THE UNIVERSITY IN WAR TIMES
Michigan has had a most honorable record in the three wars in which the
country has been engaged since the first class was graduated. Though two
of her early graduates were veterans of the Mexican War, it was not
until the Civil War that the opportunity came to show what kind of
citizens of the Republic were in the making in this pioneer State
University. The catalogue of 1864 lists only 999 graduates. Yet the
number of Michigan men who served in the Civil War was within a few of
2,000. This number of course includes many students who left never to
return and many who entered the University, particularly the
professional schools, in the years immediately after the war.
Practically half of the members of the classes of '59, '60, '61, and '62
served in the war, and '62 alone lost seven members out of twenty-two in
service. The college men of the sixties were no less ready than their
grandsons in 1917.
Feeling ran high in the University during the period just before the
Civil War. The students were nearly all strong and vigorous products of
pioneer life, good hunters and rifle shots, with a love of individual
liberty and free speech. Many were studying for the ministry.
Anti-slavery sentiment was all but unanimous, except for the one or two
students from the South, but few could be called out and out
abolitionists. It is difficult nowadays to understand the sentiment
which led to the mobbing of an abolitionist speaker, Parker Pillsbury,
some months before war was declared. He knew from personal experience
that the South was arming and came to urge the citizens of the North to
prepare for the struggle. Yet when he attempted to speak in Ann Arbor a
mob collected and would have none of his advice; they stormed the little
Free Church on North State Street, driving audience and speaker out of
the rear windows and gutting the building. Similar troubles were
threatened when Wendell Phillips was advertised to speak on abolition a
month or so later. In view of the first experience, there was great
difficulty in finding a hall, but finally the trustees of the old
Congregational Church decided that if the building "must be razed to the
ground, let it go down in behalf of free speech and the great cause of
liberty." The class of '61 also decided that free speech must be
protected, and on the appointed evening was present in force with
hickory clubs, twelve members in front and more scattered about inside.
While the church was packed there was no demonstration, though the mob
"howled outside."
Most of the students who heard Phillips that night left confirmed
abolitionists, and some were among the first to take up arms. To us,
nowadays, the state of public opinion at that time seems almost
incomprehensible. Few of the individual members of those mobs were in
real sympathy with the South, but party affiliations were strong and, in
the words of Judge Cheever, '63, who describes these troubles, they were
held back from openly showing abolitionist principles by "their fear
that an open contest would lead to the destruction of the government."
Within a year a good part of the rioters were in the Union Army.
Throughout the troubled period preceding the actual outbreak of war,
President Tappan was circumspect in his public utterances, and was
considered conservative on the slavery question though he presided at
the Wendell Phillips meeting. The professorial radical of those days was
the young Andrew D. White. He was in closer touch with the students than
his colleagues, and his personal influence and brilliant lectures on
modern history swept his students on into bold opinions and resolute
action.
When Sumter was fired upon the University was aflame at once. Although
it was Sunday when the news of the surrender came, there was no thought
of services. A platform of boxes and planks was raised on the Court
House Square and Dr. Tappan was sent for. Upon his arrival, Bible in
hand, he found a large and a serious gathering awaiting him. Heretofore
President Tappan had permitted himself to say little, though his
students were thrilled occasionally by some remark which showed how
keenly alive he was to the great issues of the time. Now he could speak.
After reading some heroic passages from the Old Testament, he spoke, in
the words of Gen. W.H.H. Beadle, '61,--
With mind and heart and soul in heroic agony, as if long-formed
opinions and long silenced feelings now burst into utterance.... In
all Michigan's history this was the great historic occasion.
The contemporaries of Dr. Tappan are unanimous in their judgment of his
extraordinary ability as a speaker, to which a majestic figure and
magnificent voice no less than his logic and apt illustrations
contributed. But on this day he made the effort of his career. From that
time the University was whole-heartedly for the Union and the war.
[Illustration: THE CAPTAINS OF THE THREE STUDENT COMPANIES IN 1861
Charles Kendall Adams, '61. Captain of the University Guards Isaac H.
Elliott, '61. Captain of the Chancellor Greys Albert Nye, '62. Captain
of the Ellsworth Zouaves]
Student companies were organized at once; and the Tappan Guards under
Charles Kendall Adams, '61, the Chancellor Greys, under Isaac H. Elliot,
'62, and the Ellsworth Zouaves, under Albert Nye, '62, who died at
Murfreesboro in 1862, formed a University Battalion which enrolled
practically every student in the University. This was not the first
effort of the sort, however, for five years before Professor W.P.
Trowbridge, a graduate of West Point, had organized the first University
Battalion, with uniforms and arms furnished by the Government, and had
managed to have a small building erected as an armory, which was later
to become the first gymnasium. This experiment was short-lived and came
to an end when Professor Trowbridge resigned the following year. With
the organization of the new battalion the duty of drill master fell upon
Joseph H. Vance, the steward of the University, who was also assistant
librarian. The President set apart a room at the south end of the south
College, and there the students, in sections of fifty, drilled for an
hour each day. The old muskets had been called in by the Government some
time before, and sticks were perforce the ordinary armament. This drill
continued for the rest of the year and for most of 1862. The men who
thus received their preliminary training were to be found later in
practically every corps and division of the Union Army.
These military efforts, however, did not satisfy the more restless
spirits and many left the University immediately, few of whom ever
returned to finish their course. Of the fifty-four who graduated with
the "war class" of '61, twenty-four entered the service, in addition to
eight who did not stay to finish their work, in all thirty-two out of
sixty-two. The students in the two professional departments were no less
eager for service, as is shown by the remarkable record of the medical
class of '61, thirty of whose forty-four graduates saw active service.
Among the Michigan men in the Civil War at least twelve, eight of whom
held degrees, rose to the rank of brigadier-general, three of them from
the class of '61. Of this number apparently only one, Elon Farnsworth,
'55-'58, actually commanded a brigade in battle. He was killed while
bravely leading a hopeless charge at Gettysburg.
Michigan's war records are full of stories of brave deeds, but few
surpass the heroism of William Longshaw, '59_m_, an assistant surgeon in
the Navy, who undertook to carry a line from his ship, the _Nahant_, to
the _Lehigh_, which had run aground in the attack on Fort Moultrie.
Twice he was successful but the intense fire directed on his little boat
by the batteries on shore cut the line each time. By this time Longshaw
found the wounded needing his attention and he gave over the task to
another who made a third and successful trip. For this exploit Longshaw
was cited in general orders read from every quarter-deck in the fleet.
He was killed while attending a wounded marine under equally heroic
circumstances during the attack on Fort Fisher.
While Michigan men entered service from every Union State, the largest
number, naturally, were in the Michigan regiments, particularly the
Twentieth Michigan Infantry, in which a large number of officers,
including every one in the two Ann Arbor companies, were University men.
In one year, November, 1863, to November, 1864, 537 of the Regiment's
total enrolment of 1,157 were killed, wounded, or prisoners, while three
times it lost almost fifty percent of all the men engaged, at
Spottsylvania, at Petersburg, and finally at the assault on the Crater,
after which there were only eighty men and four officers left for duty.
In another Michigan regiment, the Seventh, was Capt. Allan H. Zacharias
of the class of '60 whose last letter, written on an old envelope and
clutched in his dead hand, forms an imperishable portion of Michigan's
annals:
Dear Parent, Brothers and Sisters: I am wounded, mortally I think.
The fight rages round me. I have done my duty. This is my
consolation. I hope to meet you all again. I left not the line
until all had fallen and colors gone. I am getting weak. My arms
are free but below my chest all is numb. The enemy trotting over
me. The numbness up to my heart. Good-bye all.
Your son
Allen.
Within a year after peace was declared a plan was under way for a
Memorial Building in memory of the graduates of the University who had
fallen in the war. A committee appointed by the Alumni Association
presented the matter to the Board of Regents, but they were unable to
take any action. The project was never forgotten, however, and was
brought up year after year in alumni gatherings until in 1903 a
committee under the Chairmanship of Judge C.B. Grant, '59, a former
Colonel of the Twentieth Michigan, was appointed. This committee was so
successful in its efforts that the Memorial Building was eventually
dedicated in May, 1910. A large tablet by the sculptor A.A. Weinman
bearing the inscription given on the following page, was placed, in
June, 1914, on the right wall just inside the entrance.
A further investigation of the war records of the graduates of the
University revealed many more names than were known when the tablet was
designed, so that now the total in the morocco bound volume which is
conspicuously placed in the building carries the records of 2,424 who
served in the three wars.
THIS HALL ERECTED ANNO DOMINI 1909-1910
UNDER DIRECTION OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BY THE ALUMNI
AND FRIENDS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN IS DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF HER PATRIOTIC SONS WHO SERVED IN
THREE OF HER COUNTRY'S WARS NAMELY
TWO IN THE MEXICAN WAR A.D. 1847
ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED FOURTEEN
IN THE CIVIL WAR A.D. 1861-1865
FOUR HUNDRED TWENTY SIX IN THE SPANISH WAR A.D. 1898
A RECORD OF THEIR NAMES AND MILITARY HISTORY IS
DEPOSITED IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
* * * * *
THE WORLD WILL LITTLE NOTE NOR LONG REMEMBER WHAT WE
SAY HERE BUT IT CAN NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY DID HERE--
LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG
Though the number of Michigan men in the Spanish-American War was
naturally much smaller, the total mounted to very nearly four hundred,
of whom eight lost their lives, including one member of the Rough
Riders, Oliver B. Norton, '01_m_, killed by a shell at San Juan Hill. The
contingents from at least fifteen states included Michigan graduates,
but the greater number were to be found in the five Michigan volunteer
regiments, particularly the 31st and 32nd, though there were a number in
the 33rd and 34th that formed with the 9th Massachusetts the Brigade
commanded by Brigadier-General Henry M. Duffield, '58-'59, which was one
of the few volunteer units to see active service in Cuba.
In the Navy a large proportion of the Michigan men were members of the
Michigan State Naval Brigade on the U.S.S. _Yosemite_, of which Dean
M.E. Cooley, at that time Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was Chief
Engineer. The _Yosemite_ was a converted yacht used as a scout and
convoy. Within a month after going into commission she was assigned to
the task of convoying some 800 marines on the _Panther_ to Guantanamo.
It happened that the first load was taken ashore on June 10 by one of
the boats of the _Yosemite_ and it is said the first American flag was
planted on Cuban soil by a University of Michigan member of the crew.
Later in June the _Yosemite_ met a big Spanish mail steamer, the
_Antonio Lopez_, with ammunition and supplies for San Juan and succeeded
in beaching her under the fierce fire of the shore batteries and after
attacks by three Spanish gunboats, which were twice driven into the
harbor.
In addition to many graduates and students of the Medical Department
attached to the different units, two members of the Faculty, Dean Victor
C. Vaughan, Divisional Surgeon at Siboney, and Dr. C.B.G. de Nancrède,
Surgeon of the 34th, saw active service in Cuba as Majors on the Medical
Staff. Their courage and devotion to duty were mentioned in the
Surgeon-General's report.
Michigan was also represented in the war cabinet by its leader, William
R. Day, '70, Secretary of State, while the Assistant Secretary of War, a
most important post in those exciting months, was George DeRue
Meiklejohn, '80_l_. Judge Day was also President of the commission which
negotiated the peace at Paris after the war, with Cushman K. Davis, '57,
chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, as one of the other
members.
According to the latest available records there were at least 12,000
sons of the University of Michigan in service during the World War. Of
this number over 229 gave their lives for the principles for which
America was fighting. At the Seventy-fifth Commencement, which came the
year following the Armistice, the University's service flag, which hung
in Hill Auditorium, revealed the fact that at that time the names were
known of 10,243 students and alumni in uniform. This figure mounted
rapidly in subsequent months, though the difficulties of following the
careers of many former soldiers through the period of demobilization
have made it very difficult to obtain even an approximately correct
estimate. This is particularly true in the case of thousands of students
who left the University during the years 1917 and 1918. An analysis of
the figures given on the service flag showed that of the total 7,669
were known to be actually in service while 2,747 were in the University,
enrolled in the army and navy units of the Student Army Training Corps.
As these men were in uniform and regularly inducted in the two branches
of service and would all have been sent overseas within a short time had
the war continued, their names must be included.
Such are the bare statistics of Michigan's part in the fight for the
principles which have made America what she is. The war came slowly to
the University. During the years just preceding the entrance of the
United States there was probably no part of the world as little touched
by the actualities overseas as the mid-western portion of the United
States. The seaboard states felt it, in their commerce and other
contacts with Europe, far more than the vast central region, which had
been favored with an unexampled wave of prosperity. So while America was
at peace, the war spirit in the University was for the most part latent,
far more so than in many of the universities of the East, where the
implications and the realities of the war, which always come more
vividly through personal relationships, led to more vigorous preparatory
measures and many enlistments for service in the English, Canadian, and
French armies.
The lessons the struggle on the Marne, in Flanders and Gallipoli was
teaching were by no means unheeded, however, and a strong movement for
military training in the University developed as early as November,
1914, when a petition signed by fifty members of the Faculty, including
the Deans of the Medical, Engineering, and Law Schools, for the
establishment of a military course in the University was presented to
the Regents. This had no immediate effect, however, and it was not until
the University Senate took similar action a year later that the movement
was really inaugurated. The opinion was as yet by no means unanimous in
favor of the plan, for a straw vote of the Faculty showed 85 for and 55
against the general principle of military training for students, with a
somewhat smaller majority in favor of making it compulsory. A similar
vote among the students showed 1,040 for the plan and 932 against it. In
March, 1916, the Regents took favorable action on the project, though
the course was not compulsory. Several military companies and a naval
reserve unit were organized immediately, and the students were
encouraged to attend the summer camps at Plattsburg and Fort Sheridan.
It took over a year and the stimulus of the actual entry of the United
States into the war to bring to practical completion the plan of the
Regents for voluntary training, with a course in military science
instituted under officers designated by the War Department. Co-operation
on the part of the Government, too, came slowly. There was great
difficulty in harmonizing the University system with the government plan
for college military training which was embodied in General Orders 49,
establishing a Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Many meetings took
place between officers detailed by the War Department and a committee,
composed of the heads of various universities, of which President
Hutchins was a member, before a modification of the government program
was eventually secured. This made the prescribed course more elastic,
and put military drill wholly or in part in summer camps. Inasmuch as
the students under this plan could not be appointed reserve officers
without examinations, it was not strictly the R.O.T.C. as originally
contemplated by the Government, but it was a practical solution. As a
matter of fact most of these difficulties of organization vanished when
the United States entered the war, on April 6, 1917, in the general
enthusiasm and eagerness to serve. The great practical question became a
matter of the detail of a competent army officer to the University.
Meanwhile the students lost no time; little companies could be seen
drilling everywhere on the streets. Three hundred students stayed over
the spring vacation and drilled for four hours every afternoon. By May
315 men had been recommended for training camps, and 500 had left the
University to enlist. The Regents also authorized the circulation of the
43,000 alumni and former students for the University Intelligence
Bureau, and 25,000 replies, giving the qualifications of each individual
for various forms of war service, were received. The Engineering College
announced seven preliminary courses in military science, while the
Medical School, with almost the whole Faculty enlisted, foreseeing the
need of surgeons turned its whole force to training the upper classmen,
and the Law School so arranged its programme that twelve hours a week
were given over to drill. The upper class medical, engineering, and
dental students were also enlisted as reserves while completing their
courses.
It was not until October, 1917, that the Officers' Training Corps really
got under way, as a definite part of the curriculum. But once started
the response was overwhelming. Though the attendance in the University
had declined by 1,239, and the course was not compulsory, there were
1,800 enrolled by the end of the first week. To introduce this great
body of embryo soldiers to the rudiments of military drill the
Government sent just one officer, Lieut. George C. Mullen, who had
retired after some years' service in the earlier Philippine campaigns.
Later came two sergeants, and another officer, Lieut. Losey J. Williams.
With this slender force, and the aid of a company of Faculty men who
drilled every night in order to prepare themselves as advisors, or
"tactical officers" to supervise the student company commanders and with
300 old rifles, Michigan managed to "carry on," maintaining the largest,
though owing to these difficulties probably not the most effective
R.O.T.C. organization in the country. Nevertheless it served a very
useful purpose, as its continually dwindling ranks indicated; for the
better men were leaving all the time for the numerous training camps
which had been established in the meantime. Of the 800 who received
commissions after the first course at Camp Custer only 60 percent
survived, but among these were all the candidates sent from the Michigan
R.O.T.C., twenty-two of whom were included in the first hundred.
The University may also claim particular credit for the development of
courses in army stores, which were first instituted by Professor, later
Lieutenant-Colonel, Joseph A. Bursley, '99_e_. This course, which aimed
to fit men for the ordnance and quartermasters departments, grew through
six successive increments every six weeks, to about 250 men, and proved
so practical and effective that similar courses were installed in other
universities. In the same manner similar short courses were established
in the Engineering College for the training of mechanics, particularly
in the maintenance and repair of gas engines. The first course of eight
weeks began on April 15, 1917, and prepared 195 men for this important
branch of the service. A detachment of 700 men followed which included
500 automobile repair men, 100 general mechanics, 60 gunsmiths, and 40
carpenters.
These men came as enlisted soldiers and were under the command of
Captain, later Major, R.H. Durkee. Five old residences belonging to the
University were transformed into barracks, while the still far from
completed Union was used as a mess hall. The laboratory facilities of
the Engineering College naturally proved inadequate for so large a
number, and temporary buildings sprang up rapidly in every open space
nearby, erected by the men in the detachments. In addition to the
technical training given these men, who were not, however, enrolled as
university students, various special courses were given in war aims
which proved of great value in furthering morale. This whole effort
proved so effective that the Government desired to make a contract for
the training of 2,800 men from October, 1918, through July, 1919; but
this was more than the University could care for, though it agreed to
take 1,140, including 60 telephone linemen, and 600 telephone
electricians.
The next step came in the establishment of the Students' Army Training
Corps in the fall of 1918. This was designed to correct the weaknesses,
revealed under the stress of war-time conditions, in the old R.O.T.C.,
which in most universities did not furnish really effective military
training for the emergency, particularly in the matter of discipline.
The passing of the draft law also threatened the very existence of many
of the private colleges and the plan to carry on university work and
military training, side by side, while the students were actually
inducted and under strict military discipline, seemed an ideal solution
of a most threatening problem. Michigan, therefore, in common with every
other college and university which could muster the necessary one
hundred students, became in effect a military academy with the opening
of the University in October, 1918, though of course there were many
students not enrolled in the S.A.T.C., particularly the women, and the
medical, engineering, and dental reserves who were completing their
courses. The total S.A.T.C. enlistment was 2,727, of whom 2,151 were
enrolled in the Army, and 586 in the Naval Training Corps; these were
entered as regular students in the University, while 2,247 more in
Section B, the army mechanics course, were not considered University
students.
Thus with the largest S.A.T.C. enrolment of any university in the
country, Michigan gladly devoted all her resources to the one supreme
aim of training soldiers. Practically every fraternity house was turned
over to the War Department as a barracks; the mysterious Greek letters
were dropped and henceforth they were known simply by number--officially
at least. The sum of $260,000 was borrowed from the State War Board to
hasten the completion of the Union sufficiently to serve as a mess hall
and kitchen, and this together with a temporary building erected
alongside accommodated some 3,650 men. The Union also furnished sleeping
quarters for 800 student soldiers. The fact that Michigan had a building
so well adapted to the needs of the new situation was perhaps the
principal factor in enabling the University to enter upon the programme
so extensively. Dean Mortimer E. Cooley of the Engineering College was
made Regional Educational Director with the work in all the colleges and
universities in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan under his charge, while
some forty army officers, many of them recent graduates of training
camps, were detailed to the University as officers in charge.
Difficulties arose everywhere from the very first, however. The plan,
which was not definitely approved by the War Department until a month
before the opening of the colleges, was naturally not carefully worked
out in detail. But this was a minor matter compared with a more serious
defect in the general scheme. This was the lack of competent military
officers, men with sufficient vision to co-operate effectively with the
universities. The officers detailed were for the most part retired from
active service, or recent recruits from training camps, and it was the
exaggerated emphasis of things military on the part of the latter class
that was largely responsible for the difficulty, noticeable from the
very first, of maintaining any semblance of university work. The scheme
provided for 42 hours of class work and study (14 hours of recitation
with 28 hours of preparation) and only 13 hours of military drill; but
the almost universal experience was that the military officers wholly
misinterpreted the object of the plan and, with their strict control
over their men, were able to discount, almost completely in some cases,
the educational side of the programme. To add to the confusion, the
onset of the influenza epidemic at just this time made the task of
bringing order out of chaos almost impossible. Nevertheless, by the time
the end came with the signing of the Armistice, measures were under way
which might have saved the situation by curbing the complete ascendancy
of the military officers, and restoring the scheme to its original
essentially educational policy; for, in the original plan, the military
features were to go only so far as to enable the authorities to
select the best men for further intensive training at the officers'
camps.
[Illustration: THE STUDENTS' ARMY TRAINING CORPS
Drawn up before the Michigan Union (fall of 1918)]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE FOURTEEN-INCH NAVAL GUNS IN FRANCE
Whose crews were largely composed of the Michigan Naval Volunteers]
This broad military programme was by no means confined to the students,
as the whole curriculum of the University was necessarily almost wholly
subordinated to the new scheme. Many courses not included in the outline
prescribed by the Government, such as the classics, fine arts, and
philosophy, were practically discontinued or given in a limited form to
the few men not in service and the women students in the University.
Many members of the Faculty abandoned their own subjects entirely and
confined their work to the courses on war issues, which had come to form
an important part of the new curriculum, or to elementary work in modern
languages, especially French; German being for the most part anathema.
This was a mistake; as one government inspector, himself a teacher of
English, was accustomed to say emphatically, German was going to be
needed even more than French; and so it turned out in the later days of
the occupation of Germany. Nevertheless the decline of interest in the
German language and literature, which had long been so carefully
cultivated, as we can see now, by the German government, is one of the
permanent results of the war; while there has been a corresponding
increase in the study of French and Spanish.
Throughout this period, the women of the University were far from
passive spectators. Special courses in household economics, conservation
of food, French, journalism, and publicity and the principles of
censorship, as well as a course in drafting in the Engineering College
were provided for them. The women of the Faculty and town threw
themselves indefatigably into Red Cross service, with the presidential
residence on the Campus, known as Angell House, as one of the principal
headquarters. A Hostess House was also maintained in the parlors of
Barbour Gymnasium for the families and sweethearts of men in the
training detachments, while at one time the great floor of Waterman
Gymnasium was used as a barracks. With the inauguration of the S.A.T.C.,
Alumni Memorial Hall was taken over as a Hostess House and maintained
entirely by Ann Arbor women. Likewise during the worst of the influenza
epidemic, the terrors of which were multiplied by the constant arrival
of stricken men in new detachments, and the lack of adequate hospital
facilities for such an unforeseen emergency, the women gave themselves,
and in some cases their homes, to the cause, and helped to save many
lives.
Thus the University gave itself over unreservedly to winning the war. No
one can measure how great actually and potentially that service was. But
Michigan's contribution was far from resting there. Thousands of her
sons, alumni and students, were in service, a goodly proportion with the
forces in France and elsewhere and with the Navy, while at least 229 are
to be represented by a gold star on the University's great service flag.
Though Michigan officially remained aloof from active participation in
the issues of the struggle before America entered it, she had many
representatives in the fighting ranks. Professor René Talamon, of the
French Department, who was spending his honeymoon in France, entered the
French Army in 1914 and saw active service in all the great earlier
battles, winning the Croix de Guerre on the field. He remained in
uniform throughout the four years and completed his record by acting as
interpreter at the Peace Conference. Frederic W. Zinn, '14_e_ a student
just graduated, was of that immortal company of Americans in the French
Foreign Legion, whose exploits have so often been told, and was one of
the twelve survivors of a section of sixty. He was severely wounded in
the Champagne offensive and subsequently entered the French and later
the American Aviation Services. There were also many Michigan men
scattered through the British and Canadian forces, and at least one,
Stanley J. Schooley, _e_'09-'12, was with the Anzacs to the end at
Gallipoli. George B.F. Monk, '13_d_, a Lieutenant in the Royal
Warwickshires, was killed in Flanders, December 18, 1914, while another
dental graduate, John Austen Ogden, '04_d_, was killed in France. Lieut.
Thomas C. Bechraft, '09_l_, who enlisted with the Canadians, was killed
by a sniper at the great British attack on Vimy Ridge, April 4,
1917;--one wonders whether he knew then that America had entered the
war; and Theodore Harvey Clark, '14, died from sunstroke, September 9,
1917, while serving with the Y.M.C.A. in Mesopotamia.
Of the little company of Americans in the French ambulance service,
among whom were a number of former students of the University, were the
two Hall brothers, sons of Dr. Louis P. Hall, '89_d_, Professor of
Dentistry in the University. Richard Nelville Hall, '11-'12, who later
was graduated from Dartmouth, was killed on Christmas morning, 1915,
when his car was struck by a stray shell, the first American to be
killed in the ambulance service. His brother Louis P. Hall, Dartmouth,
'12, Michigan, '14_e_, later became a lieutenant in the French army, and
eventually captain in the American Expeditionary Forces.
It will thus be seen that Michigan's share in the war did not await the
entry of America among the Allies, although it was not until the forces
of the country were definitely enlisted that her real contribution, in
men and services, was made. With the opening of the great training
camps, the alumni, particularly those of more recent years, as well as
the students of the University volunteered literally in thousands, and
Michigan was soon represented by men and officers in every branch of the
service. They were in the first contingent of the expeditionary forces,
the Rainbow Division, and figured prominently in the earliest fighting
about the St. Mihiel salient, at Cantigny, and later with the Marines at
Belleau Wood. Many were of course held in America, to their disgust, to
train the new levies under the draft law, while others were assigned
particular duties for which their special training had fitted them. Thus
we find Michigan represented everywhere in the Medical and Dental Corps,
the early engineering battalions, the rapidly evolving work of the
signal corps, the military intelligence and censorship divisions, gas
warfare and gas defense, publicity, and perhaps above all, the aviation
service, for which the young college man seemed peculiarly fitted. There
were several Michigan men among the first aviation sections in France;
several were killed and others captured in early combats. The arrival of
the later contingents brought Michigan men with every division; they
were everywhere in the Argonne battle, they were with the famous "lost
battalion," and with the American forces included in the British
sectors, as well as among the engineers who helped to stop the gap after
the disaster to the Fifth British Army.
Perhaps the most striking contribution Michigan made towards winning the
war was in manning the big naval guns which did more than any one thing
to cut the German lines of communication through the gap by Sedan
between Longuyon and Montmedy. It is not too much to say that it was the
work of these guns, in the hands of the men and officers recruited
largely from the two naval divisions who left the University in the
spring of 1917, that formed one of the great arguments which led to the
Armistice of November 11. These two divisions of about seventy men each
were organized in the fall of 1916, and with the entry of the United
States in the war were immediately mustered into service with Professors
J.R. Hayden of the Department of Political Science and Orange J. McNiel
of the Engineering College as the commanding officers. For some time
they were held in Ann Arbor, where they were quartered in the Gymnasium,
later going to the Great Lakes Training Station for further preparation.
Within a short time they were assigned to the various rifle ranges which
were being established up and down the Atlantic coast by Major Harllee
of the Marine Corps and given intensive training in gunnery. So well did
they show up in this specialized task, for intensive training in
marksmanship was one of the Navy's great needs, that little squads of
the men were sent everywhere to install and open up new ranges.
Meanwhile the need of big guns on the French front was becoming more and
more apparent and one officer, Captain, and later Admiral, Plunkett
bethought him of a number of great 14-inch navy guns which were not in
use. He conceived the idea of mounting these on railway carriages and
making great mobile batteries of them. At first he was laughed at; it
was impossible to make heavy enough trucks to carry such a weight; and
then, where were the expert men to man them? He replied that he knew
where he could get the men and called in experts to design the
carriages. The result was that in just fifty days the first gun was
successfully fired from the railway mounting at the proving ground at
Sandy Hook, by the Michigan Naval Volunteers. When the guns were
shipped to France all the Michigan men available were sent with them and
formed the effective nucleus of every crew. They wore the marine uniform
with naval insignia and were under naval discipline throughout; they
went "fore" and "aft" on the great trains which accompanied each gun,
pointed their pieces to "port" and "starboard" and were rated according
to navy ranking.
Their great task came when the guns with their equipment first landed at
St. Nazaire. Not only was it necessary to assemble the guns, but also
the locomotives and accompanying armored cars. All of this work was done
by the men of the two units as officers and petty officers. When these
guns finally got into action, they outranged every battery on any front
and, striking at the German railway lines of communication, now from
this point and then that, they threw the whole "neck of the bottle"
toward which the American forces were driving into hopeless confusion.
Of the men in these two battalions over sixty percent received
commissions, and of the others, almost all held high ratings as petty
officers with responsibilities ordinarily only assumed by commissioned
officers.
With so great a number of Michigan men with the expeditionary forces,
the University was particularly interested in their welfare while "over
there." From the first Michigan took a prominent part in the
establishment of the American University Union in Paris, of which
President Hutchins was one of the first Board of Trustees. Professor
Charles B. Vibbert, '04, of the Department of Philosophy was appointed
Director of the Michigan Bureau by President Hutchins and was made one
of the Executive Committee in Paris. Here he rendered most effective
service to the hundreds of Michigan men who used the club house, a
large hotel in the heart of Paris, as their headquarters. He was also
assigned as his special duty, the promotion of friendly relations
between the Americans and the French people of Paris, and so successful
was he in this task that he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the
French government. After the end of the demobilization period he
remained in Paris for a time as Director of a permanent Union which
succeeded the war organization. Two other representatives of the
University, Mr. Warren J. Vinton, '11, for some time Professor Vibbert's
assistant, and Assistant Professor Philip E. Bursley, '02, one of the
general secretaries, were on the Union's staff.
No review of Michigan's record in the war would be complete without a
word as to the share of the Faculty. As never before this was a war of
scientists and technically trained men. There was hardly a subject
taught in the University which did not fit in somewhere, while the work
of such departments as chemistry, physics, astronomy, mathematics, and
the various branches of engineering, to say nothing of the Schools of
Medicine and the Colleges of Dentistry and Pharmacy, proved absolutely
indispensable. Long before this country entered the war Dean M.E. Cooley
had offered his services to the Government, when the crisis which he and
many others foresaw, should come.
In all there were 162 members of the Faculty in various forms of war
service, a large proportion of them in uniform. Among those to whom were
assigned particularly noteworthy tasks were Dean Victor C. Vaughan,
'78_m_, of the Medical Advisory Board of the Council of National Defense
and later Colonel on the staff of the Surgeon-General in Washington,
where was also Dr. Walter R. Parker, '88_e_, Professor of
Ophthalmology, who as Lieutenant-Colonel in the Medical Corps had charge
of head surgery. Dr. Udo J. Wile, Professor of Dermatology, Major in the
Medical Corps, was among the earliest medical officers abroad, where he
was in charge of the first American hospital in England, near Liverpool.
In the Literary College, among the many who early entered service were
Jesse S. Reeves, Professor of Political Science, who entered the
Aviation Service and later the Judge Advocates' Department, holding the
rank of major; Peter Field, Associate Professor of Mathematics, who, as
Major in the Ordnance Department, had charge of the tests and ballistic
computations, as well as serving as armament officer, at the Sandy Hook
proving grounds; Moses Gomberg, '90, Professor of Organic Chemistry, who
as Major in the Ordnance Service made valuable investigations, and
Professor H.R. Cross of the Department of Fine Arts, who held an
important post with the Red Cross in Italy.
The men of technical training of the Engineering Faculty were especially
in demand and practically every man in one Department, that of Chemical
Engineering was in service. Alfred H. White, '93, Professor of Chemical
Engineering, became Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the construction of
the great government nitrate plants; Walter T. Fishleigh, '02, '06_e_,
Associate Professor of Automobile Engineering, as Lieutenant-Colonel,
was, with Major Gordon Stoner, '04, '06_l_, Professor of Law in the
University, in charge of the design and purchase of all the ambulances
for the Medical Corps. Lieutenant-Colonel William C. Hoad, Professor of
Sanitary Engineering, took charge of the sanitation of the big training
camps.
Many other members of the Faculty, in civilian capacities, gave no less
valuable services to the Government. Professor Herbert C. Sadler, head
of the Department of Marine Engineering, became chief of the department
of ship design of the Emergency Fleet Corporation; James W. Glover,
Professor of Mathematics and Insurance, was a member of the War Risk
Board; Dr. G. Carl Huber, '87_m_, Professor of Anatomy, carried on an
extended series of investigations of the peripheral nerves, with the
assistance of medical officers detailed to his laboratory by the
Surgeon-General; David Friday, '08, Professor of Economics, was
Statistical Advisor to the Treasury Department and later the Telephone
and Telegraph Administration, while Dean Henry M. Bates, '90, of the Law
School, and Professor H.C. Adams, head of the Department of Economics,
also at various times acted in advisory capacities at Washington.
Francis L. D. Goodrich, '03, was also Reference Librarian at the
University of the American Expeditionary Force at Beaune, France.
With the end of the war every effort was made to bring the University
back to normal conditions as soon as possible. The speedy demobilization
of the S.A.T.C. made advisable the abandonment of the plan of a year of
four quarters and the semester system was restored by February. The
members of the Faculty gradually returned during the year, and by the
fall of 1919 everything was as usual, save for the extraordinary
enrolment, which totaled 8,057 students on the Campus during the year,
with a grand total of 9,401 in all, including the Summer Session. This
increase was largely due to the men returning from service to finish
their abandoned work, or to take up a belated University course. Eighty
men who had been wounded were sent by the Government Rehabilitation
Division.
Such an unprecedented number of students, which was larger by 1,500 than
ever before, naturally brought with it many difficult problems,
particularly in living accommodations. These difficulties were
aggravated by the sharp rise in room rent and board, which brought
hardship in many cases and was only adjusted by the prompt action of the
Rooming Bureau of the Michigan Union, which made a complete survey of
the city and brought pressure to bear in cases of outrageous
profiteering. Equally difficult proved the question of teachers and
class rooms in the University. This was only solved after many new
instructors were engaged, a difficult matter at so late a period in the
year, and the creation of many emergency class rooms. Special credits
were also given the men returning from service, in some cases as high as
fifteen hours, equaling a semester's work, in recognition of their
special war-time experience and training and the new earnestness and
appreciation of what a university education meant, with which they
returned to their class rooms and laboratories.
University life speedily returned to its accustomed channels; only the
service buttons, the modest ribbons in lapels, and khaki and blue
overcoats remained to suggest the Campus of a year before. So great was
the reaction from things military that the re-establishment of the
R.O.T.C. in modified form came slowly. Eventually about 180 men, largely
from the freshmen and sophomore classes, were enrolled in the artillery
and signal service units under the two officers detailed to the
University, Captain Robert Arthur and Captain John P. Lucas, who held
the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonels in France. These courses
promise much for the future, however, though during the University year
the work is confined to technical training, with the drill to come in
the annual summer camps which every man enrolled must attend. Not only
will men be continually in training as reserve officers, effective at
once in an emergency, but also they will form a nucleus around which a
really effective training corps for the general student body can be
built at any time when the necessity arises. If this work develops as it
should, and comes to form an integral part of university life, we shall
have profited by one of the lessons of the Great War, and with similar
courses installed in all our great educational centers, America will be
ready, as she was not in 1917.