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This is for an amazing 105 year old letter, handwritten by an American Soldier from Crockett, Texas who was getting ready to come home. We cannot provide every word but here are parts of letter on various pages that made this letter so very interesting and rare! His father was the town doctor in Crockett from approximately 1890 to 1920 to 1925.
PAGE ONE - Received Yours (Momma), Papa's (father) and Bella's (sister) letters October 21st and anotehr on September 18th. Talks about how hard it was for him to get the letters in France as they were sent "registered" mail, so they had to locate him, and he had to provide proper I.D.
PAGE TWO - Said "Please tell Bella (sister) to write of any local news from home town, as well as public news. NOTE: Here is where he starts to speak of his war efforts on the front. "MY company is present right up at the front in a very live American Section. My duty is to get ammunition up to the guns and to the rifles and Machine Gunners. "Running Ammunition" it is called. It is very interesting and exciting work.
PAGE THREE - We run it up from the railheads and ammunition dumps by train roads, by trucks, by mule and horse and lately by man power. The little engines roll on narrow gauge railroads whose laying attests the speed and genius of the American Civil Engineers and the power of American labor. Tracks are laid overnight, they surmount almost impossible obstacles and creeks like spiders web. If a shell tears up the track, almost instintanousley a wreckers squad appears out of the night, there is quick, efficient work; the track is repaired and the ammunition goes on. The operating engineers are a great lot. Two nights ago a German Battery opened fire on a train I was rushing up to the live (frontlines). A number of huge shells burst through the woods just...(cont. page 4)
PAGE FOUR - (cont. from page 3)...ahead of us. The engineer stopped the train and turned to me: "The ammunition goes on?" I said ....The engineer said "I'll put her through hell if you say so Captain." He pulled his lever, we got through and got up in the small hours after jumping the track once. The railroad operators are all soldiers, and they love a wild job as the German Artillery does their d----t to get them. From the trains we run it by motor trucks. These drivers can put a truck to an almost ??? Battery. To every truck there are three drivers, so that if one is killed, another takes the wheel. At times we have to use pack mules and in the ???? the men carry the lighter stuff. Most of our work so far has been done.....(cont. page 5)
PAGE FIVE - ....(cont. from page 4)...at night, because it is impossible to move by day. I have been all over this part of France, up and down the live (this is what they called the front lines..."live"). and from front to rear and back again. Have been under shell fire, machine gun and aviator bombers, but so far have not been injured. Have only lost one man by gas. However, I had several narrow escapes......he continues to talk about events, several men being killed.
PAGE SIX - He talks more about events then starts this: "I am at this job for a while yet. I am not under fire from the German Rifles and light machine gunners nor do I stand any chance....(cont page 7)
PAGE SEVEN - ....(cont from page 8)...of mixing it with Bayonets or bombs. So you need not worry about me for a while. I have a gas mask and am an expert in gas having gone through several gasses without hurt, and I wear a steel helmet. Practically my only danger is from shapnel and shell, and I do not consider that much. I cannot get cought up over it like some men do, the first whiz bang that went over my head did not bother me because I was so wet and hungry that I would not have stopped aside for a king, now I take them as a matter of course, have been called down by one artillery major for what he called food exposure, but I considered it necessary at the time because I take good care of myself.
PAGE EIGHT - I have observed one remarkable thing about war. In civilian life and back in the back areas (back lines), it is every man for himself and the devil take the weak. HOWEVER up here at the front, there is a different spirit; there a soldier will give his last crust to a hungry stranger; a shivering man will give his coat on a chilled comrade, a weary man will add a weaker companies back to his own. It makes a man believe in the sublimit of the human character and in the divinity of the soul. Under the shadows of death, men drop their pettiness and greed and the common private rises to heights, and does it simply and without dramatics......(more of the talk of what's going on.)
PAGE NINE & TEN - The final two pages are him talking about men, the American men in the army with him and how they make him feel. Very good stuff!!
Incredible letter!!
NOTE: We have another letter for sale on eBay now from same soldier written on LAST day of WWI; so please see out other items for sale!
CONDITION - This letter is in really good shape considering it's 105 years old. Some damage on a few pages but NO major rips or tears that make it difficult to read and see information provided. This letter is amazing.
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