George T. Desloge Reminiscences - 1880-1935
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[page 1] VOLUME II REMININCES OF GEORGE T. DESLOGE (Beginning with the year 1914, written in 1933.) and 1934.) and 1935.)
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[page 2] 1914 In April of this year there was another rumor of war with Mexico, and I have a clipping stating there was great excitement in the First Missouri Infantry. At this time I was still on the Staff of Col. Nelson G. Edwards as Assistant Inspector of Small Arms Practice; Arthur B. Donnelly was Lieutenant Colonel, Fred L. English was Captain and Regimental Adjutant, Frank J. Primavesi, later City Jailer, was Commissary, Stephen E.Lowe, later Colonel of the 138th Infantry and whom I have spoken of as having been in the Spanish-American War with Rene, Second Battalion, Major Leroy K. Robbins commanded the Third Battalion, Capt August R. Sauerwein, later killed as a Major in the 138th Inf., commanded Co C. Captain Edmund J. McMahon commanded Co. H, Fred A. Bottger, later a Battalion commander in the 138th Inf., was 1st Lt. of Co. M. There were many others but I am only mentioning a few of those who later became somewhat prominent. However in May Col. Edwards was retired on account of having reached the age of sixty-four years and Arthur B. Donnelly was elected Colonel. Colonel Donnelly immediately asked for the resignations of the entire Regimental staff, stating that that was customary and that he wanted to appoint his own staff, and he at once appointed an entire new staff composed of his own friends. It was with some reluctance that I resigned and in my letter of resignation I added the following paragraph:
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[page 3] country which might attempt to involve us in the war then raging in Europe. Their intentions were excellent, but unfortunately our government did not pay any attention to them, or to the advice of many others much better known, with the consequence that when we did get involved in the war we were not able to produce our own cannons or airplanes until after peace had been declared, and we had many men killed early in the war because of failure to properly instruct them while there had yet been time. Ignorance and unpreparedness cost us many lives. It is commonly known from current German records now available that they would never have thought of having let us be involved in the war if they had not thought that we were a nation of pacifists who would not fight, and whom they knew to be totally unprepared, even for home defense. I next met Barrett O
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[page 4] In the summer of 1914 my parents had rented a cottage at Douglas, Michigan, and Madeleine and our Richard, Jane, and Desloge Brown, and Marian with her three children (Campbells), went up to spend the summer with them. While Madeleine was gone I received notice from the owner of our flat that I would have to move at the end of the next month as he desired the flat to live in himself. I did not tell Madeline anything about it, but rented another flat at 3515A Humphrey St., had the furniture moved, arranged it anew with the assistance of Mrs. Stith, and then wrote Madeleine about it after it was all completed. You can imagine her surprise. Later I went up to Douglas for two weeks, and I have a picture of all of us, except our parents, sitting in a row boat just off the beach in front of the cottage. On December 10, 1914, John Mullanphy Desloge was born at 3515A Humphrey St., and was baptised in St. Pius Church, his god-parents being F. Evremont Hornsby and Lucina Denvir Hornsby. Jack was a pretty baby, with blonde hair cut in a bob and looked like a girl in his baby clothes. I can remember taking him walking in a
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[page 5] United States naval fleet in the harbor at Callao with many sailors ashore enjoying leave. Suddenly there was great activity as all officers and sailors were ordered back aboard ship. For two days all were kept in readiness for immediate action aboard their ships. The next day a Japanese fleet appeared off the harbor and halted, apparently looking in. Several hours later they turned and steamed off. The next day the sailors were ashore again on leave. This is said to have occurred during one of the several crisis we have had with Japan in which war was imminent through a surprise attack by the Japanese, but about which little has ever been printed in our papers. The Japanese are still protesting in 1933 because the U.S. keeps its Atlantic fleet continuously along our western coast, which is only for our protection. 1915. On April 25th of this year George Valle Bain was married to Clara Louis Gregg of Los Angeles, formerly of St. Louis [Missouri]. And on June 1st [1915] Madeleine and I went to two weddings in one evening, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. F. Evremont Hornsby. I remember going in an automobile to these weddings, but as I did not yet have one then I must have borrowed my fathers machine, which I did occasionally. First we went uptown to the wedding of Gerald Harney and Isabelle Cline at the Cline home, Fr. Francis O
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[page 6] The family had a garden on the block across the street where the church was shortly after built and Grandma Thatcher had a young colored girl, a slave, about fifteen years old, who was quite a tomboy, and this colored girl would take the children over onto the garden and when horse-cars would pass going west on O
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[page 7] There were several newspaper accounts which I have preserved telling of the celebration of the 100th birthday of Marie Reine Fusz, mother of Louis Fusz, who married my Aunt Josephine Desloge, at her son
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[page 8] was ordered to appear before a board at Jefferson Barracks for mental and physical examination. This I did and in January received a commission as
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[page 9] Not long before this the new Charter of the City of St. Louis [Missouri] had provided for an Efficiency Board to hold examinations for city appointments, and it was announced that an examination would be held for an appointment of a lawyer as head of the
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[page 10] 1917. This was the year the United States declared war on Germany, but as I want to keep all of that in one account I will mention other things first. During this year Mary Elizabeth Boyce died. She was the daughter of Octavia Mullanphy, and the half-sister of John O
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[page 11] true in America, where discipline, order, obedience and similar virtues are very much at a discount. I am sincerely hopeful militarism the world over will soon abate, but even were we to reach such a wished-for goal, I would still believe that training along military lines should remain a feature of our education. On [February 28, 1917] Cardinal Gibbons, of Baltimore, was quoted on the same subject as having said in an address at New Orleans:
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[page 12] In the meantime preparations were being made to open the First officers Training Camp at Ft. Riley, to be called the
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[page 13] because the students feel that they are always under supervision for weaknesses, they are in deadly competition with all the rest of the company not only for a commission but even to prevent being eliminated and sent home, and consequently all are keyed up to nervous tension that is very trying. It was also very trying on the instructors. In addition to every thing else, the temperature on those Kansas Plains averaged over 100 degrees day and night. Personally I went down to 117 pounds, stripped, and had to be passed on by a special medical board who approved me in spite of my being so far under weight. (I should have weighed over 130 at my height. However, as I shall tell of later, I went up to 145 pounds, the most I have ever weighed, when I had been two months at Ft. Sheridan [Illinois] where it was cool). I was also wearing a mustache that summer and it was so hot and I perspired so much I shaved it off for comfort. Although not a military expert, I had had considerably more military experience than the students, only a few of whom had been in military experience than the students, only a few of whom had been in military schools or in the National Guard, and I always felt satisfied with my work in instructing both at this school, and later, at Ft. Sheridan [Illinois], as I was always sympathetic to the trials of the students, encouraged them, and at the end of the school I felt that I had their respect and good will, and that I still have it. From the above you can see that there was not much social life in the post during that school period, though Mrs. Rivers, the wife of the post commander did give a tea for all officers once, and the students who lived in Kansas City [Missouri], or could afford to go, usually spent the week ends in Kansas City [Missouri], or their home if not too far. I used to spend my week ends around Jane
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[page 14] ten years old, learned Japanese fluently from living and playing with Japanese children, then went with his family to China and lived in Shanghai until he was about fifteen and learned Chinese fluently. I saw him after that war and he told me he had been sent to Camp Deming, New Mexico, and had become aide to a general, then when he got to France they had arbitrarily made him, then an Infantry Captain, commander. Then after the armistice they made him an interpreter at the peace conference in Paris. Then he studied law and settled down in Wichita, Kansas, on the staff of the local street railway system. His stories about Japan and China were very interesting. I have a clipping from the Sunday Magazine of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat for August 12, 1917. With a page article, and photos and colored picture, giving an account of the military experiences of John Mullanphy in the French Army and in the American War of 1812, and then telling about his descendants, John Robin Blacker and Anthony Vernon in the British army and George T. Desloge in the American army. Later there were many more American descendants of John Mullanphy in the American army, descendants through Count de Noue in the French army; and, on the other side, descendants through the Baron von Versen in the German Army. About this time the future Camp Funston [Kansas] was just beginning on the reservation east of the fort, and it later became one of the largest concentration camps in the country, but we had nothing to do with it at that time. There was however near the post a tent camp in which the 13th Cavalry was overnight turned into two field artillery regiments. And near that there was one of the few medical reserve officers training camps, but from all I could gather they did not learn much medicine there but were broken in to army life by drilling at first in elementary infantry drill, and it was comical to see sedate, fat, sometimes pompous, doctors drilling in the hot sun as rookies who hardly knew their right and left feet. The 1st Officer Training Camp at Ft. Riley [Kansas] was one of ten or more in various parts of the country, and all of the first series graduated a total of about 20,000 as officers. There were other such camps and schools later, both in this country and France, and the 5th series was just closing at the time of the Armistice. (Thurman Robinson, husband of Alice Hall, was graduated as a 2nd LT. of Artillery at Ft. Knox,[Kentucky], after the armistice in November, 1918) Altogether, something over 200,000 Reserve Officers served in the Army and possibly 25,000 in the Navy, during the World War. One of my experiences as a teacher at Ft. Riley [Kansas] was that of conducting a class in topography and map drawing. Not having had much experiences in it I soon began getting beyond my depth when I had passed the more elementary part that I knew, but I found that George Burnet, from Carondelet, was an experienced topographical engineer so I told him that as a great concession I was going to make him my assistant instructor in that subject. To my relief he made good from the start, and principally as a result of it he was graduated as a captain. Another experience I like to recall was that Capt Merchant knowing I had been an inspector of rifle practice in the National Guard and having been facetious on the subject, challenged me to shoot against him one afternoon at the rifle range after the company had finished, and while they were all looking on and listening. We shot ten rounds each at 500 yards and I beat him by 5 points out of a total of 50. On August 14th [1917] the school graduation was held, and some of those graduated, in addition to those I have already mentioned as being in the 7th Company were: (from St. Louis [Missouri]) Fred Armstrong, Manton Davis, James S. Nants, Frank S. Seever, Arthur Y. Wear, Atwell T. Lincoln, John J. O
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[page 15] It had already been announced that the two recommended as best instructors from each company were to be ordered as instructors at the 2nd officers Training Camp, and myself and Capt. Philip B. Van Cise received orders to report for duty at Ft. Sheridan,Chicago, [Illinois], for duty on August 26th. That gave us ten days leave so we each went home for ten days. When I got home the children did not know me as I had worn a mustache when I left and had now shaved it off. About that time Richard had been sick with scarlet fever, and all three had also had mumps and measles, and I think some of it was going on at the time. I enjoyed my visit home and then reported at Ft. Sheridan [Illinois]. This post was commanded by Col. James A, Ryan later general, but then commander of the 40th Infantry. I was assigned as an instructor to the 22nd Company with Capt. George G. Griggs, a lawyer then from Chicago Heights and formerly in the government service in the [Philippines]. I was senior to Griggs but they said he was to keep the company as the prior order would not be changed. There were 23 companies, two regiments, in this school, the first regiment being quartered in the post
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[page 16] on the naval dirigible
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[page 17] St. Viator
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[page 18] In an open space near their headquarters they had wired a fine large tree with colored electric lights and the regiment was assembled about the tree with their band playing Christmas hymns. I must confess I got very homesick. By way of contrast there was a snow storm the next morning, rather unusual there, and for about a week the weather was miserable. There not being anything to do at night we soon found our way to the Bonair Hotel, a fashionable place for people on their way to Aitken and Florida to stop on their winter migration, and again on their way back to the north later. There I met Mary Dee Jones, daughter of Breckenridge Jones of St. Louis [Missouri], and a debutante of that year, through Major Phelps Newberry, one of our Signal Corps officers. He was a son of the Senator Newberry from Michigan who was rejected by the Senate on account of his having been shown to have spent almost a million dollars on his election. I also went to visit some relatives of my wife
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[page 19] to heat our room. There was a covered porch around the entire building and we had to get a long stove pipe, make a hole in the window and continue the pipe out beyond the roof of the porch. I noticed that the porch was getting black with something under the pipe, and on examination we found that the green pine wood we were burning, in combination with the long stove pipe through the cold air, was distilling liquid turpentine and it was dripping on the porch. In the canvas tents of this camp it was also discovered that although the green pine knots made a fine fire in the tent shaped sibley tent-stoves so many sparks blew out the little chimneys that the tents were becoming like sieves from the multitude of little holes burned in them by the stoves. So they started burning coke in the stoves and put wire covers on top of the stove pipes. The holes in the tents were patched with small duck patches put on with glue or rubber cement and some of the worst were funny looking. We also had a fire in some tent every few days. Once, our camp was suddenly quarantined when a man was discovered with measles and there was great excitement because some officers wives could not get out, and some officers who had been out when the guard was put on could not get in, until camp headquarters had to straighten it out. We had a number of quarantines for different contagious diseases, but finally, instead of quarantining every one, only the tent-mates of the sick men were sent to a quarantine camp for two weeks, while the sick man went to the hospital. I will tell later of the big influenza epidemic. During all of these scares and epidemics while I was in the Army I always had the feeling that I would never catch anything, (I never did), and I would even help carry out men taken with meningitis, considered the worst disease and most contagious, from tents in my own companies at various times without even thinking of the contagion. I have read lately of Augusta, [Georgia], and I remember going downtown, to church at a very nice building with a school and sisters
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[page 20] Sometime during March (1918) the whole Motor Mechanics camp was moved to Camp Greene, at Charlotte, [North Carolina]. We moved on several sections of trains and it took us all day to make the trip. We had a number of chair cars on our long train for the enlisted men, with a Pullman for the officers, and at the end of the train was a freight caboose, and as I had nothing to do all day except be present at my company at meal times I spent most of the day sitting in the cupola on top of the caboose looking at the scenery along the way. At several of the towns we passed through the train stopped for a short time and delegations of women from the Red Cross and other organizations would meet the train and give the men cake and lemonade, or cigarettes and candy. At one town, the name of which I have forgotten, one young woman was giving away a number of old magazines and our officers were much amused because to one of our captains, who was elderly and rather old maidish, and really a school teacher in civil life, she insisted on presenting with a magazine and when we had settled down after the train went on it was discovered she had given him the
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[page 21] For about two weeks several of us were detailed temporarily with the Casual Detachment of the Fourth Division and there I had command of the 11th Company, and then went back to the 4th M.M. Regt., Signal Corps, and had Co. No. 9 for some time. This was the only the only time I was attached to any Division during the war. A Division consists of two Infantry Brigades and an Artillery Brigade. A brigade is comprised of three regiments. Charlotte [North Carolina] is a nice town, larger than August, [Georgia], and is said to be the best business city in that part of the South after Atlanta, [Georgia]. It had one brick Catholic Church of some size, but I believe only 15 Catholic families in the parish, and catholics were rather rare. I was told that some time previously there had been at Camp Greene [North Carolina] a New Hampshire National Guard Regiment which had been almost entirely French Canadians and almost all Catholics and the Charlotte [North Carolina] had been astonished at the number of Catholics. They had their own Catholic Chaplain. At this time the Charlotte people were still talking about how much they had liked the boys of the National Guard Regiment from the State of Washington. In May I had leave of absence for ten days and went home to see my family. I do not remember much about this trip except that in going back I stopped over between trains and looked around in Nashville, [Tennessee]. Then about the first of July it was announced that there was a ship ready for us and we got all ready to move to Norfolk [Virginia] to go overseas. I think I even wrote a letter home telling Madeleine goodbye. However just as the regiment was packing a telegram came from Washington stating that no Infantry officers were to be taken with the regiment, but only Signal Corps officers, so eleven of us infantry officers were transferred out and left behind, notwithstanding we were all company commanders. In the mean time I had been appointed judge-advocate of a General Court Martial and we had been trying a number of men from the 4th Division who had gone AWOL (absent without leave) or had actually deserted because they were afraid to take the ocean trip or were afraid they would get service in actual battle. I also remember prosecuting two men, one only 17 years old, who had deserted and then held up a country store about fifty miles away. They were given stiff sentences, but unfortunately, from my standpoint, the 4th M.M. Regt., with the President of the court and the stenographer who took the testimony left immediately after the hearing, and notwithstanding several months correspondence about it I was never able to get the testimony written up of the result of the trial signed by the President of the Court, and the convicted men remained in the stockade, were never sentenced, and were eventually released. The 4th Division now being gone, the leaving of the 4th M.M. Regt. left Camp Greene [North Carolina] almost bare of troops where there had before been from 20,000 to 30,000. Except for some quartermaster troops there was left only Casual Camp No. 1 with about fifty men who had been rejected for overseas duty on account of failure to pass physical examination, two companies of men undergoing venereal treatment, (about 250 men, and not allowed to work), a few men in quarantine, and about 75 prisoners in a wire enclosed stockade or prison. This was one time when I got into trouble by being talked in to something. Besides the few men in Casual Camp, there were about 1800 more men carried as belonging to that camp who had been furloughed home indefinitely to work on their farms where it had been shown that was necessary for the support of their families and in order to increase that grain output of the U.S. for the furtherance of the war. When we were sent to Casual Camp No. 1 there was now a total of about 20 Infantry officers there, and I happened to be the senior in date of commission although most of them were captains. Under an article in the Articles of War and officer ordered to any unit who was senior to the officer then in command of that unit could assume command of the unit. A Capt. Bernard Gleason, one of the number of us originally from Ft. Sheridan [Illinois] persuaded me to issue a general order for our camp by which I assumed command of Casual Camp No. 1, and appointed
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[page 22] Capt. Gleason as my Adjutant, displacing the then casual camp commander and his adjutant. If I had first consulted Col. Kennon, the Camp commander it might have been alright, but I did not do so and merely took advantage of my military-law rights and assumed command. Col. Kennon I learned later had previous been a Brigadier General but demoted for some inefficiency at some other camp. Now as I said before there were very few men left in the camp to do the necessary work in even policing the camp and keeping it in good order, the few men available for military duty we had to arm with borrowed rifles, (none of the units left being armed), in order to furnish armed guards for the prison stockade and the quartermaster and ordnance warehouses, etc. and even they had to go on guard almost every other day, which was also against regulations, that is putting men on 24 hour guard at such short intervals. In consequence not only was our own casual camp swamped in trying to keep up with this work, in addition to all the clerks we had to put to doing paper work, but the whole camp began to get dirty and look bad and some inspectors were undoubtedly
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[page 23] When I returned to duty with Co. B, 810th Pioneer Infantry, on October 10th[1918] I found that all the captains in the regiment had been before a promotion board to fill a vacancy as major in the regiment, and that they had chosen Donald Durant and he was now my new battalion commander. I always felt he had been more or less hand-picked by Col Kent, commander of our regiment, as he had been adjutant of our regiment under Col Kent and although a smart man he had little military knowledge or experience compared to a number of the others. He had been a captain under me when I commanded the Casual Camp and at that time he was a great
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[page 24] men to a tent, made the street seem very long, and a regiment of over thirty five hundred men in one regimental tent camp looked like, and had the population of, a small city. As I said before I liked serving with the negroes; each officer had a personal orderly who did nothing but look after him, and the orderlies liked their jobs and their officers, and not only because it took them out of other work; the men were always singing and joking and there was always something funny happening. Even marching on the road in practice marches, (and even there I had some take off their shoes and walk barefooted because they liked it better than shoes), there was always a bandying of negro
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[page 25] private who had been drafted from Louisiana, and who incidentally spoke French. Practically all the black men I had were drafted from North or South Carolina. Another thing that interested me was to come out before the company one cold, rainy, dark morning, shivering, dripping and half awake myself, to find myself looking into the faces of three hundred morose black savages waiting for reveille roll-call to begin, the only white man in sight. In imagination I might have been in a barbaric jungle, as the men were in wet dark ponchos with largely only their eyes and teeth showing, and it was an eerie feeling, but in a few minutes, after the platoon sergeants had reported their platoons to the first sergeant, the weather had begun to lighten, the mess call for breakfast began to blow, and the men fell out happily to get their mess kits, and were laughing and talking, the illusion passed. After I get all through writing this many interesting incidents will occur to me and I will wish I had thought of them while I was doing this writing, as has already occurred since I finished the first installment of these reminisinces, but as I have to write largely from memory twelve years afterwards I can only push on in hopes of getting finished sometime without forgetting too many things I might have said, or might have said better. There was lots of criticism of the colored soldiers who saw front line service in the war, that they were unreliable and often cowardly especially where they had colored officers, but I have always felt differently about this company and regiment, and I felt that they would have willingly followed their white officers under fire. This was a pioneer regiment, which meant that they would have to do much front line trench digging and road repairing under artillery fire and probably machine-gun fire in or near the frontlines, much as the European system of pioneer troops which were much like our combat engineers, but it was also an infantry regiment and able to function as such. As I told before, the infantry formation of a company was then four platoons, 250 men, (whereas before the war a company was only three platoons and 150 men, and now (1933) three platoons and 200 men) and we had six officers to a company. My second-in-command, or executive officer, was 1st Lt. William D. Bell, then, in order as platoon commanders, 1st Lt. William D. Bell, then in order as platoon commanders, 1st Lt. William S. Campbell. 1st Lt. Warren L. Green, 2d Lt. Willis H. Golden, and 2d Lt. Robert C. Baker. Bell came from somewhere in the South, and Green told me one day he lived in Newark, New Jersey, across the street from the Mr. Tumulty who was secretary to President Wilson. The four last had been sergeants in National Guard regiments before they were sent to an officers training camp that had been commanded by Col. Kent, and he had asked for the graduates of this camp when he found he was to become colonel of our regiment. Although they were not commissioned until August, 1918, some of them became 1st Lieutenants almost immediately, whereas some of my students from [Fort Riley, Kansas] and [Fort Sheridan, Illinois] who were commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in 1917 saw overseas service in the trenches and in many battles and were discharged in 1919 without ever having had a promotion, because promotions were generally very slow in France. Finally on November 11th [1918], just as our men were all about fully recovered from the effects of the
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[page 26] officers furloughs for short periods in order that they could go home and see their families. When I started the company I had only one man, Paul Ecans, who had ever had any military experience before and he was acting first-sergeant for some time, but I afterward made a man named Daniel Ury first-sergeant. Evans had been a private in the 25th U.S. Infantry, a colored regiment. The man I liked best was James Pointer, whom I put into the responsible job of supply sergeant, and on his discharge I put a recommendation that he was qualified for a commission as second lieutenant in the event of another war. He is the only negro I ever made that recommendation for. There were three or four negroes in Camp Greene [North Carolina] who had commissions as officers in the Quartermaster Corps and were serving with labor battalions, but none of the white men saluted them, and very few of the negroes unless they had to when one of them spoke to him. Stephen H. McQuillan was mess sergeant, the next most responsible job, and I had about eight more sergeants and twenty corporals. Only about twenty of the company were able to read and write, though some of the sergeants and corporals were good men even without that, and it was hard to find a man qualified to act as company clerk. Finally we discovered two young negroes who had been to high school and could write a little on the typewriter, but as soon as regimental headquarters discovered it they promptly promoted them to the adjutants office. Those who could read and write passed the psychological (intelligence) tests with a grade of average, and one sergeant was even superior, but in the test for illiterates about half the company were graded as inferior. However they were not at all stupid and learned quickly anything demonstrated to them which they could see and copy. Perhaps they are like the coolie Chinese of whom it is said that starting from a grading of almost zero they can rapidly be turned into good soldiers by white officers, and with their millions of populations it has been said that if the Chinese ever have to become war like they can, not improbably, become a
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[page 27] Pearly Kirby, Eclessous Martin, Ivory Moore, Major Purifoy, Professor Vinson, and General Williams. I also find from looking at my old records that I only had one man desert during the whole period of the company; though I did have eight die within two weeks of flu. When I was telling about the flu epidemic before, I forgot to tell that our dead men were handled by contract by an undertaker in Charlotte [North Carolina], and as he had bodies come in in a regular avalanche at one time the following story is not unbelievable. One of our company commanders having found that one of his dead men had been tagged with another man
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[page 28] I don
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[page 29] of these was brough up in the lord so he is seen to them geten back so they home a better man will make a better citzins in they town. i no is brough a lots of men from they triflen ways and made them keep clean and shave up and keep clean so that was a great blessen to them so they can go home and say they love the army life and they offices that thad them in charge. compose by pvr. John walker. co. b. 810. p. to capt Geo T Desloge commander of 810.p. co. B. *********** If Private John Walker is still living I can only hope that he has the good ending that he has hoped for me. While I am, quoting from letters I am going to give the following General Order issued by our Colonel as I imagine it is not unlike orders of the same kind issued by many other commanders whose regiments were being disbanded at that time; ***** Headquarters, 810th Pioneer Infantry, Gamp Greene, [North Carolina] December 14, 1918. General Orders) No. 19) 1. The 810th Pioneer Infantry will cease to exist in a few days. 2. The regiment has a record second to none for discipline and results accomplished. I have heard, both directly, many comments upon the regiment, all in praise of it, many expressing surprise at the results accomplished in such a short time. 3. No one, who has not been intimately associated with the regiment, can fully appreciate the hard, earnest work which has been necessary to make this record. Officers and men have worked long and tedious hours with a cheerful enthusiasm which has been inspiring to all. The spirit of the regiment is shown by the fact that the disorganization and confusion incident to demobilization has not lowered the discipline in any way. 4. Every officer and enlisted man has reason to be proud of our organization. I have, in my twenty years of service, served with many regiments but with none in which I have taken as much pride or from which I regret as much to part as I do this one. [William] A. Kent. Col., 810th Pioneer Infantry. ******* At the time the above was published each company had only a few men left in it and the officer were either receiving orders for transfers to new duties or were packing up to go home where they had made application for early discharge on account of circumstances at their homes. In the mean time we had been taking in the government property which had been issued to the men and which they were not to have the privilege of taking home with them, as for instance each man was allowed to take a complete outfit of uniform, shoes and underwear. Besides some of the equipment, tools, etc., which was issued directly to the company, and for which the company commander was directly responsible, under certain rules of the army system certain clothing and equipment are issued directly to the men and they sign a card acknowledging its receipt, and when the property is called in the man has to pay out of his monthly pay for whatever is missing. As the time approached at which the men were to turn in their property they were warned that unless they took good care of it someone who was short, especially from other companies or regiments, would try to make up their own shortages by stealing from them. Several days before this all the rifles and pistols issued to the companies had been taken up and
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[page 30] we had no arms with which to guard our property, and even the regular regimental guard around our regimental area was walking guard with clubs instead of rifles. But when I suggested that for our own protection we would have a company guard around our own company area practically the whole company volunteered to go on guard duty so I had no difficulty in picking good men. This went on for about two and a half days, and even each squad kept one man continually on guard in its own tent, so that our company had practically no losses from theft at this time, and the losses previous to that time were very small and none of my men had to pay as much as a dollar for anything they were short, and when I settled for the whole company I had to pay only about 25 [cents] for a part missing from a pack carrier. This was not done however without some excitement and some fights. Many men from other companies were run out of our area, even on suspicion, and one night there was a commotion, quickly quieted, and the next day I found that a man from an adjoining company had been discovered in one of our tents and that before he had gotten away one of my irate privates had cut him badly in the back. However no man reported to the hospital for treatment, no complaint was made by anyone, and the incident seemed to be closed. Another excitement that might have had painful and costly results for me was that when I sent Lt. Campbell, my company supply officer, to the ordnance warehouse to turn in 300 rifles packed in chests he came back much disturbed and told me the rifles had been duly checked in after being counted and he had received his official receipts, but he took it for granted they were correct and was astounded when he got a block away to find that he had receipts for only 200 rifles. When he rushed back they laughed at him and told him he should have made his complaint at the time he received the receipts, that it was too late now, that they would not admit any mistake or responsibility on their part, but that after the rifles for the whole regiment had been turned in it was found that there were 100 rifles over they would then correct the mistake, if any. Now rifles cost $18.00 each, and as I was responsible for this 100 rifles I might have had to pay $1800.00 in cash for them. For several days I was the recipient of a great deal of kidding from the other officers, but a final count of the rifles turned in by the regiment showed an overage of 100 and Lt. Campbell was right on hand to get his missing receipt. On December 17th, 1918, orders were received transferring me and some other officers of our regiment to Development Battalion No. 1, and I reported for duty on December 20th [1918] and was assigned to command of 1st Company. That was not a bad assignment; the Development Battalion was an organization something like the Casual Camp I had commanded before, and incidentally it was on the same location, except that the men in it were supposed to be taking corrective exercises and instruction for some physical or other disability which was preventing them from being sent home. However it had one drawback, it was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel A.E. Wilbourn, the only other Regular Officer in our regiment beside Col. Kent, and at one time the only two Regular officers in Camp Greene [North Carolina], and I had never liked Lt. Col. Wilbourn, a Cavalryman, and having the reputation of making it hard for anyone who did not
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[page 31] I also have several clippings telling about Lt. Col. Levi G. Brown, one about his being
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[page 32] Angela Burdeau graduated from Maryville in 1913, and from Washington University in architecture in June, 1918. Louis Desloge was graduated from St. Louis University in 1907, and in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1911. Frank Denvir after graduating at 1st officers Training Camp at Ft. Riley [Kansas], had been sent to Ft. Sill [Oklahoma], where he was 1st. Lt. in the 127th Field Artillery, and there he was married on June 20th in the post chapel to Miss Kathleen Carney of Grinnell, Iowa. They had met on the train when Kathleen was going to Ft. Sill [Oklahoma] to visit her brother serving as an officer at that post. Harold Stith, early in this year, together with Gus Tuckerman, after their graduation from Cleveland High School, had entered a preparatory school for the navy, being promised commissions when they graduated, but when that happened they were told they were too young, and served for over a years as quartermasters, a special non-commissioned grade, (quartermasters in the navy having to do with navigation of ships, and not with property and supplies as in the army). They served on ships on the Great Lakes, on destroyers (small boats for destroying torpedo boats), on the Gen. Washington a transport, and on signal duty at the entrance of the harbor of Brest, France. I have a picture of us taken together in the back yard of the house at 6340 Viginia Ave. I also have a picture of Richard and Jack in little khaki uniforms and little Madeleine, aged about two, in a Red Cross uniform, all of them looking very cute. Another picture of Martin Gardner, Sr. and Richard on the front steps in their uniforms, and I have some where a picture on his first public school picnic for Carondelet schools as they paraded out Loughborough Ave. 1919. The company I had in the Development Battalion had a permanent First Sergeant, Supply Sergeant, mess sergeant, several corporals, two cooks, a company clerk, and about twenty men, whom the Government was not ready to discharge. In addition men arriving at the camp every day from overseas and from other camps were assigned temporarily, any where from ten to fifty men at a time, until they could be discharged or forwarded to other states for discharge. These latter men I had to house and feed, have them physically examined, prepare their discharge papers, get them paid, and take them to the train. When the men went home they were allowed one complete uniform and change of underwear, but they always had some personal belongings, war souvenirs, etc., with them and one of the interesting duties I had to perform was examine their barracks bags to see whether they were taking home only the allowed article. Frequently I found they were trying to take everything in sight, especially blankets, but it was too late then to do anything about it except take them away from them, threaten them with prosecution, and send an officer or corporal with them to see them actually on the train. In this way there, being a continuous string coming in and going out. I have my name on the discharge certificate of possibly 800 men with whom I had only this brief contact. The supply Officer of the Development Battalion was a Capt. O.D. Longstreth, from Little Rock, [Arkansas], who had been under me in the same position when I had had the Casual Camp, and he had asked me to join him on the afternoon of [January] 1 [1919] in a horseback ride with some of the nurses from the Base Hospital. Longstreth sent over for me the best riding horse he had in his stables but did not tell me of its peculiarities, that is that it was a western horse and usually bucked when first mounted. Moreover the ground was frozen hard. When I started to mount and had my left foot in the stirrup and my right leg passing over the saddle the horse suddenly bucked under me and the horn of the saddle struck me in the solar plexis and knocked me temporarily unconscious, and I found my self lying on my back with a small bump on the back of my head which was slightly bleeding. I got up and mounted and went riding with the party, but the time I got home
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[page 33] I had a large lump the size of a small watermelon in the small of my back. This gradually got sorer and finally on [January] 7th [1919] our battalion infirmary medical officer sent me to the Base Hospital He told me I had a severe hematoma (really a large blood-blister) in the sacro illiac region, and that I needed care so that the blister did not break and probably become infected and give me blood poison, and also to have X-rays taken of my back to see whether the sacro illiac region had been injured so as to separate the pelvic bones from the spine, as this would be serious even though it did not develop into some years later. So I rode to the hospital in an army ambulance and spent two pleasant weeks on my back, protected by an air cushion, doing nothing, except that during the latter part of the time I used to spend part of the day gossiping with a number of other officers practically all of whom had been wounded overseas and were undergoing treatment or operations before they were allowed to go home. When I got back to my company I found it had not been doing well in my absence, under a second lieutenant, and moreover I still had some difficulty in walking freely as I still had a large lump on my back, as the swelling was going down only very slowly, so when I found out I could get my discharge and go home if I asked for it, I put in my request to be discharged. This came through promptly, stating I would be discharged on January 300th [1919], so I began getting cleared of all my property accountability and turned over my company to a Capt. Ernest A. Jensen. I also had to be examined physically and go through the usual formality of signing a written statement for the medical examiners stating that I was in good physical condition and released the Government from any responsibility, althat was really not a fact and I still had a large black bruise plainly visible on my back. However if I had not signed they would not have let me go. So about noon of [January] 30 [1919] found me at the station in Charlotte [North Carolina] boarding the train for St. Louis [Missouri]. I think my family were glad to have me back, but at any rate I was glad to be home again. Shortly afterward I went back to my office in the building at 722 Chestnut St., (then called the Liggett Building, now the International Office Building), where I had been with E. C. Slevin and E.V.P. Schneiderhahn. I do not know whether I had mentioned before that the office building had allowed me to keep my furniture in my room during all that time without rent, but everything was as I had left it. The Law Library Association and the St. Louis Bar Association had also remitted all dues for the period of the war to their members. I have a clipping telling of a smoker given by the Bar Assn. to welcome back those members who had been in the war, on April 21st [1919], and it states that among those welcomed back and who made short talks were: Capt. Wilbur B. Jones, Major William H. Coske, Lt. Walter R. Mayne, Lt. E.A.B. Garesche, LT. William C. Eliot, Lt. R.J. Kratky, Capt. George T. Desloge, Lt. Christy M. Farrar, Lt. Henry S. Glieck, Lt. Herbert F. Hahn, Capt. George D. Reynolds, Lt. A.R. A. Garesche, Lt. James F. Zipf, Lt. Scott Seddon, Lt. M.E. Boisseau, Private Burr S. Goodman, Private Jesse W. Barrett, and Seaman Thomas R. Reyburn. I remember making a short talk on the differences between military law and civil law. A list of those deceased in the war was also read: Lt. George D. Harris, Capt. Clarence H. Schnelle, and Lt. Richard Anderson. There were also others not yet returned, as the 138th Infantry and the 128th Field Artillery had not yet returned to St. Louis [Missouri], and some others were detained in France for some months later. Shortly after I got home I also received a reappointment as Captain in the Infantry Reserve, Army of the United States. Shortly before I came home Madeleine had deposited one of my pay checks from the Army in the Meramec Trust Company and shortly thereafter the Bank, (at Meramec St. and Virginia Ave.,), had closed its doors on account of some peculations of an officer. About a year later she got a small part of it back but lost the rest. I have a clipping stating that on March 17, 1919, General Count Sixt von Arnim, commander of the German armies in Flanders during a large part of the war, had been beaten to death by peasants on his estate at Each, Bohemia. He was a relative of the Baron George von Arnim who married Hulda von Versen, the daughter of the Baroness von Versen, who had been the Alice Clemens, a Mullanphy descendant, whose death I told about back in 1912.
Details
| Title | George T. Desloge Reminiscences - 1880-1935 |
| Creator | Desloge, George T. |
| Source | Desloge, George T. Reminiscences. 1880-1935. George T. Desloge Reminiscences. A0379. Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. |
| Description | George T. Desloge was a native of St. Louis, Missouri who was born on November 5, 1880 into a very prominent family. He was in the National Guard of Missouri and a Veteran of the Spanish American War and WWI. In this original typescript two volume book Desloge described his experiences as an instructor at the Officers Training Camp at Ft. Riley, Kansas, Ft. Sheridan, Illinois, Camp Hancock, Georgia, and Camp Greene, North Carolina during World War I. Desloge also described his experiences as the commander of Co. B, 810th Pioneer Infantry (African American unit). |
| Subject LCSH | Barracks; Camp Funston (Kan.); Draft; Gas, Influenza; Military commissions; Military discharge; Soldiers--Billeting; United States Army. Infantry Regiment, 138th; United States Army. Signal Corps; United States. Army--Uniforms; World War, 1914-1918--Afri |
| Subject Local | WWI; World War I; Students Army Training Corp; Racism; Slavery |
| Site Accession Number | A0379 |
| Contributing Institution | Missouri History Museum |
| Copy Request | Transmission or reproduction of items on these pages beyond those allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the Missouri History Museum: 314-746-4510 |
| Rights | The text and images contained in this collection are intended for research and educational use only. Duplication of any of these images for commercial use without express written consent is expressly prohibited. Contact the Missouri History Museum's Permissions Office at 314-746-4511 to obtain written consent. |
| Date Original | 1880-1935 |
| Language | English |