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The opening · free to read
On May 5, 1917, I reported for duty at the Officers’ Training Camp at Madison Barracks, New York, with a commission as Second Lieutenant of Infantry in the Reserve Corps. My call to active duty had cut short my law course at Columbia University two months before I was to take my degree.
Having graduated three years before from the Virginia Military Institute, and served there a year as sub-professor of German and tactics, I had some idea of the fundamental principles of military training; but, like almost all the other reserve officers, army paper work and administration was a closed book to me.
A few days later I was told off to report to Capt. Haynes Odom, U. S. R., commanding Co. 5 of the 2d Provisional Training Regt. Capt. Odom was already conspicuous among the batch of reserve officers for his efficiency and tireless energy and industry. The tall, upstanding figure, with the mark of the regular army man indelibly stamped upon him; the head carried well back; the weather-worn, sun-wrinkled face, the hooked nose, cool hazel eyes; the smile that accompanied alike a friendly greeting or a merciless balling out; the soft Southern accent indescribably harshened by thousands of commands given--do you recognize the Major, boys?
The three long, hot, arduous months of training at Madison Barracks can be passed over briefly. My cot in the long frame barrack was next to that of a tall, lithe, black haired lad from Rochester, N. Y., with the merriest, keenest, black eyes I ever saw. Before a week went by he stood out above the average candidate. He was young, just twenty-one--I was at the venerable age of twenty-two. But he had the keenest, quickest, practical mind I have ever met, and the gift of natural leadership, which is compounded of courage, intelligence, unselfish sympathy, and a sense of humor. He had graduated from Cornell in 1916. Later you knew him as 1st Lieut. Louis Sinclair Foulkes, the best officer in “B” Company; the best officer it was my fortune to come in contact with during the war.
One of the training companies was organized as a cavalry troop. We saw them now and then being led in physical drill by a handsome, muscular young chap, so alive and vibrant with nervous energy that it was good to watch him work. He was Roy A. Schuyler, of Schenectady, a graduate of Union College, and a descendant of that General Schuyler whose record in the Revolutionary War makes so bright a page in American history. Brilliant, impulsive, generous, full of the joy of life, passionately eager to serve; he was a worthy descendant of a long line of fighting patriots.
In Co. 9 was an earnest, dignified, hard working reserve first lieutenant, one of the most capable of the reserve officers on the post. He was a prominent lawyer of Utica, N. Y., and one of the leaders in the Plattsburg movement. Though well over the draft age, he had given up his large practice and had gone into the service at the first call. This was Russell H. Brennan, the first commander of “B” Company.
At last our course drew to a close; the commissions were announced and we departed for ten days’ leave before reporting to Camp Dix for duty. Will we ever forget those ten golden August days? The world was ours, and life was sweet. No one knew what lay ahead, but we all made the most of our last taste of the old life for some time.
Most of you saw it for the first time when you rolled into the long train shed, and hiked up to your barracks through a mile or more of company streets, in a city of forty thousand men, the hundreds of large barracks already weatherbeaten with the snows and rains of winter.
We, however, after changing trains several times, finally rolled up to what was apparently a piano box in a lumber yard, and were there assured by the conductor that this was Camp Dix. We tumbled off, and trudged away through six inches of New Jersey dust toward the only building in sight with a roof on it--camp headquarters. Our bags became heavier and heavier; our new uniforms were fearfully hot; our new shoes and puttees, with which we had been dazzling admiring womenfolks and causing menfolk to grunt with assumed indifference, were abominably tight and pinchy.
Finally we straggled in to headquarters, to indulge for a couple of hours in that amusement so familiar to every man in the army--standing in line for an hour to do two minutes of red tape. When our turn was over, we went over to a partially completed barracks, where we were each allowed to appropriate 1 cot, iron. This was the limit of our accommodation--those who couldn’t get away to some nearby town slept on the soft side of a piece of bristol board. We walked to the ether side of camp for all our meals--about two miles, if you didn’t lose your way.
The next morning we attended a rollcall at 9 A. M. There we met Col. Marcus B. Stokes, the commanding officer; and Lt. Col. Edgar Myer, second in command. We found that the officers from Madison Barracks, Cos. 5 and 6, with half of the Troop formed the nucleus of the new regiment.
Capt. Odom was Regimental Adjutant and to my horror I was at once made Regimental Supply Officer. The following officers were assigned to “B” company:
Capt. Russell H. Brennan, commanding company, 2d Lt. Roy A. Schuyler, 2d Lt. Fred S. Fish, 2d Lt. Wm. D. Ashmore.
For a month the regiment went through the agonies of organization. Supplies came in by driblets; transportation there was none, save for two hopelessly over-worked motor truck companies, which put in half their time trying to separate their trucks from the sacred soil of Jersey. A great swarm of civilian workmen were toiling feverishly to get up the barracks. The regiment was moved four times in as many weeks. The roads were six inches deep in mud or dust.
The first enlisted men in the regiment were three former candidates at Madison Barracks, who, through no fault of their own, had not received commissions, but who wouldn’t leave the bunch, and enlisted in the regiment,--Dave Gardenier, Art McCann, and Jimmie Hooker. McCann and Gardenier were made regimental sergeants major, and Hooker was my regimental supply sergeant.
In about a week a number of men came in from various Regular Army regiments, to form a nucleus of N. C. O.’s. “B” company received Ertwine, Robbins, and J. M. Newell. These men were shortly afterward made corporals on recommendation of Capt. Brennan.
From Sept. 19th to Sept. 22d, the men of the first draft came in. As Supply Officer, my own troubles kept me pretty busy during those strenuous days. I knew “B” company, however, as a good outfit. Capt. Brennan’s steady, methodical, tireless work, and the energy and devotion of his three lieutenants showed results from the first. Lt. Fish, a former National Guard officer, was an old hand and steadied the younger officers.
After two months of hard work, the companies began to round out into some sort of shape. The non-commissioned officers were selected, with as much care as was possible in the limited time allowed for observation of the new men. The first top sergeant of “B” Co. was Eilert, a sturdy and sterling product of the first draft, who had been a foreman in a large factory. The “top” is, absolutely, the most essential man in a company. His position is such that he has to see to the carrying out of all the disagreeable orders, and making the details for all the dirty jobs, while at the same time he is not protected by any barrier of rank. He is usually cordially detested and thoroughly respected by the men, and is about as useful to the officers as a right hand. We never had a top in “B” Co. who was not absolutely loyal to the service and to the company commander; never one who shrank from the most disagreeable duty, nor who gave a thought to his personal popularity. They were human, of course, and made mistakes like the rest of us; and sometimes they couldn’t help being placed in a bad light to the men. But you men--some of you, even, who beefed most against the tops--if you only knew how many times that same top came to the company commander or other officers to help out this fellow or that, to suggest some way of making things easier for the whole company; if you knew how hard and thankless a job they held; possibly you would have been a little more lenient in your judgments.
James McC. Newell was the first supply sergeant, and got away with everything not nailed down. Samuel Tritapoe was Mess Sgt. until Lt. Wagner recognized his ability and took him for a regimental supply sergeant, and Warren Sculthorp succeeded to this thankless but highly important job. The other sergeants, as well as I remember, were Ertwine, Perry, Anness and Robbins. Joe Levy was soon drafted by Newell to make the accounts balance; Harold Sculthorpe started on his culinary career; Sweeney, Rogers, Tom Viracola, Howard Lehy, Hayden and Long Bill Reid were corporals. Sutton and Weber were detailed at the regimental exchange where they were a great factor in making it the best in the division. And last, but not least, deBruin was man of all work and plumber-in-chief. Red Sheridan also started his lurid career with “B” Co., and helped deBruin and “Bugs” Wardell to dispose of the vanilla extract rations.
Toward the middle of October, Lt. Foulkes arrived from Cambridge, Mass., where he had been sent for a special course in trench warfare. He was assigned to B Co., and remained as second in command until he was made battalion adjutant in July 1918.
Now started in the era of transfers. New drafts were constantly coming in; and as soon as we would get them uniformed and able to negotiate a “Squads Right” without losing each other, they would be drawn away to fill up some other division destined for overseas duty before the 78th. Not once, but a dozen times between September and May did this happen, leaving the company with its officers and a skeleton of N. C. O.’s, cooks and orderlies.
On December 6th, Capt. Brennan and I were interchanged, he taking over the Supply Company and I, “B” Co.
The winter wore on, and spring was upon us, and we seemed no nearer France than before. Changes took place in officers as well as enlisted men. Lt. Ashmore went to “A” Co.; Lt. Fish to the Supply Co.; 2d Lts. Dunn and Merrill and 1st Lt. Vanderbilt took their places with “B” Co. The time was filled with training and equipping the ever changing quotas of recruits and drilling them in fundamentals; for the training cadre of officers and N. C. O.’s there were special courses in bayonet fighting, bombing, trench digging--how many cold and weary hours were swallowed up in that trench system east of the regimental area!--and ever and always wind, mud and snow, or wind, sun and dust.
When the March drafts came in, rumors took a new lease on life. The 77th division was being equipped to leave Camp Upton; our turn would probably come next. The transfers went out now to fill up, not other divisions, but our own artillery regiments across the parade ground. Work on the target range was increased. Ah, the joys of being routed out of the hay long before daybreak, snatching a hasty breakfast, and hiking off through the cold dawn, five miles through the barrens to that wind-swept waste with the long rows of targets.
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