A memorial service will be held 3 p.m. Wednesday, January 25, in the Assembly Room at Westminster Canterbury. Interment in Hollywood Cemetery will be private. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Westminster Canterbury Foundation or a charity of your choice.