Thomas W. Cutrer earned his B.A. in history at the Louisiana State University in 1969 and, after three years’ service as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force, returned to LSU for a master’s degree in English literature, which he completed in 1974. In 1980 he was awarded the Ph.D. in the American Civilization Program at the University of Texas. Doctor Cutrer then spent a decade in public history, first as curator of history at the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio, and then as associate director of the University of Texas Center for Studies in Texas History and managing editor of the Handbook of Texas at the Texas State Historical Association.
Professor Cutrer came to ASU’s West campus in 1990. His scholarly work focuses on the cultural history of the American South and Nineteenth Century U.S. military history, especially the American Civil War.
A prolific author, Dr. Cutrer has received awards for his books Parnassus on the Mississippi: The Southern Review and the Baton Rouge Literary Community, 1935-1942 and Ben McCulloch and the Frontier Military Tradition.
Dr. Cutrer’s other books include Longstreet’s Aide: The Civil War Letters of Maj. Thomas J. Goree , “Our Trust is in the God of Battles”: The Civil War Letters of Robert F. Bunting, Chaplain, Eighth Texas Cavalry, The Mexican War Diary and Correspondence of George B. McClellan, Oh, What a Loansome Time I Had: The Civil War Letters of Major William Moxley and Emily Moxley, and Empire of Sand: The Struggle for the Southwest, 1862. He also coedited, with T. Michael Parrish, Brothers in Gray: The Civil War Letters of the Pierson Family .
.Professor Cutrer's history of the Civil War in the trans-Mississippi West, Theater of a Separate War, will be published in March 2017 in the University of North Carolina Press’s Littlefield History of the Civil War Era series. He is also an advisory editor of Military History of the West, published by the University of North Texas.
- Thomas W. Cutrer. "‘Room Enough for All Brave Men’: Walter L. Bragg Reports the Battle of Woodsonville.". Military History of the West (2011).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. The Mexican War Diary and Correspondence of George B. McClellan. (2009).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. "The Texas Revolution and the Mexican-American War". A Companion to American Military History (2009).
- Cutrer, Thomas William. Lewis P. Simpson. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 3 (2006).
- Cutrer, Thomas William. "Our Trust is in the God of Battles": The Civil War Letters of Robert F. Bunting, Chaplain, Terry's Texas Rangers, C.S.A. (2006).
- . . Review of: Frontier Crossroads: Fort Davis and the West (2006).
- Thomas Cutrer. "A Lion in Her Path": Texas, New Mexico, and the United States Army, 1850. Military History of the West (2005).
- Thomas Cutrer. "Emphatically a General of Cavalry": A Tribute to Maj. Gen. John Austin Wharton from Chaplain Robert Franklin Bunting, Terry's Texas Rangers. Military History of the West (2004).
- Cutrer, Thomas William, Michael Parrish, T. Brothers in Gray: The Civil War Letters of the Pierson Family. (2004).
- . . Louisiana Literature and Literary Figures (2004).
- Thomas Cutrer. "To Lay Again the Foundations of a Mighty Church": Robert Franklin Bunting Reports the First and Second General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church of the Confederacy. Journal of Southern Religion (2003).
- Cutrer, Thomas William. Parnassus on the Mississippi: The Southern Review and the Baton Rouge Literary Community, 1935-1942. (2002).
- Cutrer, Thomas William. "Oh, What a Loansome Time I Had": The Civil War Letters of Maj. William Morel Moxley, Eighteenth Alabama Infantry, and Emily Beck Moxley. (2002).
- Thomas Cutrer. The Confederate Army. The Oxford Companion to American Military History (2000).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. Longstreet's Aide: The Civil War Letters of Major Thomas J. Goree. (1995).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. Military Executions. Encyclopedia Virginia (0).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. Popular Literature During the Civil War. Encyclopedia Virginia (0).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. Longstreet's Aide: The Civil War Letters of Major Thomas J. Goree. (0).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. "The Hardships of a Soldier’s Lot": David Pierson and the Third Louisiana Infantry. Twenty-fourth Annual Deep Delta Civil War Symposium (Jun 2010).
- Thomas W. Cutrer. "'In the Name of the People of Texas': The Federal Evacuation of Texas, 1861". "Texas in the Civil War," A ymposium sponsored by the Historical Division, Texas Genral Land Office (Oct 2008).
- Cutrer, Thomas. 'All of the Lion and None of the Fox: The Gallant Hood of Texas from West Point to Chickamauga". Thirty-fourth Annual Confederate History Symposium (Mar 2007).
- Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association, Member of Historical Advisory Board (2099 - Present)
- Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, member (2009 - Present)
- Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, member (2009 - Present)
- Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association, Member of Historical Advisory Board (2009 - Present)
- Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association, Member of Historical Advisory Board (2009 - Present)
- HARCS Personnel Committee, Member (2009 - Present)
- HARCS Personnel Committee, Member (2009 - Present)
- Senate Personnel Committee, member (2008 - Present)
- Information Technology Advisory Committee, Member (2004 - Present)
- Information Technology Advisory Committee, Member (2004 - Present)
- Information Technology Advisory Committee, Member (2004 - Present)
- Information Technology Advisory Committee, Member (2004 - Present)
- Provost's Research Advisory Council, Member (2004 - Present)
- Provost's Research Advisory Council, Member (2004 - Present)
- Provost's Research Advisory Council, Member (2004 - Present)
- Provost's Research Advisory Council, Member (2004 - Present)
- Graduate Studies Advisory Committee, ASU West, Member (2001 - Present)
- Graduate Studies Advisory Committee, ASU West, Member (2001 - Present)
- Graduate Studies Advisory Committee, ASU West, Member (2001 - Present)
- Graduate Studies Advisory Committee, ASU West, Member (2001 - Present)
- ASU West Historical Society, Faculty Advisor (2000 - Present)
- ASU West Historical Society, Faculty Advisor (2000 - Present)
- ASU West Historical Society, Faculty Advisor (2000 - Present)
- ASU West Historical Society, Faculty Advisor (2000 - Present)
- Military History of the West, Advisory Editor (1988 - Present)
- Military History of the West, Advisory Editor (1988 - Present)
- Association for Documentary Editing, member, local arraangements committee, annual meeting (2008)
- third-year probationary review, chair (2006 - 2006)
- ASU West Senate Personnel Committee, Member (2000 - 2006)
- Department of American Studies, ASU West, Co-chair (for the Division of History and Cultures) (2001 - 2002)
- ASU Regents' Professors Nominating Committee, Member (2000 - 2002)
- ASU West Council for Scholarly and Instructional Activity, Chair (1999 - 2002)
- ASU Committee on Naming of Buildings and Facilities, Member (2000 - 2001)
- Palo Verde: The Magazine of Student Writing at Arizona State University West, Faculty Advisor (1999 - 2000)
- Search Committee for professor of African American Studies, Chair (2000 - 2000)