JOHNNY POE'S OWN STORY
Johnny Poe was a member of the Black Watch, that famous Scotch Regiment
whose battles had followed the English flag. On the graves of the Black
Watch heroes the sun never sets. Johnny Poe's death came on September
25th, 1915, in the Battle of Loos. Nelson Poe has given me the following
information regarding Johnny's death. It comes direct from Private W.
Faulkner, a comrade who was in the charge when Johnny fell.
In the morning during the attack we went out on a party carrying bombs.
Poe and myself were in this party. We had gone about half way across an
open field when Poe was hit in the stomach. He was then five yards in
front of me and I saw him fall. As he fell he said, 'Never mind me. Go
ahead with our boxes.' On our return for more bombs we found him lying
dead. Shortly after he was buried at a place between the British and
German lines. I have seen his grave which is about a hundred yards to
the left of 'Lone Tree' on the left of Loos. 'Lone Tree' is the only
landmark near. The grave is marked with his name and regiment.
Just what Johnny Poe's heroic finish on the battle field meant to us
here at home is the common knowledge of all football men and indeed of
all sportsmen. There is ample evidence, moreover, that it attracted the
attention of the four corners of the earth. Life in London or Paris was
not all roses to the Americans compelled to remain there at the height
of the war.
Paul Mac Whelan, a Yale man and football writer, had occasion to be in
London shortly after the news of Poe's death in battle was received
there. Talking with Whelan after his return he impressed upon me the
place that Poe had made for himself in the hearts of at least one of the
fighting countries.
"You know," said he, "that at about that time Americans were not very
popular. There seemed to be a feeling everywhere that we should have
been on the firing line. This feeling developed the fashion of polite
jeering to a point that made life abroad uncomfortable until Johnny Poe
fell fighting in the ranks of the Black Watch on the plains of Flanders.
In the dull monotony of the casualty list his name at first slipped by
with scant mention. It was the publication in the United States of the
story of his fighting career which stimulated newspaper interest not
merely in England, but throughout the British Empire. To Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and South Africa--into the farthest corners of the
earth--went the tale of the death of a great American fighter.
"I met one man, a lawyer, on his way to do some peace work, and he told
me that he thought Poe had no right to be in the ranks of a foreign
army. Probably most of the pacifists would have returned the same
verdict regardless of Poe's love for the cause of the Allies. Yet among
the thousands of Americans in Europe in the month following Poe's death,
there was complete unity of opinion that the old Princeton football star
had done more for his country than all the pacifists put together.
"'A toast to the memory of Poe,' said one of the group of Americans in
the Savoy, that famous gathering place of Yankees in London. 'His death
has made living a lot easier for his countrymen who have to be in France
and England during the war.'"
"There is not an army on the continent in which Americans have not died,
but no death in action, not even that of Victor Chapman the famous
American aviator in France, gave such timely proof of American valor as
that of Poe. In London for a month after his death there was talk among
Americans and in the university clubs about raising funds for some
permanent memorial in London to Poe. There are many memorials to
Englishmen in America and it would seem that there is a place and a real
reason for erecting a memorial in London to a fighting American who gave
his life for a cause to England."
I have always treasured, in my football collection, some anecdotes
which Johnny Poe wrote several years ago while in Nevada. In fact, from
reading his stories, after his death, I got the inspiration that
prompted me to write this book.
"The following stories were picked up by me," says Johnny, "through the
course of college years, and after. Some of the incidents I have
actually witnessed, of others my brothers have told me, when we talked
over Princeton victories and defeats with the reasons for both, and
still others I have heard from the lips of Princeton men as they grew
reminiscent sitting around the cozy fireplace in the Trophy room at the
Varsity Club House, with the old footballs, the scores of many a hard
fought Princeton victory emblazoned upon them, and the banners with the
names of the members of the winning teams thereon inscribed looking down
from their places on the walls and ceilings."
How the undergraduates long to have their names enrolled on the
victorious banner, knowing that they will be looked up to by future
college generations of the sons of Old Nassau!
These old banners have much the same effect upon Princeton teams as did
the name of Horatius upon the young Romans'!
And still his name sounds strong unto the men of Rome,
As a trumpet blast which calls to them to charge the Volsian home;
And wives still pray to Juno for boys with hearts as bold
As his who kept the bridge so well
In the brave days of old.
Well do they know that Mother Princeton is not chary of her praise, when
she knows that they have planted her banner on the loftiest tower of her
enemies' stronghold.
The evenings spent in the Trophy room, the Grill Room of the Princeton
Inn and in the hallways around a cheerful fire of the numerous Princeton
clubs make me think of nights in the Mess room of crack British
regiments, so graphically described by Kipling.
The general public cannot understand the seriousness with which college
athletes take the loss of an important game. There is a Princeton
football Captain who was so broken up over a defeat by Yale that, months
after on the cattle range of New Mexico, as he lay out at night on his
cow-boy bed and thought himself unobserved, he fell to sobbing as if his
heart would break.
A football victory to many men is as dearly longed for as any goal of
ambition in life. How else would they strive so fiercely, one side to
take the ball over, the other to prevent them doing so!
Very few of the public hear the exhortation and cursing as the ball
slowly but irresistibly is rushed to the goal of the opponent.
"Billy, if you do that again I'll cut your heart out!"
"Yale, if you ever held, hold now!"
How the calls to victory come back!
As Hughes says in Tom Brown's School Days, a scrimmage in front of the
goal posts, or the Consulship of Plancus, is no child's play.
My earliest Princeton football hero was Alex Moffat '84. My brother
Johnson was in his class and played on the same team, and would often
talk of him to my brothers and to me. He used to give us a sort of
"Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, etc."
Though my brother is a small man, I thought all other Princeton players
must be 9 cubits and a half, or as a reporter once said of Symmes '92,
center rush in Princeton team of '90 and '91, "An animated whale, broad
as the moral law and heavy as the hand of fate." I consider Alex Moffat
the greatest goal kicker college football has produced. One football in
the Princeton Trophy room has on it, "Princeton 26, Harvard 7." In that
game Moffat kicked five goals from the field, three with his right and
two with his left foot, besides the goals from the touchdowns.
A Harvard guard made the remark after the third goal, "We came here to
play football, not to play against phenomenal kicking."
Princeton men cannot help feeling that Moffat should have been allowed a
goal against Yale in his Post-graduate year of '84, which was called
before the full halves had been played and decided a draw, Yale being
ahead, 6 to 4. Princeton claimed it but the Referee said he didn't see
it, which caused Moffat to exclaim--something.
An amusing story is told in connection with this decision. Quite a
number of years after Jim Robinson who was trainer of the Princeton team
in '84, went down to the dock to see his brother off for Europe. Looking
up he beheld on the deck above, the man who had refereed the '84 game,
and whom he had not seen since, "Smith," he said, "I have a brother on
this boat, but I hope she sinks."
Tilly Lamar's name is highly honored at Princeton, not only because he
won the '85 game against Yale by a run of about 90 yards, but because he
died trying to save a girl from drowning. Only a few months later, in
the summer of '91, Fred Brokaw '92, was drowned at Elberon while trying
to save two girls from the ocean. Both Lamar and Brokaw's pictures adorn
the walls of the Varsity Club House.
The first game I ever saw the Princeton Team play was with Harvard in
'88, which the former won 18 to 6. I was in my brother's ('91) room
about three hours and a half before the game, and Jere Black and
Channing, the halfbacks, were there. As Channing left he remarked,
"Something will have happened before I get back to this room again,"
referring to the game, which doubtless made him a bit nervous.
I believe he was no more nervous ten years after, when in the Rough
Riders he waited for word to advance up that bullet swept hill before
Santiago.
'81 was the year so many Divinity students played on the Varsity: Hector
Cowan the great tackle, Dick Hodge the strategist, Sam Hodge, Bob Speer,
and I think Irvine; men all, who as McCready Sykes said, "Feared God and
no one else." Hector Cowan is considered one of the best tackles that
ever wore the Orange and Black jersey. While rough, he was never a dirty
player.
In a game with Wesleyan, his opponent cried out angrily, "Keep your
hands for pounding on your Bible, don't be sticking them in my face."
One day in a game against the Scrub, Cowan had passed everyone except
the fullback and was bearing down on him like a tornado, when within a
few feet of the fullback the latter jumped aside and said politely,
"Pass on, sir, pass on." Cowan played on two winning teams, '85 and '89.
In '89 the eligibility rules at the college were not as strict as now,
so as Princeton needed a tackle, Walter Cash who had played on
Pennsylvania the year before, was sent for and came all the way from
Wyoming. He came so hurriedly that his wardrobe consisted of two
6-shooters and a monte deck of cards, on account of which he was dubbed
"Monte" Cash. Cash was not fond of attending lectures, and once the
faculty had him up before them and told him what a disgrace it would be
if he were dropped out of College. "It may be in the East, but we don't
think much of a little thing like that out West," was his reply. Cash
was in the Rough Riders and was wounded at San Juan.
Sport Donnelly was a great end that year. Heffelfinger the great Yale
guard who is probably the best that ever played, said of Donnelly, that
he was the only player he had ever seen who could slug and keep his eye
on the ball at the same time. The following story is often told of how
Donnelly got Rhodes of Yale ruled off in '89. Rhodes had hit Channing of
Princeton in the eye, so that Donnelly was laying for him, and when
Rhodes came through the line, Donnelly grabbed up two handsful of
mud--it was a very muddy field--and rubbed them in his face and
hollered, "Mr. Umpire," so that when Rhodes, in a burst of righteous
indignation, hit him, the Umpire saw it and promptly ruled Rhodes from
the field.
Snake Ames and House Janeway played that year, and as the latter was
big--210 pounds stripped--and good natured, Ames thought that if he
could only get Janeway angry he would play even better than usual, so,
with Machiavellian craft, he said to him before the Harvard game,
"House, the man you are going to play against to-morrow insulted your
girl. I heard him do it, so you want to murder him." "All right," said
House, ominously, and as Princeton won, 41 to 15, Janeway must certainly
have helped a heap.
George played center for Princeton four years, and for three years "Pa"
Corbin and George played against each other, and, as cow-boys would say,
"sure did chew each other's mane." I don't mean slugged.
My brother Edgar '91 was a great admirer of George. In '88 Edgar was
playing in the scrub, and George broke through and was about to make a
tackle when the former knocked one of his arms down as it was
outstretched to catch it. George missed the tackle but said nothing. A
second time almost identically the same thing occurred. This time he
remarked grimly, "Good trick that, Poe." But when the same thing
happened a third time on the same afternoon, he exclaimed, "Poe, if you
weren't so small, I'd hit you."
In '89 Thomas '90, substitute guard, was highly indignant at the way
some Boston newspaper described him. "The Princeton men were giants, one
in particular was picturesque in his grotesqueness. He was 6 feet 5 and,
when he ran, his arms and legs moved up and down like the piston rods of
an engine."
In '90 Buck Irvine '88 brought an unknown team to Princeton, Franklin
and Marshall, which he coached, and they scored 16 points against the
Tigers. And though the latter won, 33 to 16, still that was the largest
score ever made against Princeton up to that time. They did it, too, by
rushing, which was all the more to their credit.
Victor Harding, Harvard, and Yup Cook, Princeton '89, had played on
Andover and Exeter, respectively, and had trouble then, so four years
later when they met, one on Princeton and the other on Harvard, they had
more trouble. Both were ruled off for rough work. Cook picked Harding up
off the ground and slammed him down and then walked off the field. In a
few minutes Harding, after trying to trip Ames, also was ruled off. That
was the net result of the old Andover-Exeter feud.
In '91 Princeton was playing Rutgers. Those were the days of the old "V"
trick in starting a game. When the Orange and Black guards and centers
tore up the Rutgers' V it was found that the Captain of the latter team
had broken his leg in the crush. He showed great nerve, for while
sitting on the ground waiting for a stretcher, he remarked in a
nonchalant way, "Give me a cigarette. I could die for Old Rutgers," his
tone being "Me first and then Nathan Hale." One version quite prevalent
around Princeton has it that a Tiger player rushed up and exclaimed,
"Die then." This is not true as I played in that game and know whereof I
speak.
Fifteen years after that had happened, I met Phil Brett who had
captained the Rutgers Team that day, and he told me that his life had
been a burden to him at times, and like Job, he felt like cursing God
and dying, because often upon coming into a café or even a hotel
dining-room some half drunken acquaintance would yell out, "Hello, Phil,
old man, could you die for dear Old Rutgers?"
Several years ago while in the Kentucky Militia in connection with one
of those feud cases, I was asked by a private if I were related to Edgar
Allan Poe, "De mug what used to write poetry," and when I replied, "Yes,
he was my grandmother's first cousin," he, evidently thinking I was too
boastful, remarked, "Well, man, you've got a swell chance."
So, knowing that the football season is near I think I have a "swell
chance" to tell some of the old football stories handed down at
Princeton from college generation to generation. If I have hurt any old
Princeton players' feelings, I do humbly ask pardon and assure them that
it is unintentional; for as the Indians would put it, my heart is warm
toward them, and, when I die, place my hands upon my chest and put their
hands between my hands.
With apologies to Kipling in his poem when he speaks of the parting of
the Colonial troops with the Regulars:
"There isn't much we haven't shared
For to make the Elis run.
The same old hurts, the same old breaks,
The same old rain and sun.
The same old chance which knocked us out
Or winked and let us through.
The same old joy, the same old sorrow,
Good-bye, good luck to you."