Dr. John R. Legg currently teaches U.S. History courses at Angelo State University. Trained in ethnohistory and digital public history, John specializes in the Civil War era and nineteenth century Native American history, with particular interest in Indigenous mobility, diplomacy, and cultural practice throughout the U.S.-Canadian borderlands. Broadly speaking, John's interested in war and society and how military conflict shaped the cultural experience of those who lived through warfare. In terms of public history, John's invested in studying how people engage with contentious historical problems through public memory, social movements, or other forms of community debates. As a scholar of Indigenous and public history, John's very interested in community engaged scholarship through oral history, collaboration, and shared authority.

John’s current book project looks at what happened after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, tracing how Dakota people moved across colonial borders—leaving Minnesota for Dakota Territory and British Canada, but remaining in their homeland Mni Sota Makoce—in search of safety, community, and sovereignty. Alongside the book, he’s writing a journal article about the 1864 cross-border kidnapping of Dakota leaders Little Six and Medicine Bottle, as well as a book chapter on the Portage la Prairie Indian Residential School in Manitoba, where many Dakota children were sent. He’s also collaborating with Dr. Niels Eichhorn on an article about how the Civil War is remembered in the American West, and contributing a chapter to E.J. Murphy’s edited volume on Pennsylvania’s Civil War legacy, focusing on the overlooked monument to the Lenape leader Tamanend at Gettysburg National Military Park.

John is also interested in contentious public memory and how communities/people grapple with difficult topics or engage with history in new ways. He and Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd are working with twelve contributors on the edited volume, Decolonizing the Campus: Campus Activism, Public History, and the Struggle for Educational Justice. He also organized a roundtable about "Indigenous Cultural Preservation in Digital and Public Spaces" with Dr. Jennifer Andrella, Heather Bruegl, Shine Trabucco, and Dr. Matthew Jennings, currently under consideration at leading public history journal.

Alongside his other work, John is also diving into a deeply personal research project about his grandfather’s experience fighting on Okinawa during World War II. You can read more about that in his essay, "My Grandpa’s War," written for the Sixth Marine Division’s veterans association and available here on the website. He's currently developing a companion digital public history project called Where They Came From, which traces the lives of every man in his grandfather’s unit—Company L, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Marines, Sixth Marine Division. The goal is to move beyond the spreadsheets and service records, and instead bring to life who these men were: where they came from, what they faced in battle, and, when possible, what became of them after the war. It’s a tribute not just to his grandfather, but to an entire generation often reduced to data points in official records.

John has worked for a variety of academic publications in various capacities. At the National Council on Public History's History@Work, he served as affiliate editor for the special project, Our Climate Emergency, as well as other posts. At H-CivWar, John's served as Book Review Editor and instituted a Graduate Student/Post-Doc Interview Series. At the Journal of Social History, John served as editorial assistant where he copyedited and proofed various academic articles, including the entire "On Agency" series that celebrated the 20th Anniversary of Walter Johnson's "On Agency."

John also bridges his love for photography with history. Recently, he had a photograph published on the cover of Niels Eichhorn and Duncan Campbell's The Civil War in the Age of Nationalism (LSU Press, 2024). He also takes academic headshots and has provided event coverage photography for Ethnohistory and other conferences. Photography portfolio here.

John completed his PhD at George Mason University, his MA and Graduate Certificate in Public History at Virginia Tech, and his BA in History at Middle Georgia State University.