Edward J. Nichols Collection

Edward J. Nichols was born in 1900 in Illinois. He attended the universities of DePauw, Chicago and Columbia; and received his doctorate from the Pennsylvania State University in 1939. His interest in the Civil War was developed early, writing his master's thesis in 1928 on the Civil War soldier and writer Ambrose Bierce. He first became interested in John Fulton Reynolds in the early 1950s. After much searching he found that Reynolds' papers were still in the possession of the family, namely Col. John Fulton Reynolds Scott [the papers are now in the Archives and Special Collections Department of Franklin and Marshall College]. Nichols began the biography of Reynolds in 1953. Toward Gettysburg: A Biography of General John F. Reynolds was published in 1958 by the Pennsylvania State University Press.