USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 24
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Brigadier General Guy Carleton succeeded O'Ryan as camp commander. Beginning in January he had the supervising, training, and reorganizing of seventeen "Pioneer" regiments of infantry, and three anti-aircraft machine gun battalions. He was charged with the organization and training of a proposed Slavic Legion, to be made up of "exiles" who wished to volunteer for service with the Allies. Congress authorized this step July 9, 1918. Ignace Paderew- ski was foremost among its advocates. Officers for the Slavic Legion had to be bilingual, and its enrollment was expected to be from 50,000 to 100,000. It never became really large, but was in existence when the war ended. General Carleton directed an ex- cellent officers' training school at Camp Wadsworth. In a single day this general administered the oath of allegiance to 2,700 foreign- born soldiers, "an incident without precedent in the history of any country," said the American Army Gazette.
"Pioneer" Camp Wadsworth was described in the Gazette as Regiments "the melting pot of the army in more ways than one." Before the departure of the Twenty-Seventh, draftees began pouring in not only from New York but from all sections of the United States for preliminary examination and assignment. The Twenty- Seventh Division left seven skeleton regiments of New York in- fantry at Camp Wadsworth and these were built up into "Pioneer" regiments, draftees mostly from New York filling their depleted ranks. Six other regiments of the National Guard-three from Massachusetts, and one each from Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut, were known as Pioneer infantry. Three new regiments were or- ganized and trained, made up entirely - except for officers - of drafted men. These sixteen units were used for replacement, or completion of bodies getting ready to go overseas.
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The Sixth The Sixth Division of the Regular Army was brought Division from Camp McClellan in Alabama for recruiting and intensive training and remained at Camp Wadsworth from May 10 to June 23, 1918, going from here to ports of embarkation for France. While at Camp Wadsworth this Division received additions of men from almost every State in the Union, and probably became even more genuinely cosmopolitan than the Forty-Second, the famed Rain- bow Division. It contained a number of South Carolinians, between forty and fifty of them from Spartanburg County.
Contrasts The three divisions trained here differed in their ex- periences. The Twenty-Seventh was one of the most active in the World War, winning glory on the Hindenburg Line; the Sixth spent forty days in the so-called "quiet sectors" in France, without participating at all in front line engagements ; and the end of the war found the Ninety-Sixth still in training at Camp Wadsworth, hop- ing to be ordered over at any time. The Twenty-Seventh was made up of volunteers from the National Guard; the Sixth had a nucleus of Regular Army men, and was completed with drafted men; the Ninety-Sixth was made up, except for officers and a few selected men from the National Guard, of draftees.
Beginning in July 1918, the greatest variety of material received by any camp streamed into Camp Wadsworth. Besides the first volunteers for the Slavic Legion, there were one hundred interned German prisoners-who were confined within a triple stockade of ten-foot pine poles heavily laced with barbed wire. British and French officers came over to train the men, and their uniforms added vivid color to the camp picture. There were full-blooded Cherokee Indians, and many Negroes. In the general mixup, North, South, East, and West were all represented. College graduates bunked with illiterates from the coal mines and mountains; and all of them found the experiment exhilarating. Into the melting pot they poured-thousands of Negroes from the Southern cottonfields ; hundreds of laborers from the North and West who spoke no Eng- lish, "Maine Heavies"-so-called because they had been in the heavy artillery-welcoming into their ranks the draftees from Minnesota; the historic Fifth Massachusetts National Guard, "whose very names would be a passport into any social circle," according to the Herald. The Minnesota men drew attention everywhere for their superb physiques-not one under six feet tall, by popular report, and all
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as straight as arrows. There were about 800 South Carolinians, the only natives of the State to train for any length of time at Camp Wadsworth. Large detachments came from North Carolina, Ten- nessee, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Texas. Between July 25 and August 12, 25,000 men departed to fill gaps elsewhere and as many new men replaced them. During that period the camp population probably did not at any time fall below 40,000. With all this coming and going, War Department officials highly commended the morale of Camp Wadsworth and made the state- ment, in October 1918, that there had been "fewer cases of deser- tion and fewer men absent without leave than in any other camp."
The constant coming and going created administrative problems for the medical, personnel, insurance, and quartermaster's depart- ments. Men arrived by the thousands in a day. A train would roll into the Fairforest siding, the men would step from it, pile into army trucks, and ride to camp. There everything must be in readi- ness for them-new kits, tents set up, cots in position, hot showers, and hot meals. They were held in quarantine ten days or two weeks, and were subjected to a rigid medical examination. Then they were fed into the army's hopper. An average of nearly 20 per cent failed to measure up to physical requirements and were sent home. The others began systematic training-drills, calisthenics, marches. Within two or three weeks they could spend eight hours a day at hard drill. It was estimated that two months thus spent - with trench work, bayonet practice, and sham engagements-would al- most transform a draftee into a seasoned veteran.
The camp was constantly being improved. A library with 6,000 users was in full operation in July. There had been a coal shortage in the winter ; now there was an ice shortage, for the local factories could not make enough ice to supply the demand. Guards of soldiers had to protect wagons delivering ice to the quartermaster or hospital. The outcome was that the camp had to build its own plant. The Federal Government expended $100,000 in insuring a water supply to provide for possible emergency. The Government, City, and County cooperated in repaving and improving the highways.
A Training Of all the changes and improvements at Camp School for Nurses Wadsworth, none was a greater source of pride than the Training School for Army Nurses, which was the first to be established in the United States. For it a two-story building was
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erected with the most modern equipment obtainable. The teachers were graduates of the best schools in the country, and the lecturers were selected from among outstanding physicians and surgeons. The projected course required three years, and the Surgeon General's office selected the students by the application of very rigid require- ments as to qualifications. This school opened July 24, 1918, with thirty-four students from sixteen States.
Entertainment Suitable entertainment for the thousands of sol- diers was always an unsolvable problem. Local efforts were earnest, but inadequate; volunteer entertainers traveled from camp to camp doing their best; the Y. M. C. A., the War Camp Community Ser- vice, and the Canteen Service gave concerts and weekly old-time parties. Dances were given every Saturday night at any available place, including Rock Cliff, which an organization of enlisted men leased and operated as a club house in which they could disport themselves at pleasure and reciprocate hospitalities. There were picture shows and vaudeville at the local theaters, but there was much complaint of them by the Commission on Training Camp Ac- tivities. There was a Hostess House in the heart of the camp with hostesses and a cafeteria, and sometimes on Sundays the guests numbered a thousand or more.
Plans for the Ninety-Sixth Division To clear the way for receiving the men who were to be drafted in October, the population of Camp Wadsworth was, during September, reduced to the small number of between 12,000 and 13,000 men. General Carleton received, October 9, his commission to organize and train the Ninety- Sixth Division for service overseas. Brigadier General William Wilson succeeded him in command of the Provisional Depot. This command was reduced to five of the Pioneer Infantry regiments, one anti-aircraft machine gun battalion, and an artillery corps park. For the Ninety-Sixth, two new regiments were organized by Sep- tember 24, the 381st and 382nd Infantry, for which officers were to be sent back from France. Plans were matured for building the new division to full strength as fast as draftees could be sent in. New York alone was to send 12,000 additional men, 5,000 for the Provisional Depot forces and 7,000 for the Ninety-Sixth, immedi- ately after the draft of October 7.
Influenza Then came the epidemic of Spanish influenza, which actually took a heavier toll of American lives than did the World
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War. Camp Wadsworth's exceptionally good hospital facilities en- abled it to show a better than average record in dealing with the epidemic; but things were bad enough, not alone in camp but also in the city and county. Nation-wide panic and quarantine regula- tions checked the expected inflow of draftees, so that the beginning of November found Camp Wadsworth with everything in readiness for 45,000 men who had been drafted and assigned to Camp Wads- worth, but with only 15,000 in camp. During early September there was diphtheria in Spartanburg, and Camp Wadsworth was rigidly quarantined. Up to October the daily bulletins of the camp reported its freedom from influenza. Even as late as October 14 the base hospital report stated that the "mild form of influenza prevalent for two weeks" was "not of the Spanish type." On that date, however, 600 cases of influenza were reported ; and on October 13, nine deaths occurred.
The city and county suffered much more severely than the camp, and a rigid quarantine was enforced. On October 18 the announce- ment was made that Camp Wadsworth was "free of flu." There were that day 66 new cases in the town, and emergency hospitalization was being arranged for. Every day brought its record of new cases and of deaths. No soldiers were seen in Spartanburg except the Military Police. By November 6 the epidemic in Spartanburg was believed to be over. The quarantine was lifted that day. The emergency hospital service was to be closed November 9. Sunday School and church services were resumed November 10, and the public school exercises November 11.
News of To add to the general cheer caused by this situation,
Victory news came from France of the glorious part played by the Twenty-Seventh and Thirtieth Divisions and of the prospects for peace. The men at Camp Wadsworth received the news with elation; but the moral certainty that now they would not be sent overseas made drill and camp routine distasteful.
At 2 a. m., November 11, 1918, news came by telephone of the signing of the armistice; at 2:46 the Associated Press wire to the Herald confirmed the news. Mayor Floyd was immediately noti- fied, and communicated with the Southern Railway train dispatcher and the fire department. At once, it seemed, every train bell, whistle, siren, and mill whistle in town burst into sound. By three o'clock the streets were thronged. Mayor Floyd in person rode a switch
CAMP WADSWORTH-SPRING. 1918
THE MOUNTED POLICE HEADED FOR DUTY AT THE ARTILLERY RANGE
CAMP WADSWORTH-WINTER, 1918
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THE YEAR 1918
engine up and down the tracks with his hand on the whistle. Bon- fires, parades, songs, flags, were everywhere. Kaiser Bill was burned in effigy on Morgan Square.
At half past four on the afternoon of November 15, a more orderly and solemn county-wide thanksgiving service was held in the Converse College auditorium. In all these celebrations the Six- tieth Pioneer band was permitted to lead the parade; but no other soldiers were allowed to join in. To their intense chagrin, the stu- dents of Wofford College, who had, October 1, 1918, with most im- pressive ceremonies, been mustered into the United States Army as a Students' Army Training Corps, were governed by General Carleton's ruling that soldiers could not join in the celebrations. On December 9 the Wofford students were demobilized, and because of the influenza epidemic and the necessity for reorganization, Wof- ford College suspended its exercises until January 1, 1919, when it was reopened "on a pre-war basis."
The Gloom of the The second winter at Camp Wadsworth pre- Second Winter sented an utter contrast to the first. After news of the armistice, the men at Camp Wadsworth were chiefly interested in getting home in time to spend Christmas with their fam- ilies, and were preoccupied with anxiety as to their jobs and business connections.
Leading citizens made unsuccessful efforts to induce the War Department to retain Camp Wadsworth as a permanent army post. Instructions were issued to demobilize the men at Camp Wadsworth as fast as practicable, but to keep the camp in readiness for the re- ception of men from overseas who might be brought here for de- mobilization. Spartanburg hoped that the Twenty-Seventh Division would return to their old training grounds. This was not to be.
On November 25 came the announcement that Camp Wads- worth was one of the seven camps to be used for the care of con- valescent soldiers; and Captain Robert A. Anderson of the Fifth Pioneer Infantry was ordered to organize there an Overseas Con- valescent Detachment. The first members-twenty-five wounded soldiers-arrived November 28, and were placed in the base hos- pital. Instructions were issued to retain at Camp Wadsworth ac- commodations for 15,000 men and to demobilize the troops already there as rapidly as conditions permitted. The 100 German prisoners, after eight months there, were sent to Fort McPherson, Georgia.
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The building program was checked. Men departed every day by the hundreds-even on some days by the thousands. Home for Christmas was their longing cry.
Last Days of Camp Wadsworth
On January 7, the few hundred men of the Ninety-Sixth Division not demobilized were formally transferred to the Second Development Battery, and the Ninety-Sixth passed into history. General Carleton was relieved of the command of Camp Wadsworth, January 15, and ordered to report with his chief of staff, Colonel J. F. Gohn, to Camp Kearney, California. Brigadier General Wilson succeeded to the post of camp commander. He had come with the Twenty-Seventh and had helped set up Camp Wadsworth; now he was expected to close it. An order dated February 3 provided for the demobilization of all units except the base hospital and the remount station.
The remount station was soon abolished also. Auction sales were held to dispose of the horses and mules. Spartanburg farmers and business organizations bought many of these animals at the auctions held at frequent intervals, but wholesale dealers from Atlanta and elsewhere got most of them at very low prices. The last 1,500 were shipped by the carload to Camp Lee in July.
On February 25, General Wilson underwent an operation at the base hospital and the duties of camp commander fell on Colonel Bates of the Regular Army, who closed official headquarters, March 25, 1919. With this action Camp Wadsworth passed into history.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Demobilizations and Memories
The 27th and On March 25, 1919, when Camp Wadsworth was 30th Divisions officially closed, the Twenty-Seventh Division, for which it was created, was making its victory parade down Fifth Avenue; and on that same day units of the Thirtieth Division in which many of Spartanburg's men served were arriving at Charles- ton, South Carolina. Attending the parade of the Twenty-Seventh as official guests were Governor Robert A. Cooper, Mayor John Floyd, the directors of the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce, and other Spartans. They had seats in the reviewing stand with Mayor John F. Hylan and Governor Alfred Smith. General O'Ryan and his staff and Governor Smith were urged in turn to be guests of South Carolina at the home-coming of the Thirtieth, March 31, but the mustering out of the Twenty-Seventh prevented their absence from New York on that date.
The Twenty-Seventh and the Thirtieth had been known overseas as The Blue and the Gray, forming together the Second Army Corps in France, and sharing the glory of shattering the Hindenburg Line. In a letter to General Lewis on the record of the Thirtieth, at the end of a review, January 21, 1919, General Pershing said, after sum- ming up its activities with warm commendations: "But its special glory will always be the honor you won by breaking the Hindenburg Line on September 29th. Such a record is one of which we are all proud." Within the week, Senator James Wadsworth of New York, in a speech on the floor of the Senate, describing the work of the Twenty-Seventh and Thirtieth in France said: "They stag- gered and shattered the strongest German offensive position in France, which resulted in crumpling that whole portion of the Ger- man line."
The Twenty-Seventh was essentially a New York division and there was never serious question as to where it should disembark and parade. It was different with the Thirtieth, which was made up of men from both Carolinas and Tennessee. Its men had sev- eral parades-none of the entire division. The South Carolina men paraded in Columbia, South Carolina, March 31.
The Hampton Guards Back Home Scores of citizens hastened to Columbia to greet the Thirtieth. A streaming headline in the Herald, March 29, proclaimed the arrival in Charleston of the
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Hampton Guards: DEBARKED, DELOUSED, DELIGHTED. With these words Charles Calvert, a son of Spartanburg, began his bubbling account, which described the joy of the returned heroes, ready, with their uniforms pressed, for the grand parade and then for Home. Two significant items shared front-page interest with Calvert's story : A list of the men of Company F who had died in France, and a portrait. The list included the following Spartans : Leroy Turney, who lived just below Arkwright on Roebuck, R.F.D .; Levi Butler, Tryon, N. C .; Smith J. Harvey, Pacolet ; Youman Z. Weeks, Orangeburg. Weeks, who once lived in Spartanburg, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The portrait was that of Gary Evans Foster.
Gary Evans Foster Spartanburg County was bursting with pride that
her Hampton Guards had in it one of the outstand- ing soldiers of the war. When he joined the Hampton Guards he was merely one of the 90,000 inhabitants of the county. True, he was no mere nobody-his great-great-grandfather, William Foster of Virginia, had fought in the Revolution and afterwards fought In- dians with Boone in Kentucky, moving later to Spartanburg District to live. His great-grandfather served in the War of 1812. His grandfather, William H. Foster, served throughout the War Be- tween the States. His father, William J. Foster, was one of John Gary Evans' campaign managers in his gubernatorial campaign, and when a son was born to the Fosters on November 6, 1894, the night when election returns showed Evans's election, Foster named that son Gary Evans Foster. A few years later, when former Governor Evans returned to Spartanburg to live, W. J. Foster took his name- sake to see him. According to the style of the period the little fel- low had on a dress with kilted skirt. It was the former governor's proud privilege, as he often boasted after his namesake rose to fame, to put Gary Evans Foster into breeches, buying for him the hand- somest suit to be found in Spartanburg.
Young Foster lost his father when he was seventeen years old, and grew up on his mother's farm near Inman. His education, be- sides what he acquired for himself, was received in the Victor School, three miles from New Prospect, and in a three months' course of study in Spartanburg as a telegrapher. He joined the Hampton Guards June 22, 1916, served with this Company on the Mexican border, and went with it overseas.
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A letter from Gary Foster to his family was published in the Herald of July 4, 1918, in which he said: "You know how you used to listen to Grandpa telling tales about the other war. Grandpa's tales are nothing to what I will have to tell you when I get back." He got back, and was interviewed in Columbia, South Carolina, March 29, 1919, by Charles Calvert, who-with the aid of Lieutenant James Schwing-wormed out of Foster an account of the incident which won for him a place on General Pershing's list of the hundred soldiers in the World War, and many medals and decorations. Prod- ded by Calvert he gave this description of his exploit :
I was about a hundred yards ahead of the company when I ran across a machine gun nest down in a ditch, which looked like an abandoned road. I had my rifle with me and told them to come on out and be captured. I think I killed three or four of the Germans, and the rest just came on out with their hands up crying Kamerad and some other German talk that I couldn't understand. I sent the prisoners on to the back of the lines and turned them over to the officials. That is all there is to it.
The official record credited Foster with killing three Germans and capturing twenty-five, single-handed. This occurred October 8, and Foster was detailed to an officers' training school at La Valbon, France, October 12, 1918. He left it about the middle of February to return home. He later refused a lieutenant's commission in the Reserve Corps because he wished to retain his freedom and had no taste for military life in itself.
At the time, and always subsequently, Gary Evans Foster re- fused to play the hero. He came home and was persuaded to enter Clemson College, but found the discipline irksome, the military features-for a man who had served in the American Expeditionary Forces as a bayonet instructor and a sergeant-farcical; so that, after six months at Clemson he went home to the farm. In 1922 he married Susie Trout of Fingerville. Shortly afterward he was induced to take a Civil Service examination for an appointment in the Spartanburg post office and has been ever since a valued member of the staff, having charge of the rural carriers. Twenty years after the end of the World War he told an interviewer: "I did no more or less than any other soldier would have done under similar cir- cumstances, and in my opinion no man is a hero for having per- formed his duty."
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James
When the Hampton Guards left Spartanburg, James
Schwing Schwing, who had belonged to the company eleven years, was first lieutenant. After arrival in France he was detailed to an officers' training school from which he returned October 6. On October 8, Lieutenant Schwing, with two other men, attacked a German machine gun post and broke it up. For this action Gen- eral Pershing decorated him with the Distinguished Service Cross. He was transferred, October 15, to command Headquarters Com- pany and was seriously wounded in an engagement October 17, so that he was in a hospital seven weeks.
Lieutenant Schwing was the only Spartanburg officer who com- manded Company F overseas, and he shared with Gary Foster the honors of the return. Captain Joseph Lawlor, of New Jersey, was in command of the company after November 16, but went to his own home after demobilization. Later he paid a visit to Spartan- burg and participated in the preparation of a valuable history of Company F.
A Home-Folksy The Hampton Guards left France on the S. S.
Dinner Mercury, March 15, and debarked at Charleston, S. C., March 27. They received a joyous welcome and lavish hospital- ity before proceeding to Camp Jackson at Columbia, where they were to be demobilized. There, March 28, they were for the last time deloused. The next day Company F had its final dinner, a lavish one, and thoroughly enjoyed by all the men, for there was a fund of $800 earmarked for food. The men had a bountiful and informal banquet, shared by many of their relatives who had gone to Co- lumbia to greet them. At this home-folksy meal they let them- selves gloat. They boasted that they had won a prize for being the best drilled company in their battalion, having scored 39 points, while Greenville, in second place, scored 21. The Second Battalion, commanded by Major Cecil Wyche, originally of Company F, had led all in the 118th Infantry. The 118th Infantry had won honors over all others in the division. They promised to show the public a few stunts in drilling.
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