I had the great honor and privilege to have been in the last class he taught before he retired, a year long seminar in the Art of Biography, which consisted of 5 hand picked English Majors and 5 History majors, and we all traveled to his house on Thursday afternoons to dissect different biographies the first half of the year, and then have our own go at writing them the second. It was amazing, intimidating, and invigorating all at once. He was smart as a whip, cantankerous, and didn't hold back on his criticism (we all dreaded seeing the abbreviation "AWK" all in capital letters above our sentences that - truth be told - could have been done better).
There were accusations of plagiarism just before our class began. Two semi-morons, out to make a name for themselves, ran his books through some sort of computer program they'd developed and publicly announced that he had plagiarized his books. Well guess what? The reason his books had large sections in common with earlier works was because they were quoting the same sources. It was a major stink and tarnished his reputation. He came out swinging, and eventually the allegations were disproved. I can tell you that I've been to his house, I've talked to him at length, and I saw his room full of file cabinets, full of the notes he had for the different books he'd written. He didn't plagiarize anything!
One of the students he had before me was a guy from Hampshire College named Ken Burns (students from Hampshire, Amherst, UMass, Smith and Mount Holyoke can take classes at each other's colleges). Dr. Oates had the distinction of having been the man who taught Ken Burns the Civil War, and in Burns's documentary, Dr. Oates was one of the "talking heads" featured, and Ken Burns gave him the next to last word in the film. The documentary was aired for the first time after Dr. Oates had retired, and not long after I'd taken my class with him, but it was still a thrill to hear that soft Texas drawl expounding on Abraham Lincoln on my television!
I dropped him a note when my book on the Raiders came out, as he always requested that his students do after we'd taken his class. I definitely owe a lot of that book to him. Not only because of his training in the Art of Biography, but because when I went to publish it, "Gary" had absolutely no publishing background and no media presence - but "He" did have the not insignificant qualification of having studied with noted Civil War biographer Dr. Stephen B. Oates, a definite selling point!
Rest in peace, Dr. Oates. It is an honor to have been your student.