Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
[Illustration:
OFF FOR CAMP MILLS
]
[Illustration:
FUNERAL AT LUNÉVILLE. GROUP AT LEFT CENTER: GENERAL MENOHER,
GENERAL LENIHAN, SECRETARY BAKER
]
[Illustration:
OVERLOOKING BACCARAT
]
[Illustration:
GENERAL PERSHING CONFERRING D. S. C.’S
]
FATHER DUFFY’S STORY
[Illustration:
COLONEL DONOVAN IN FIGHTING TRIM AFTER ST. MIHIEL
]
FATHER DUFFY’S
STORY
A TALE OF HUMOR AND HEROISM, OF
LIFE AND DEATH WITH THE FIGHTING
SIXTY-NINTH
BY
FRANCIS P. DUFFY
CHAPLAIN, 165TH INFANTRY
WITH AN HISTORICAL APPENDIX BY
JOYCE KILMER
NEW [Illustration: Decoration] YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
_Copyright, 1919,
By George H. Doran Company_
_Printed in the United States of America_
TO THE MEMORY OF OUR DEAD
THIS BOOK
IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED
PREFACE
On one occasion, after having had to swallow an exceptionally large
dose of complimentary eloquence, I stated that I was going to borrow
a title for my book from my favorite philosopher, Mr. Dooley, and
call it “Alone in Europe.”
The title that has been given it sounds almost as egoistic as that;
but there will be found in these pages other names than my own.
Indeed, objection may be made from a literary point of view that
the book bristles with names. I could not write my story otherwise.
I knew these men, and what they did, and my only regret is that I
have undoubtedly overlooked some, especially amongst replacements,
whose names and deeds should be mentioned. Battles are not fought by
commanding officers alone, not even by chaplains unaided; and the
men who do the fighting usually get little personal credit for their
valor.
My chronicle claims no merit save that of being true. The only
critics I had in mind while writing it were those who fought in
France. If they say that the pictures are true, I am content. The
diary style has been deliberately chosen because it permits the
introduction of incidents, and also lends itself to the telling of a
plain unvarnished tale.
Every Regiment in a combat division has a similar story, if any one
of its members has the knowledge and patience to tell it. “The Irish
69th” had naturally its own special flavor of race with the buoyant
spirits, the military _élan_, and the religious ardor that mark the
race. No picture of the regiment would be complete that did not give
a generous place to this phase of its life.
Happily, the Irish spirit has always managed to combine generous
tolerance with its fervors. As a result, there are no more
enthusiastic adherents of the Irish 69th than those of its members
who did not share in the blood or the creed of the majority.
As for myself, I liked them all. I am a very Irish, very Catholic,
very American person if anybody challenges my convictions. But
normally, and let alone, I am just plain human. My appreciation of
patriotism, or courage, or any other attractive human trait, is not
limited in any degree by racial or religious or sectional prejudice.
That was the spirit of our Army; may it always be the spirit of our
Republic.
Joyce Kilmer was to have written this book. I took over the task
after his death in battle. The manuscript he left had been hurriedly
written, at intervals in a busy soldier existence, which interested
him far more than literary work. I have taken the liberty of adding
his work, incomplete though it is, to my own; because I feel that
Kilmer would be glad at having his name associated with the story of
the Regiment which had his absolute devotion; and because I cannot
resist the temptation of associating with my own the name of one of
the noblest specimens of humanity that has existed in our times.
I wish to thank Major Meaney, Major Bootz, Captain Allen, Lieutenants
Harold Allen and Thomas C. P. Martin, Sergeant Major O’Connell and
the Company Clerks for data for this book; Sergeant William Halligan,
Privates John F. McLoughlin and Arthur Shea, Mr. Paul Shea, and
Father John B. Kelly for assistance in preparing the manuscript for
publication; and Sergeants T. C. Ranscht and R. L. Clarke for the
maps that appear in this volume.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I PREPARATIONS AT HOME 13
II IN TRAINING ABROAD 36
III THE LUNÉVILLE SECTOR 60
IV THE BACCARAT SECTOR 85
V THE CHAMPAGNE DEFENSIVE 119
VI THE BATTLE OF THE OURCQ 158
VII AFTER THE BATTLE 207
VIII THE ST. MIHIEL OFFENSIVE 232
IX THE ARGONNE OFFENSIVE 261
X WITH THE ARMY OF OCCUPATION 306
HISTORICAL APPENDIX BY JOYCE KILMER 331
APPENDICES 355
REGIMENTAL RECORD
DECORATIONS, 165th INFANTRY
OFFICERS WHO SERVED IN THE 165th INFANTRY
CITATIONS, 165th INFANTRY
OFFICERS OF NEW YORK CHAPTER “RAINBOW” DIVISION
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE 165th INFANTRY
WOMAN’S AUXILIARY TO THE 165th INFANTRY
ILLUSTRATIONS
COLONEL DONOVAN IN FIGHTING TRIM _Frontispiece_
PAGE
FRANCIS P. DUFFY, CHAPLAIN, 165TH INFANTRY 22
GENERAL LENIHAN, LIEUTENANT GROSE, COLONEL MITCHELL,
FATHER DUFFY, MR. GEORGE BOOTHBY OF THE “Y,”
AND JUDGE EGEMAN OF THE K. OF C. 142
MAP OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE OURCQ 181
AT QUENTIN ROOSEVELT’S GRAVE. THE CENTRAL FIGURE
IS COLONEL MCCOY 238
MAP OF THE ST. MIHIEL SALIENT 245
MAP OF THE BATTLE OF THE ARGONNE 295
OPERATIONS MAP: 165TH INFANTRY, 1917-1919 354
FATHER DUFFY’S STORY
FATHER DUFFY’S STORY
CHAPTER I
PREPARATIONS AT HOME
RECTORY, CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR, BRONX
_June_, 1917
War with Germany was declared on April 6th, 1917. Immediately the
National Guard Regiments, knowing that they would be the first to be
called from civilian occupations, began campaigning for recruits.
Ours was conducted with little noise or speech making. An Irish
Regiment has its troubles in time of peace, but when the call to arms
was sounding we knew that if they let us we could easily offer them
an Irish Brigade for the service. We were more occupied with quality
than with numbers. The one bit of publicity we indulged in was to
send round our machine-gun trucks through the city streets with
the placard, “Don’t join the 69th unless you want to be among the
first to go to France.” That was the only kind of men we wanted—not
impressionable youth who would volunteer under the stimulus of a
brass band or a flood of patriotic oratory. The old-timers were told
to bring in friends who had the right stuff in them. The Catholic
Clergy were asked to send in good men from the Parish athletic clubs.
The response was immediate. Every night the big reception rooms
were packed with men taking the physical tests. The medical staff
had to be increased at once to meet the situation and officers and
enlisted men were impressed into the service for taking the minor
tests. These tests were rigid. Nobody was taken who fell below the
standard in age, height, weight, sight or chest measurement—or who
had liquor aboard or who had not a clean skin. Many of those who were
turned down for underweight or imperfect feet were readily accepted
in other Regiments which had more difficulty in getting men. And when
we received contingents from those regiments later on I often had to
listen to the humorous reproach, “Well, I got in in spite of the lot
of you.”
Amongst the sturdiest and brightest of our recruits were two young
men who had recently been Jesuit Novices. I amused one Jesuit friend
and, I am afraid, shocked another by saying that they were exercising
a traditional religious privilege of seeking a higher state of
perfection by quitting the Jesuits and joining the 69th.
We came back from Texas less than a thousand strong. Of these we
could count on 500 for a new war, which left us 1,500 to go to meet
the number then fixed for an Infantry Regiment—2,002. We were not
long in reaching that number. Lieutenant Colonel Reed telegraphed the
War Department for permission, pending the proposed increase of a
Regiment to 3,600, to establish a waiting list, but the application
was refused. In the latter days we were turning away 300 a week,
sending them to other Regiments.
Our 2,000 men were a picked lot. They came mainly from Irish County
Societies and from Catholic Athletic Clubs. A number of these latter
Irish bore distinctly German, French, Italian or Polish names. They
were Irish by adoption, Irish by association or Irish by conviction.
The 69th never attempted to set up any religious test. It was an
institution offered to the Nation by a people grateful for liberty,
and it always welcomed and made part of it any American citizen who
desired to serve in it. But, naturally, men of Irish birth or blood
were attracted by the traditions of the 69th, and many Catholics
wanted to be with a regiment where they could be sure of being able
to attend to their religious duties. About 5 percent of the 2,000
were Irish neither by race nor racial creed.
69TH REGIMENT ARMORY
_July_ 20th, 1917
Frank Ward O’Malley of the New York _Sun_ has written up in his
inimitable style a little scene from life in an Irish regiment. The
newcomers are not yet accustomed to the special church regulations
relieving soldiers of the obligation of Friday abstinence. Last
Friday the men came back from a hard morning’s drill to find on the
table a generous meal of ham and cabbage. The old-timers from the
Border pitched into this, to the scandal of many of the newer men
who refused to eat it, thus leaving all the more for the graceless
veterans. After dinner a number of them came to me to ask if it
were true that it was all right. I said it was, because there was a
dispensation for soldiers. “Dispensation,” said a Jewish boy, “what
good is a dispensation for Friday to me. I can’t eat ham any day of
the week. Say, Father, that waiter guy, with one turn of his wrist,
bust two religions.”
POLO GROUNDS
_July_ 25th, 1917
A great day for Ireland. Everybody aboard and up the river to 152nd
Street and then to the Polo Grounds. Baseball Game as benefit for the
69th, between Giants and Cincinnatis, thanks to the generosity of our
good friends, Harry Hempstead, John Whalen, Herbert Vreeland, and
John J. McGraw. A fine game—plenty of people, plenty of fun, and best
of all, plenty of money for the exchequer, which, after an ancient
venerable custom, is going to have an ecclesiastical chancellor. Mr.
Daniel M. Brady, the Godfather of the regiment, had procured the
signature of President Wilson on a baseball which he auctioned off
during the game. I asked him if he had arranged for a purchaser. “I
have selected one,” he said. “Is he aware that he is going to buy
it?” I asked. “He will be informed at the proper time,” said Mr.
Brady with a smile. “How much is he going to pay for it?” “Well, I
don’t consider $500.00 too much to pay for the privilege.” So after a
certain number of bids, real or fictitious, the ball was knocked down
at $500.00 to Mr. James Butler, who accepted the verdict smilingly
and was allowed the privilege of handing the ball back to me. I am to
auction it in Paris for the French Orphans’ Fund. So Mr. Brady says,
though I wish I had his confidence that we shall ever get to Paris.
ARMORY
_August_ 5th, 1917
Father John Kelly had me meet Joyce Kilmer this evening. Nothing of
the long-haired variety about him—a sturdy fellow, manly, humorous,
interesting. He was a little shame-faced at first, for he had told
Father Kelly that he was going to join up with the 69th and he is now
in the 7th. “I went to the Armory twice,” he said, “but failed to
find the recruiting officer.” I told him that if we could not have
him in the 69th the next best place was the 7th, but he still wants
to return to his first love, so I shall be glad to arrange it. If
he left the whole matter up to my decision he would stay home and
look after his large family and let men with fewer responsibilities
undertake this task, at least until such time as the country would
have need of every man. But he is bound to do his share and do it at
once, so there is no use taking off the fine edge of his enthusiasm.
He is going about this thing in exactly the same spirit that led him
to enter the Church. He sees what he considers a plain duty, and he
is going ahead to perform it, calm and clear eyed and without the
slightest regard to what the consequences may be.
I shall be glad to have him with us personally for the pleasure of
his companionship, and also for the sake of the regiment to have a
poet and historian who will confer upon us the gift of immortality.
I compared him with the old lad that one lot of Greeks sent to
another to stir them to victory by his songs; and he wagged a pair of
vigorous protesting legs at me to show he was no cripple. So I tried
him with a quotation from a poet that no poet could ever resist; and
with some reservations about the words “Grey Bard” I managed to drive
my compliment home:
For not to have been dipt in Lethe’s lake
Could make the son of Thetis not to die;
But that grey bard did him immortal make
With verses dipt in dews of Castaly.
ARMORY
_August_ 18th, 1917
We are still full of excitement at our selection from among the
National Guard Regiments of New York to represent our State in the
selected 42nd or Rainbow Division which is to go abroad amongst the
very first for active service. It is an undeniable compliment to the
condition of the Regiment and we are pleased at that as well as at
the prospects of carrying our battle-ringed standards to fly their
colors on the fields of France. Our Regimental organization has been
accepted intact—it is no composite Regiment that has been selected;
it is the 69th New York. Our ranks however are to be swelled to the
new total of 3,600 men by the transfer of enlisted men from the
five other city Regiments of Infantry. We would have been glad to
have done our own recruiting as we could easily have managed; but
these are the orders. We shall give a royal Irish welcome to our new
companions in arms. They are volunteers like ourselves and fellow
townsmen, and after a little feeling out of one another’s qualities
we shall be a united Regiment.
Already we have received the contingent from our old friends in the
7th—handed over to us with a large gesture of comradeship which that
old Regiment knows so well how to make. The departing body of 320 men
were escorted by the remaining officers and men, and passed through
their guard of honor to our Armory floor. Our 2,000 lined the walls
and many perched themselves on the iron beams overhead. They cheered
and cheered and cheered till the blare of the bands was unheard in
the joyous din—till hearts beat so full and fast that they seemed too
big for the ribs that confined them, till tears of emotion came, and
something mystical was born in every breast—the soul of a Regiment.
Heaven be good to the enemy when these cheering lads go forward
together into battle.
CAMP MILLS
_September_ 1st, 1917
We are tenting tonight on the Hempstead Plains, where Colonel Duffy
and the Old 69th encamped in 1898, when getting ready for service in
the Spanish War. It is a huge regiment now—bigger, I think, than the
whole Irish Brigade ever was in the Civil War.
We have received our new men transferred from the 12th, 14th,
23rd and 71st N. G. N. Y. Our band played them into Camp with the
Regimental Air of “Garry Owen” mingled with the good-fellow strains
of “Hail! Hail! the Gang’s All Here.”
All in all, the newcomers are a fine lot. A couple of our sister
organizations have flipped the cards from the bottom of the pack in
some instances and worked off on us some of their least desirables.
On the other hand, all the Regiments have made up for that by
allowing men anxious to come to us to change places with those who
prefer to stick where they are. This gives us a large number of the
men we want—those that feel their feet on their native heath in the
69th, and those that like its recruiting slogan, “If you don’t want
to be amongst the first to go to France, don’t join the 69th.” For
the rest, the Company Commanders and Surgeons know “Thirty-five
distinct damnations,” or almost that many, by which an undesirable
can be returned to civilian life to take his chances in the draft.
Our recruiting office has been reëstablished at the Armory. We can
get all the good men we want.
As he had put the matter in my hands Kilmer did not come over with
the men from the 7th, but I had the matter of his transfer arranged
after a short delay.
CAMP MILLS
_September_ 26th, 1917
I do not know whether to take it as a mark of general interest in
the Old Regiment or as the result of the spontaneous big-heartedness
of a kindly and enthusiastic Irish artist—but John McCormack sang
for us tonight. Sang in the open air with no stinting of voice or
program. Our lads could have listened to him till morning; I never
saw such an eager mob. They kept calling for their favorite McCormack
songs and he, like the fine big Bouchal that he is, laughed at their
sallies and gave them their hearts’ desire, until I closed the unique
performance by reminding them (and him) that we had a financial
interest in his voice because he was to sing for the benefit of our
Trustees Fund at no distant date. While I write, the camp is buzzing
around me with talk of the great tenor. A voice from the darkness
sums it up. “I always knew he was a great singer. We got a lot of his
records at home. But the records never learned me that he’s such a
hell of a fine fellow.”
CAMP MILLS
_Sunday_
I mess with the Headquarters Company, and James Collintine, who
has the job of looking after us, always welcomes Sunday morning
because it gives a chance for a friendly chat between the two of us.
James had been a deep-water sailor for a good many years since he
first left his home in the Old Country, but has taken up with the
Infantry because it gives more prospects for fighting service in
this war. This morning he said, “Father Duffy, did ye iver hear of
Father Hearrn of my parish in the County Longford?” “No, Jim, I never
did.” “Well, he was the grandest man in all Ireland. There was eight
hundhred min in Maynooth College where they study to be priests and
he could lick ivery dam wan of thim. He was a fine big man, six foot
two in his stockin’ feet. He used to come down the sthreet with a
big stick in his hand, and if anybody gave anny throuble he’d knock
you down just as quick as look at you. The whole parish loved him.
Wanst there was a fight in the village green between the peelers and
the people, and Father Hearrn was sent for to keep the peace and he
came down the road bowling over the peelers as if they was nine pins.
There niver was a nicer man within the four seas of Ireland.”
A soldier of Company K came to my tent one afternoon last week and
stood at the entrance fumbling his hat in his hand like an Irish
tenant of the old days that had not the rent to pay the landlord.
“What’s the matter, Tom?” “I took a dhrop too much, and Captain
Hurley got very mad about it and brought me up before Major Moynahan.
I wouldn’t mind if they’d fine me and be through with it, for I know
I deserve it. But the Major and the Captain say that they’re not
going to stand anything like this, and that they won’t lave me go to
the war. And sure, Father Duffy, if I couldn’t go to the war it’d
kill me.” The smile that came to my lips at this very Irish way of
putting it was suppressed when I thought of the number of men born
in the country who were worried sick lest the Draft should catch
them and send them to the war. I assured Tom that I would use my
powers of persuasion with the Captain and the Major to give him his
heart’s desire, if he would take the pledge. But we shall keep him
worried by a suspended sentence until we get him safely away from the
temptations of New York.
I have found an old friend in Camp in the person of Mike Donaldson of
Company I. Mike was an altar boy of mine in Haverstraw not long after
I was ordained. We both left there, I to teach metaphysics and Mike
for a career in the prize-ring, in which he became much more widely
and favorably known to his fellow citizens than I can ever hope to
be. One of his titles to fame is that he was sparring partner to
Stanley Ketchell. He has brought me a set of battered boxing gloves
which he presented to me with a very moving speech as relics of that
departed hero. I do not know exactly what he expects me to do with
the relics but I rather feel after his speech of presentation that it
would be considered appropriate if I suspend them reverently from the
rafter of my chapel like the _ex voto_ offerings of ships that one
sees in seaport shrines.
I have become a marrying Parson. Love and fighting seem to go
together—they are the two staples of romance. I have had a large
number of marriages to perform. In most cases the parties enter
my church tent from the rear and are quietly married before the
simple altar. We have had a few weddings however on the grand scale.
Michael Mulhern of the Band had arranged for a quiet wedding with a
very sweet little girl named Peggy O’Brien. This afternoon at four
o’clock when I was ready to slip over with the young couple and their
witnesses to my canvas church I saw the band forming. “What is this
formation for, Michael. You don’t have to be in it, do you?” “Ah,
Father,” said Michael, with a blush, “the boys heard somehow what was
going to happen and they’re going to serenade us.” We had to parade
over to church behind the band playing a wedding march, with 10,000
soldiers and visitors following curiously in the rear. So Michael and
his bride were united in matrimony before a vast throng that cheered
them, and showered them with rice that soldiers brought over from the
kitchens, many of the lads battling with the groom for the privilege
of kissing the bride.
_October_ 15th, 1917
We will soon be off to the war and I have been looking over the
Regiment, studying its possibilities.
About the enlisted men I have not a single doubt. If this collection
of hand-picked volunteers cannot give a good account of themselves
in battle, America should keep out of war. The men will fight no
matter who leads them. But fighting and winning are not always the
same thing, and the winning depends much on the officers—their
military knowledge, ability as instructors and powers of leadership.
The Non-coms are a fine lot. The First Sergeants as I run over the
list are a remarkable body of good old-time soldiers. Starting with
Company A, we have John O’Leary, John O’Neill, William Hatton, Tom
Sullivan, William Bailey, Joseph Blake, John Burke, Jerome O’Neill,
Patrick McMeniman, Tim Sullivan, Eugene Gannon, John Kenny; with
Denis O’Shea, A. McBride, J. Comiskey, and W. W. Lokker, for H. Q.
M. G. Supply and Medical. All of these men have been tried out in
the eight months of Border service and we are sure of them. Under
Colonel Haskell the hard driven Company Commanders had to break their
Sergeants in, or break them—life was too strenuous for favoritism.
In fact, except for recruits, it is surprisingly Haskell’s regiment
that is going to the front; Haskell’s, that is, with the reservation
that his work was done on the basis of Colonel Conley’s selection
and promotion in the more difficult period of peace service. When we
were selected for immediate over-seas service the authorities were
free to make what changes they would, and they left the regiment
intact except for the transfer of one Major and one Captain. The M.
G. Company was vacant by resignation. All other officers remained at
their posts, though we have been assigned a large number of newly
created Lieutenants to correspond with the new tables of organization
for a regiment of three thousand six hundred.
[Illustration: Francis P. Duffy
Chaplain 165th Inf.
69th N.Y.]
We like our new Colonel, though he was a total stranger to us before
the day he came to command us. He is a West Pointer, and went into
railroading after some years in the army as a Lieutenant; but he has
loyally reverted to the army whenever there was a real call to arms.
In 1898 if I had achieved my desire to go out as Chaplain of the 1st
D. C. I would have had him as one of my Majors. He came into this
conflict as organizer and commander of trains, a work for which his
experience fitted him. He is a man of middle height with a strong
body and an attractive face, healthily ruddy, strongly featured,
with a halo of thick grey hair above. He is a man of ideas, of ideas
formed by contact with life and business. He is a tireless worker,
and demands the same unflinching service from every man under him.
He has confidence in his men, especially the tried soldiers, and he
has a strong liking for the Regiment and its traditions. The Regiment
will do good work under the leadership of Colonel Charles Hine.
Lieutenant Colonel Reed I like better and better every day I am with
him. I did not take to him at first and I think he was largely to
blame. He kept himself too much aloof. The fault, however, was partly
ours. He came to us at a time when we felt suspicious that it was
the intention to destroy our character as an Irish organization, and
we owed too much to the men who had created the Regiment and made
its reputation with their blood to submit tamely to such a scheme as
that. Colonel Reed was not used to being where he was not wanted,
and his attitude was the result of this decent feeling. When the
task of forming a war strength regiment fell to him he took hold and
worked with single-minded vigor, and he then found that everybody was
anxious to work with him loyally. He discovered, what I could have
told him, that one thing the Sixty-ninth admires is a good soldier.
And Reed is a good soldier, keen, active, and aggressive. He learned
at once to love the regiment and is as enthusiastic as myself in his
regard for it. We spend a great deal of our free time together, for
we have much in common.
The senior Major, Timothy J. Moynahan, is the ideal of the Irish
soldier, as he comes down to us in history and in fiction. He
inherits from Patrick Sarsfield’s cavaliers, from the regiments
of Dillon and Burke at Fontenoy, from the Connaught Rangers at
Fuentes d’Onoro. A soldier born—trim, erect, handsome, active in
his movements, commanding and crisp in his orders. And a soldier
bred—he lives for the military game, devotes his life to his work as
military instructor in colleges, and to the old 69th. He is ready
with a toast or a speech or a neatly phrased compliment, and equally
ready to take up the gage of battle, if anyone should throw it down.
A vivid interesting character in our drab modern life. He has one
fault—a flaring Irish temper when military discipline is violated or
high ideals belittled. A fault, yes, but I feel there will be tense
moments of life for anybody with Tim Moynahan when the time comes for
a death grapple with the Germans. Phil Sheridan would have delighted
in him.
Major Stacom is my parishioner and I am his recruit. He acquired his
interest in soldiering as a boy at St. Francis Xavier College under
the stalwart old soldier, afterwards the hero of Santiago—Captain
Drum. He came to the Regiment as a boy out of college, an enlisted
man, and the Irish lads, after guying the handsome youngster in his
college clothes, learned to love and admire him for his knowledge and
ability. When he became Captain of Company B he recruited it by his
personal efforts, and on the Border he had one of the best companies
in the Regiment. Colonel Haskell picked him from the Company
Commanders as the first man to nominate for a Majority. He rules by
reason and kindliness, and evokes the best co-operation of all under
him—officers or men.
Major William J. Donovan, who commands the first Battalion was
transferred to us from the Brigade Staff, but he is no stranger to
us. On the Border when he was Captain of Troop I of the 1st Cavalry
he was the best known man of his rank in the New York Division. It
was almost certain that Donovan would be appointed our Colonel after
the efforts to get Colonel Haskell had failed, as he was our next
choice, and General O’Ryan knew that there were no politics about it,
but a sincere desire to find the best military leader. General O’Ryan
esteems Donovan as highly as we do. When we were selected to put the
green in the Rainbow all the vacancies were to be filled by transfer,
not by promotion. Donovan was a Major on the Staff of our Brigade.
Everybody knew that he could get higher rank by staying with the 27th
Division but he preferred to join in with us. He would rather fight
with the 69th than with any other Regiment, especially now that it
is to be the first in the fray, and he would rather be Major than
Colonel, for in battles as now conducted it is Majors who command in
the actual fighting.
Donovan is a man in the middle thirties, very attractive in face and
manner, an athlete who always keeps himself in perfect condition. As
a football player at Niagara and Columbia, he gained the sobriquet of
“Wild Bill.” But that is tribute gained by his prowess rather than
his demeanor. He is cool, untiring, strenuous, a man that always uses
his head. He is preparing his men for the fatigues of open warfare
by all kinds of wearying stunts. They too call him “Wild Bill” with
malicious unction, after he has led them over a cross country run for
four miles. But they admire him all the same, for he is the freshest
man in the crowd when the run is over. He is a lawyer by profession,
and a successful one, I am told. I like him for his agreeable
disposition, his fine character, his alert and eager intelligence.
But I certainly would not want to be in his Battalion.
Major George Lawrence of the Sanitary Detachment is one of the best
acquisitions of our Border experience. When Major Maguire had to
leave us, we all reached out for Lawrence, who was attached to the
12th, but was doing duty at the hospital there. He is well educated,
a product of St. Francis Xavier and Pennsylvania, a competent
physician and surgeon, a famous athlete in football and basketball
in his day, and an athlete still; and one of the most devoted and
most reliable men that God has made for the healing of wounds of mind
or body. When I think of what we shall have to go through it makes me
feel good to see George Lawrence around.
Captain Walter E. Powers of Headquarters Company is an old soldier
though still a young man. He entered the Regular Army out of high
school, out of short trousers, I tell him. He was Regimental Sergeant
Major of the 7th Cavalry when Haskell was Adjutant of that famous
Regiment. And when Haskell became Colonel he pulled Powers out of
the Pershing Expedition and made him Adjutant of the 69th; and he
was the best Adjutant on the Border. Latterly he has begun to pine
for a Company and Colonel Hine gave him the Headquarters Company,
the duties of which are so varied and so new that it will take a
soldier-lawyer like Powers to organize it. He has the keenest dryest
humor of any man I know. If he had not run away to be a soldier he
would have made a successful lawyer or journalist.
Captain George McAdie of Company A is a Scotchman. We tell him that
is the worst thing we know about him, which is our way of saying that
we do not know anything bad about him. Personally I am very fond of
our Scottish cousins, because I have known many real Scotchmen and
not merely jokes about them. The jokes never give you a suspicion
that Scotland idolizes Robert Burns, and produces fighting men as
fine as there are in the world. George is my kind of Scot—like a
volcano, rugged to outward view, but glowing with fire beneath. A
good soldier and a true friend—you like him when you know him a
while, and you find something new to like in him the longer you know
him. If his health be as strong as his spirit he will do great things
in the 69th.
Captain Thomas Reilley of Company B is an imposing being. He stands
six feet three or so and fills the eye with seeing any way you look
at him. He is also a college athlete, a football player of renown,
of Columbia and New York Universities. A lawyer of real power and
ability, he has not given himself time yet to reach his full stride
in his profession. Since his college days he has been too much in
demand for other services for which his endowments and instincts
fit him—athlete, soldier, with a short course in political life,
characteristically as an independent. He writes well and talks
well—too well, sometimes, for the Irish in him makes him indifferent
to the effects of what he has to say. It makes him indifferent to
all other sorts of danger too; so with his great physical and mental
powers and his capacity for organization he will render invaluable
service to the work of the Regiment.
Captain William Kennedy of Company C is also an athlete, with the
build of a runner, clean-cut, trim, alert. Brisk is the word that
describes him, for the trait is mental as well as physical. He is
a Company drill master in the best sense of the word. I have never
seen anybody who could get more snap out of a body of men with less
nagging, whether it was a parade or a policing detail than Bill
Kennedy. I expect to see Company C the smartest Company in the
Regiment.
Captain James A. McKenna of Company D is a lawyer—Harvard and Fordham
produced him. He is a fellow of great ability, ambitious, energetic
and enduring. He will go far in any line he may choose, and as a
soldier he will score a high mark. He has fine ideals and fine
sentiments which he chooses to conceal under a playfully aggressive
or business-like demeanor. But his enthusiasms, patriotic, religious,
personal, are the true fundaments of him, and everybody feels it. He
lets himself out most in his affection for his men who reciprocate
his devotion. Company D under Jim McKenna will play a big part in our
annals of war.
Alexander E. Anderson of Company E is a 69th man by heredity. His
uncle, Colonel Duffy, commanded the Regiment in 1898. His cousin,
Major John Duffy, was in the Regiment when Anderson was old enough
to join it—and he joined it as a private just as soon as they would
let him. He is a soldier through and through. His family and his
business are near to him, but the 69th is first in his thoughts. He
has gone through all the stages from private to captain without any
family favoritism and today he stands out as the keenest Captain in
the Regiment. He went to an Officer’s Training School two years ago
and graduated with a hundred percent. Sometimes they call him the
100 percent soldier, a title which grates on him exceedingly, for he
hates such labels of praise, whether meant or not. Colonel Hine has
asked me for the names of three Captains who might be recommended for
Majors in emergency. I told him I would name only one, and after that
one, half a dozen or more. “Oh,” he said, “you mean Anderson. That is
what the Battalion Commanders all say.”
Captain Michael Kelly is an old soldier, though not an old man. He
can wear military medals on dress-suit occasions which puzzle even
the experts. A County Clare man by birth, he was drawn by fighting
instincts as a youth into the British Army, since there was no
Irish Army organized, and fought through the Boer War and Burmese
campaigns. In New York he is second in command of the aqueduct police
and a Captain of the 69th, succeeding Captain P. J. Maguire, who gave
up his beloved Company F with satisfaction only because it fell to
his trusted Lieutenant. Captain Kelly is a soldier first, last and
all the time. His spear knoweth no brother. He visits infractions of
military discipline with sternness and vigor. His Company stands in
awe of him, and boasts of him to others. They are well looked after.
If I have anything to distribute I have to keep an eye on him and
Anderson, the two tyrants amongst Company Commanders. Give them their
way and everything would go to Companies E and F, with a humorous
growl between the two as to who gets the most of the spoils.
The Irish-American A. C. gave us Captain James Archer, as it and
kindred organizations have given us many of our best soldiers. There
are few young fellows around New York who have not heard of Jimmy
Archer, and many a one has watched with delight his fleet limbs
carrying his graceful figure and shining head around the track to
victory. He has the cleanness and fineness of the amateur track
athlete—very distinctly a man and a gentleman. He has won his way
through every step upward in the Regiment and has fairly won his race
to the Captain’s bars.
Captain James G. Finn of Company H is a Spanish War veteran, though
he looks so young that he has to carry around his service record
and the family Bible to prove it. Not that anybody would call Jim a
liar. Not after taking one look at him. He is a broad-shouldered,
big-chested fellow, one that the eye will pick out of a crowd, even
in a congested crowd, for he stands above the heads of ordinary
mortals. A football player, of course—Dartmouth College. A big honest
manly man and a devoted soldier. Jim Finn thinks that Company H is
the best bunch of fighting men that ever shouldered a rifle, and
Company H knows that their big Captain is the finest man in the
American Army. There are two hundred and fifty of them, and the
Captain has thews like the son of Anak, so I don’t intend to start
anything by contradicting either of them. Anyway, I more than half
agree with them.
Captain Richard J. Ryan of Company I is a new comer and, like a
boy in a new town, he has his way to make. If I be not “mistook in
my jedgments” he will make it. He hails from Watertown, New York,
and from the 1st New York Infantry, but that does not complete his
military history. He fought in the Boer War, I suspect from the same
reason that prompted Kelly—because that was the only war there was,
and a man must do the best with the opportunities he has. He is all
wrapped up in his Company. He does not seem to care a hang what
anybody higher up is thinking about him. He has his job and he wants
to see it done right. That is a good sign. A soldier by natural
instinct and preference, a Captain devoted to his men—that goes with
the 69th. I am for him.
Captain John Patrick Hurley of Company K, is an argument for the
continued existence of the Irish as a people. He has everything that
everybody loves in the Irish, as found even the reluctant tributes
of their hereditary foes. He has a lean, clean handsome face and
figure, and a spirit that responds to ideals patriotic, religious,
racial, human, as eagerly and naturally as a bird soaring into its
native air. He is perfectly willing to die for what he believes in.
He would find that much easier than to live in a world of the cheap
and commonplace. He always reminds me of the Easter-week patriots
of Dublin, Patrick Pearse and Plunkett and MacDonagh. Like myself,
and I may say all of us, he is in this war as a volunteer because he
feels that it is a war against the tyranny of the strong, and a fight
for the oppressed peoples of the earth. He is an able, practical man
withal; an engineer, graduate of Cornell. He rules his company as
their military commander, and the tribute of affection and loyalty
they pay him is not lessened by the knowledge they have that breaches
of discipline will meet with no mercy.
Captain Merle-Smith of Company L came to us on the Border from
Squadron A, and the intervening year of intimacy has not changed
the judgment I uttered the first time I saw him: “If I had to pick
out one man to spend a year with me on a voyage to Central Africa,
there is the man I would select.” A big fellow—he and Reilly and Finn
are our prize specimens—and big, like them, all the way through;
and with the astonishing simplicity—in the old theological sense of
the word as contrasted with duplicity—that one so often finds in
big men. A college athlete (Princeton) and a lawyer, the contests
of the campus and the bar have only whetted his appetite for more
intense battles. From the time he joined us he has felt that the best
opening for real soldier work is in this regiment. He is a 69th man
by conviction, and he is as fond of his valiant Kerrymen in Company
L as they are of him. I found no one in the recruiting period more
zealous in increasing the numbers of the regiment and maintaining at
the same time its characteristic flavor than Captain Van Santvoordt
Merle-Smith.
Captain William Doyle commanded Company M when we were called out,
but since Captain Powers took the Headquarters Company he has been
made Adjutant. It was a good choice. Captain Doyle is a college man
(St. Francis Xavier) and an engineer by profession, and has been a
National Guardsman for more years than one would guess. His training
fits him for his new job. His mind is quick on the trigger, though
the speed and accuracy with which it shoots a retort is rendered
deceptive by his slightly humorous drawl in delivery. He is not one
of the big fellows, but the big fellows think twice before taking him
on.
Martin Meaney, Captain of Company M, was a Sergeant of Company G
when we were in Texas. I wanted Colonel Haskell to make him a Second
Lieutenant, but Martin hadn’t left the County Clare soon enough to
satisfy the technicality of having his final citizen papers. He could
fight for the United States, but he could not be an officer. He came
of age as a citizen during the summer and went to Plattsburg, and
the people in charge there made him not a Second Lieutenant but a
Captain. Colonel Haskell, who is Adjutant at Camp Upton, found the
chance to send him back to us as a Captain, and we were very glad to
get him. For we know Martin Meaney; and everyone who knows Martin
Meaney likes him and trusts him. He is a fine, manly upstanding young
Irishman devoted to high ideals, practical and efficient withal.
Granted the justice of my cause there is no man in the world I would
so much rely on to stick to me to the end as Martin Meaney. It makes
us all feel better to have him along with us in our adventure of war.
The vacancy in the Machine Gun Company was filled by the appointment
of Captain Kenneth Seibert, an old guardsman of the Iowa National
Guard. He has the position of Johnny-come-lately with us yet, but he
knows the game and he will be a veteran of ours by the time we get to
our first battle. His whole organization is practically new, but he
is very keen about it, and is an excellent manager, so we feel that
he will soon have it in shape.
Captain John Mangan of the Supply Company is the salt of the earth.
I like Jack Mangan so much that I always talk that way about him,
and incidentally I waste his time and mine by holding him for a chat
whenever we meet. He came to us before we went to the Border. His
friends were in another regiment, but all that was nice and Irish
about him made him want to be with the 69th. He is a Columbia man and
a contractor. Colonel Haskell got his eye on him, when, as a Second
Lieutenant, he was put in charge of a detail of offenders who had to
do some special work. Under Mangan their work was not mere pottering
around. They did things. While we were on the big hike Mangan was
left behind with a detail of cripples to build mess shacks. They were
built, created is a better word, but we were doomed never to use
them, as we got orders during the hike to proceed to another station.
I said to Haskell: “Don’t forget to compliment Lieutenant Mangan on
his work, for he has done wonders, and it looks now to have been
all in vain.” Haskell answered with assumed grimness: “Lieutenant
Mangan will not be Lieutenant Mangan long.” He was Captain Mangan, R.
S. O. (Regimental Supply Officer) as soon as the formalities could
be arranged; and in a short time he was the best supply officer on
the Border, as his training as a contractor gave him experience in
handling men and materials.
Everybody likes Mangan—half-rebellious prisoners and soldering
details and grasping civilians and grouchy division quartermasters.
For “he has a way wid him.” At bottom it is humor and justness,
with appreciation of the other fellow’s difficulties and states of
mind. With his fairness and balance, he carries such an atmosphere
of geniality and joy of life that everybody begins to feel a new
interest in the game and a new willingness to play a decent part in
it.
So far as I can see it now, our Captains average higher than our
Lieutenants, though time will have to show if I am right. But at
present I can point my finger to half a dozen Captains at least
who could easily fill the job of Major, without being so certain
of finding an equal number of Lieutenants who could make as good
Captains as the men they replace. Probably all that this proves
is that the Captains have the advantage of experience in their
positions, and that their juniors, when equal opportunity is given
them, will develop to be just as good. Amongst the Lieutenants the
first to my mind is John Prout, a fine young Tipperary man of the
stamp of Hurley and Meaney. Others in line are Samuel A. Smith, John
Poore and William McKenna, the four Burns brothers (all good, but
Jim in my judgment the best), also William Burns, Richard Allen,
Clifford, Kelley, Kinney, Joseph McNamara, Crimmins, Carroll, Andrew
Lawrence, John Green, Thomas C. Martin, with Rowley, Grose, Baker,
Joseph O’Donohue, James Mangan, O’Brien, Philbin, Cavanaugh, Reune
Martin, who came to us while in the Armory. Of the newcomers sent to
us here at Camp Mills four of the old regular army men stand out:
Lieutenants Michael J. Walsh, Henry A. Bootz, Patrick Dowling and
Francis McNamara. Our Medical Department consists of Major Lawrence
with Doctors Houghton, Lyttle, Martin, Kilcourse, Levine, Patton,
Bamford, Austin Lawrence and Landrigan.
_October_ 25th, 1917
We are the best cared for Regiment that ever went to war. Mr. Daniel
M. Brady, who was chairman of the Committee for employment, appointed
by Justice Victor J. Dowling of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick,
when we came back from the Border, has reorganized and increased that
body and our Board of Trustees now consists of Morgan J. O’Brien,
chairman, Daniel M. Brady, John J. Whalen, Joseph P. Grace, Victor
J. Dowling, John D. Ryan, George McDonald, Nicholas F. Brady, John
E. O’Keefe, Louis D. Conley, and Bryan Kennedy. They have raised
ample funds from private subscriptions and from the generous benefits
offered through the kindly generosity of the New York Baseball Club
and of Mr. John McCormack. They have given $10,000.00 in cash to the
Company and Regimental Funds, and $1,600 for the Chaplain’s Fund “for
religion and divilment.” All sorts of sporting goods, including two
complete sets of uniforms of Giants and Cubs, equip us fully for the
sort of strenuous life which we most enjoy.
The Women’s Auxiliary is also formed, Mrs. Hennings being the
President, for looking after the families of soldiers while they are
away, and sending gifts abroad.
Some of our wealthy friends in the Board of Trustees have also
held dinners to which have been invited the principal officers of
Regiment, Brigade, and Division. It has helped us to get acquainted
with our chief superiors. I was particularly glad to have the
opportunity of getting a more intimate knowledge of General Mann
and his Chief of Staff, Colonel Douglas McArthur—a brilliant
youthful-looking soldier for whom I had already formed a high esteem
and admiration from casual meeting. He has been very helpful in
furthering my plans to have a large body of priests from Brooklyn
and New York give the men of the whole Division an opportunity of
receiving the sacraments before going abroad.
MONTREAL
_October_ 28th, 1917
Orders at last. They came in for the 1st Battalion October 25th.
They slipped out quietly by night. I went with them to Montreal,
travelling with Companies B and D. The men were in gleeful spirits,
glad to have the wait over and to be off on the Long Trail. Edward
Connelly and I sat up chatting most of the night. One remark of his
struck me. His father was Captain of Company B in the 69th during the
Civil War. “Some people say to me, ‘With your two boys I don’t see
how you can afford to go to war.’ With my two boys I can’t see how I
can afford not to go to war.”
The two soldiers who appealed to me most aboard the train were Supply
Sergeant Billy McLaughlin and Lieutenant Bootz. They stayed up all
night to look after our needs, and they showed a combination of
efficiency and cheerfulness—a very model of soldierly spirit.
I saw them all onto the _Tunisia_ on their way to Liverpool. God
speed them.