Maryland in the Great War; Over There

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.. .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . and various houses around Baltimore, and this year he's published two new piano rags. ["Pomp and Circumstance") Over in Europe, a vast ocean away, countries are building up their war machines, but that doesn't concern us. We have a pacifist in the White House. Woodrow Wilson was nominated at the 1912 Democratic Convention in Baltimore. As a former history professor, he's convinced war is not the way to solve nation's problems. Now, in August 1914,

he reaffirms his isolationist message. The United States must be neutral, in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action. Most of us that summer are happy to be neutral. So out in Western Maryland, ladies aid societies give lawn parties to raise money for the care of local orphans. Never dreaming that one day soon, they will be rolling bandages to bind up wounds made by Shrapnel. At the Baltimore American, young George Redwood covers crime news. He has no idea he is on his way to a terrible war, where he will win medals for gallantry in action, and then die, and have a grateful city green name for a street and honor of his sacrifice. And over at Snow Hill on the Eastern Shore, an 18-year-old named Howard Waters is teaching himself to read

by deciphering the words painted on the sides of box cars, not knowing that he will live to be the state's longest surviving black veteran of World War I. The August 1914 outbreak of war was a tragedy for Europe, but a blessing for American industry. The Baltimore industry is like Bethlehem Steel, Maryland shipping and dry dock, expanded immediately, and quite profitably making things that the warring powers needed. My father, he worked for a part in the neighborhood, and he always did mechanical work.

What he did, I'm not sure, and then he also worked for a 10-decorating company, which was a company that made 10 boxes, but during the war they did war things. Barland and Hayward had originated in the 1830s as a Baltimore firm specializing in iron stoves for domestic use. When World War I struck, Portland, Hayward had no trouble whatsoever, converting from cast iron stoves and intricate iron work to shells, fuses, and even tubes for guns. While it made business thrive, that far away war in Europe caused great anguish among Maryland's ethnic minorities. This was a question of loyalty. Many of these people were first generation, some of them even had been born in the old country. At the outset, the idea was to band together and support families from the old country,

raising money, as the Lithuanians did, in the Holland's market area in Baltimore, as an example, Russian Jews raising money for the relief of their families and friends back in Russia. It was a time when everyone, including of course the Germans, faced some very difficult decisions. The German-American community here in Baltimore, particularly during the second half of the 19th century, was a very large and vibrant and distinct ethnic community. Anita Stroma recalls how much her mother wanted to be an American. My grandfather would not permit a word of English to be spoken. And she went to school, not knowing a word of English, and was most embarrassed. And that was one of the things she didn't like about. He also dressed her like a little German girl, which she resented very much.

Made her hair come back with not a red-allet place. And she looked at those pictures and she said, can you imagine dressing a little American girl like that, you know? The German community was so strong here that they were able to get German language instruction, I put into the curriculum of Baltimore City Schools. One of Maryland's most famous German-Americans was newspaper man Henry L. Menken. A nation too long at peace becomes sort of a gigantic old maid. A war would do us good. It would make us healthier and body cleaner in mind. In his evening son column, the freelance, Menken wrote often about the war, and in spite of complaints from readers, he refused to take the neutral stance President Wilson advised. What? Neutral? Not on your life. Convinced after long and prayerful consideration that the Germans are wholly right,

and that they deserve to win, and that they will win, I go as the saying is, the whole hog. England gave us puritanism. Germany gave us pillsner. Take your choice. After a couple years of this rhetoric, the editors of the pro-British Baltimore Sun sent Menken off to Germany to be a war correspondent. When he got back home, he stopped writing his politically sensitive columns, but federal agents watched his house, opened his mail, and occasionally questioned him. Menken jeered at the government's paranoia and settled down to write books. Although few of Maryland's German Americans were as outspoken as Menken, many of them shared his sympathies. As the war dragged on, the civilian population in the old country was being systematically deprived of necessary supplies. The British blockade and heavy minefields in the North Sea and the English Channel

made it so dangerous that neutral cargo to vessels wouldn't dare venture into those waters. In other words, Germany was effectively cut off from international trade by the British blockade and mining. The Germans used submarines to fight the blockade. They took out ads warning Americans not to sail as passengers on British ships. Nevertheless, Americans were outraged in May 1915 when a U-boat sank the Canardliner, Lusitania, off the coast of Ireland. Over a thousand people died and 128 of them were Americans. Angry letters poured into the editorial pages of local newspapers and public opinion against Germany turned bitter. Fearful of destroying America's neutral stance, Germany cut back on submarine warfare and the British blockade continued its stranglehold on Germany's supply lines. Certain businessmen in Germany came up with the idea for a commercial U-boat that would be able to run the blockade

and would have sufficient range to make it across the Atlantic to America. In July 1916, a German sub made it all the way up the Chesapeake Bay and into Baltimore Harbor. In terms of its cargo-carrying ability, a submarine like the Deutschland with an 800-ton cargo capacity really would not have much of an effect on the German war effort. But they scored a big propaganda victory in 1960 by being able to run through the British blockade and bring to Baltimore a quantity of die stuffs, German chemical dies, and take back with them some vitally needed supplies of rubber and nickel, which were in very short supply in Germany. The city fathers weren't sure exactly how to treat these people. There were delegations sent down to greet the sailors. There were others who thought that the better thing as an American born German was to turn ones back on these people to ignore them and hope that they'd go away. Erwin Schultz's uncle met the U-boat captain.

German submarine, Deutschland, came into Baltimore and the captain visited my father's uncle, who was a prominent lawyer. And I have an iron cross-paper-weight momento from that meeting. It has a great another submarine on one side and the captain's picture on the other side. As war raged in Europe and Marylanders struggled with their divided ethnic heritage, trouble erupted between the United States and Mexico. Michael joined the army when he was 16. Right about his age. Next thing I knew, he was down in Mexico with blackjack Persians. In March of 1916, Pancho Villa attacked Columbus in New Mexico. As a result, the federal government called out the National Guard. The first, fourth, and fifth regiment to the National Guard from Maryland were sent to Eagle Pass, Texas.

The Maryland contingent basically performed guard duty on the Rio Grande. They saw no actual combat, but they performed the duties of the soldier, but was here that they really became veterans. The trouble with Mexico impaled President Wilson to stress preparedness. So when Maryland orders for supplies were coming in, not only from the allies, but now from our own government as well. Mills, such as the Dickey Mills in O'Wella, turned out army blankets. Maryland factories canned and shipped tons of food, oysters, corn, tomatoes, and other local produce. Meanwhile, the European conflict drew closer to home when an increasingly desperate Germany stepped up their submarine warfare. In the case of America's entry into the Great War, there is no firing on Ford's Center, no definitive moment. Suddenly, the Congress rises up in anger. It does seem, though, that pressure increased

throughout 1917, primarily because of Germany's all-out Yuba War. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts for democracy. For a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples, as shall bring peace and safety to all nations, and make the world itself at last free. The U.S. military was unprepared when war was declared in April of 1917. In fact, there were only 200,000 Americans on active service at that time. National Guard regiments throughout the country were federalized into service. The Maryland National Guard became the newly created 29th Division. Well, on April 6, 1917, I was fortunate to get a pass to the Senate in Washington,

and I witnessed Vice President Marshall sign the Declaration of War very shortly after that. I enlisted in the Maryland National Guard. Baltimore clothing factories began mass-producing uniforms. War plants went to round-the-clock operations. Men of military aid signed up to the tolling of church bells and the shrilling of steamboat whistles. The reason I was doing the 5th Regiment of Harmony I lived in Hamilton, and it was a group for my age in school. They had joined the 5th Regiment of Harmony, and so I joined. Because I was 16 years old, my mother, she was determined to get me out of the 5th Regiment. So she went down to the 5th Regiment of Harmony

and seen the colonel. They told me that my mother said I was underage and that she wanted me to be released. And I said, I don't think so. And he said, do you want to be released? I said, no, my buddies are here. They had to leave so company. So he said, well, you still stay in the Army. The draft went into effect on May 19, 1917. All eligible males between the age of 21 and 30 were supposed to register to draft. Eventually, that went up to the age of 45. Well, I thought I'd just well have it over,

because I know they're going to draft me anyway. And so I just went on and missed. Well, I know that if we wind it, that was all over. And I know if they wind it, they could take us. You see, we're going to take this country. And I didn't want to see that, though. Mm-hmm. No? Young German Americans, the children of German immigrants from Maryland volunteered for the Army in large numbers, there was no lack of patriotism. The German newspaper, the correspondent in Baltimore, said in a long piece that sorted out the question of loyalty, keep in mind that while Germany is the land of our fathers, this is the land of our children and our children's children. Yonder the past, here the future. My grandmother and grandfather, they came from Germany. See, but I think most of the children were born here in this country.

Well, I was very much interested in it at that time. And I did go to try to join the Navy. But Dr. Runme out, she'd go and you go home and see your doctor. So as far as I got until the next year, when they come around, they drafted me. I didn't have no bad feelings about it whatsoever, because she had a good job that had to be done. That's the only thing that I could think about. In June 1917, Maryland became the first state to share in the cost of the military build-up, by clearing some 12,000 acres of anorundal county farmland, so the army could build, can't meet. Camp Mead, October 8th, 1917. Dear Sister, this is some life.

It's so cold down here at night, you almost freeze. We only have two thin blankets, and you have to have the window open at night. We get up at 6 a.m. Then we have Reveley. That is stand out in line for about 15 or 20 minutes. They won't allow you to have coats on. They say it's warm yet. I guess they're trying to harden us. I receive the sweater and it feels good, but I can't wear it at drill, because they don't allow anything to hide the uniform. I look like a real soldier now, but I ain't. Your brother will. In the beginning, most of the men that were trained to can't meet were taught the rudimentary skills of being a soldier. Once they were properly outfitted, they were taught their facings, how to march, and how to perform basic military etiquette. The feel exercises is what made me. It really made me.

Because when I was left there to go overseas, I was hard as a rock. And I guess I could have slipped out in a rain or anywhere. Once the men had trained for several weeks, they then wanted to more specific and definite training periods. They usually trained from 7 to 30 in the morning to 4.30 in the afternoon, but they're only break being meals. Late in the afternoon and early evening, they had periodic lectures from servicemen from overseas and from seasoned veterans in the U.S. Army. Not only men were trained here, can't meet also trained the first women to serve as uniformed members of the U.S. Army. They were the telephone operators called the Hello Girls. We had to get on a boat. They'd go across the boat a little more. I said, now you see to everyone here?

I said, every time the stops change, some of them might try to dodge or something like it's who's seen. Well, I had two helpers. Then we went on in. Can't meet. African-American soldiers stationed stateside primarily engaged in laboring duties, Steve Adore's, what called Pioneer Infantry, which are a fancy way of seeing engineers, but not construction engineers, just to build things and clean up fields. And this was the kind of thing that the black troops had kept me and other camps in the South were frequently found doing. It still stuns us that the best trained, best motivated troops in the U.S. Army, the Buffalo Soldiers, the 9th and 10th Cavalry, the 24th and 25th Infantry. We're not assigned to overseas. No, they wouldn't send me overseas. I don't think they sent me over out there now. It seemed like they just wanted me to build this side,

the lieutenant's and everything, got acquainted with me, and they just wanted me to be right around the most. And they just give me a great break. Let me give you a size of the African-American commitment to the armed forces during the First World War. A total of 404,000 African-American officers and men served in the U.S. Army. About 10% of them were combat troops. The vast majority of them were assigned to the SOS, the service of supply. I learned how to drill the area now. We had anything that run by gasoline or steam. Our company was supposed to use it. Camp Mead wasn't the state's only military installation. The federal government bought 35,000 acres of Harford County land for a weapons testing facility. Aberdeen proving ground opened in October 1917 with a staff of 10 officers and 35 enlisted men.

They fired their First Artillery fees two and a half months later. In a year's time, Aberdeen employed 6,000 civilians and just under 5,000 troops, including an arrow squadron and a balloon company. The presence of so many armed forces in Maryland created a need for many kinds of services. Very few women had an opportunity to serve in uniform during World War I, but great numbers of women made a huge contribution on the home front. The Red Cross got an early start because of its activity in the European fighting zone before America entered the war. At home, volunteers and staff serve the active military and the returning disabled. The women's Bureau of the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C., issued printed instructions

on health and knit items for the soldiers and large quantities of sweater, soft shirts, surgical dressings, and many other articles were furnished and shipped each month. France, my dear mother, well mother, they got me as you probably have heard by this time, but I am thankful to say my wound while painful is not serious. I can't write much as I am in a very uncomfortable position in bed, but I will try to write what is uppermost in my mind, the Red Cross. If I only had the power to bestow the blessings of all the saints in heaven upon them, it would only be a portion of what they deserve. Both the Young Women's Christian Association and the Young Men's Christian Association established national war work councils to plan charitable activities and raise money for them. The YWCA opened industrial service centers near war plants and at the military camps, they set up hostess houses

to care for the wives and mothers who came long distances to visit soldiers. The YMCA services to the Armed Forces extended overseas as well. France, dear mom mom, the YMCA runs very nice establishments. This afternoon, several of us stopped there after drill and had a beverage much in favor there, hot chocolate, and melted milk with biscuits. Headquarters, 82nd Division, American Expeditionary Forces, France. There was an entertainment at the YMCA the other night, and the leading lady of the trio was a girl from the old hometown. They had a habit of introducing themselves, and when the best looking one got up and said she was from Baltimore, it felt almost like I was home. The Jewish Welfare Board trained women's stateside

and then sent them overseas to serve the Armed Forces in France. The Salvation Army, they did whatever was needed. They gave us cigarettes and cookies, don't not try them, whenever they could. The Salvation Army, boy, they were wonderful.

Well, I never smoked cigarettes anyhow, I didn't want them, but I used to get them and give them to the other men when they come around. But they were the ones who did the service of the Salvation Army. In 1917 and 1918, in each year, the Maryland General Assembly appropriated a million dollars for the Maryland Committee for Defense to spend as it saw fit. And the Committee for Defense was organized doing all sorts of things,

selling war bonds, putting together care packages for soldiers overseas. They had a women's division of the Committee for Defense, and they really concentrated on getting women into the industrial effort here in Maryland. The colored division of the Committee for Defense that was blacks in Maryland, who concerned themselves with providing care packages for black soldiers who were conscripted or volunteered into the Armed Forces. Not all charitable activities were a masterminded by large organizations. Churches and women's clubs established libraries and cantines. A downtown theater gave shows every Sunday afternoon with admission free to persons in uniform. At Evergreen Mansion and Baltimore, Mrs. T. Harrison Garrett held elaborate fundraisers for the relief of refugees from the European fighting. Clothing, blankets, bandages and money were sent abroad to Paris,

where Mrs. Garrett's diplomat son was stationed. There, daughter-in-law Alice Garrett distributed the goods. Similar fun drives and charitable work was going on in every county and every town throughout the state. Music Meanwhile, at the camps all around the state, training of the American Armed Forces intensified. Camp Mead, May 10th, 1918. Dear mother, so much has happened since my last letter that I don't know where to begin. I would tell you about Kay of the 115th. If you could see our company drill, you would have the treat of your life. Not a man out of step and everyone full of the pack. You know the 29th division is the best on the side of the water. And the general says when the time comes to go in the trenches, he's going to send the 115th first because they're always on the job. We went on a five-day hike with maneuvers and hiked 25 miles and six and a half hours with full pack and did not lose a man.

We finished first in field firings and hit every target and shot some of the targets off of stakes. The general says we don't look like much, but he would like to take this company over the top as it's captain. You're loving son Frank. The 115th Infantry was attached to the 29th Division, which was the Maryland and Virginia National Guard. The 110th Field Artillery, whose armory is still right over there. Rice is town road in Old Pike'sville. They were also attached to the 29th Division. The 3-13th Infantry of the 79th Division was known as Baltimore Zone. The Maryland man divisions were ready for war. Hey! Hey! I'm gonna come to the chair on the kit bag. I'll fly, I'll fly. I'll fly, I'll fly, I'll fly. I'll fly, I'll fly, I'll fly. I'll fly, I'll fly, I'll fly. I'll fly, I'll fly. I'll fly, I'll fly. Deuces.

Reach New Jersey 5 AM. At two Ham sandwiches and plenty of pie. 5.30 AM lined up alongside of train in Pennsylvania Railroad Station. Boarded ferry. Everybody was singing. Reach transport pier at 10 AM. Red Cross nurses gave us a bun and a cup of coffee. Hurrah for the Red Cross. Board of the Leviathan Transport formerly the Fatherland. The biggest ship of float at present time. The Leviathan carries 18,000 troops in a crew of 2,000 sailors. This ship only feeds two meals a day and good ones too. It takes three hours to feed 20,000 men and that is going some. Ship sailed for sea at 6.15 PM. The 313th band played as we pulled out. New York people were all along the pier and greeted us. Everybody was singing and having a good time. Your brother will. About three days out from landing in France,

we were met with five destroyers, which the company has been. When he got close to the landing, we were attacked by these submarines. And the mosquito fleet is what we call them. Got three of them. France, dear my mom, just a word on a couple of scraps of paper that I happen to have to say that we're on French soil, alive and kicking. And we're given a rousing welcome when we came here. I was walking around with another man this morning with the ramparts of an old Roman camp. It seemed clear to think that men had been camped there between 15 and 20 centuries ago, as part of a garrison to hold gall against the Huns, and that we had just come from across the Atlantic for substantially the same purpose. In one place, I came to a view that looked like the Bear Hills

and the Greenspring Valley run. Most of the Maryland units, when they were sent to France, were put into quiet sector so they could receive additional training. As the training improved, the men were put up to more desperate fighting situations. Most of the Maryland men fought in the Newzar gone offensive, and this was particularly bloody for the Maryland regiments, as they had to advance over hostile ground and attack German positions that had been entrenched for over three or four years. The whole thing I was interested in, when it was going to happen, and if it were going to come through it or not, then if it did, how soon am I going to get home? It's the long way. It's the long way. It's the long way. When I went to France, we were impressed for four days. And after the fourth day, we were moved into the combat zone.

And we were under fire. On that day, until the arm was just through the line. All along the way, the people in the air, the mother of the night were there. Our principal work after the Allied advance commenced was building and repairing roads, an uninspiring, stupendous, and never-ending job. I had charge of a stretch of road carrying traffic to the front, which failed completely, so the trucks went through to their axles. I never spent a more depressing night. None of us had slept for 36 hours. There was a cold, steady rain, and there was a jam on the road five miles long. It would have been there yet, if we hadn't found a motorized battery of 155s. I commandeered their caterpillar tractors, hitched them to a line of trucks, and pulled them over the hill. Those moving trucks were the pleasantest sight I've ever seen.

I rolled over in the mud and went to sleep. The mews are gone offensive, which lasted from September through November of 1918, was considered the great push, the last push of the war for the Allies. The Germans had tried to break through the French and British lines for several years, and were unsuccessful. Now that the Americans entered the war, they knew they were in desperate straits. I was out on the battlefield. I was in the drive. I slipped out on the battlefield. One night. They break in the morning, and gone right on the drive again, and that was it.

That day I went all day long on that drive, and we went through a little town on the close to Germany at the New York, gone far, as she's where I was at. And that's where Americans wounded it. I got that far, no further. When this letter reaches you, you undoubtedly have read in the sun of the brilliant dash made by the 115th. In addition to attacking day after day, we stayed on the job 22 whole days and nights. It rained 20 days out of the 22. We did start overcoats and blankets before we went over the top at 5 a.m. on October the 8th, and they never did catch up to us. Then the mud caked upon us, kept out some of the cold. We all learned that we could even dig holes in the ground

with our noses and chins when the machine guns opened up on us. A lesser-known unit was eye company of the 372nd Infantry, 93rd Division. They were members of an African American company of the Maryland National Guard. They fought with great distinction with the French Army. They were spectacular. They did a wonderful job in terms of seizing the military, capturing 77 millimeter guns, capturing German machine gun nests, and a number of the men and officers were decorated. It was also a grievous loss of life. One man talked about having to wait 400 yards across a shell parked field. I mean, it was very dirty, very dangerous work, and these men were able to surmount that. The problem with that group and within fact, the entire regiment was that they had to consistently put up with a very hostile environment

from the original commander, from their division general as well. They were like two armies inside a larger body and they were constantly tugging and pulling it one another. There was a white man's army and a black man's army. The American military authorities did not want them to get to know the French. They felt that the well-known French attitude, if I may, liberty, egalitarian, fraternity, would not sit well with these blacks once they returned to the States. But in terms of fighting a battle, that was only half of it. It was one observer said, if normal American troops had spent as much time fighting their Germans as they did, trying to keep black American soldiers from fertilizing with the French and World War I, things would have been a lot better, and they would have found themselves a lot closer to the Rhine when the Armistice was signed. MUSIC Armistice, November 11, 1918, a soldier of the 313th Worldcom to tell his family

what that day was on. MUSIC How we boys did shouting sing, and in fact didn't know how to act. The Germans came over in our lines and saluted our boys and shook our hands. I feel so queer when I walk in the field and don't have to be ducking those high explosives and gases and bullets. All we had heard was a voice on the radio and we had never heard anything like that before. We kept on listening because there's different languages and finally in the English, we heard that the Armistice was to be signed in the next morning at 11 o'clock, so we were naturally excited and got everyone out to celebrate. Now that they were no longer worried about staying alive, the troops had one simple aim. They wanted to go home. It turned out to be not so simple after all. Before coming home,

we marched through a housing camp to get rid of all what we call kudis and we were anxious to do that because it meant that we were going to come home shortly. I remember a man called Tommy that he was once in charge of a kudis-dilassing station and I guess that's why he had this painted on his helmet. This very picturesque helmet, I wish I needed a story behind it. Of course, they'd trip home when we finally got out orders and leave. There was only a favor. When we were all on there, we were all on top of the thing bounced around on the waves until everyone was sick.

We didn't go to this sick day, but we went to the side rail instead and it took two weeks to get home to seven days to go over. This was just a common ordinary soldier who had to go to war and when it was all over, I'm sure he was very glad to get back home again. I'm sure he did what he was supposed to do, but no hero. Oh, my mom. Oh, yeah, she said that was great. The on-listest day, and she and her girlfriend went downtown and said it was such a party. Everybody was so excited and everybody was singing and shouting and dancing in the streets. The mayor of Baltimore declared a holiday

and crowds lined the streets. There was a reviewing stand at the Washington Monument and as the regiment passed, the crowd gave them an enormous ovation. There was a case on banked with flowers to commemorate the dead and wounded. Many of the latter were being cared for at nearby Fort McHenry. The surgeon general had chosen the historic fort as a hospital site because of the adjacent deep water peers for hospital ships and the direct railroad line into Curtis Bay. The weapons of the First World War produced incredibly horrible wounds. This was an age of mast, heavy artillery, machine guns, magazine rifles. The firepower of the First World War armies superseded anything which had come before it. When a soldier was wounded,

his first recourse would be to pull out his first aid packet. Every American soldier was issued one of these in the First World War. From that point on, if he was still alive, he would be taken back to the trenches by litter bears. From there he would be taken to the company aid station which would act as triage and would address the seriousness of the wounds and maybe put on a new dressing. From there he would go back to a field hospital and from there he could then be evacuated back to the United States to locations such as general hospital number two, Fort McHenry. Fort McHenry was the largest receiving hospital in the United States. 109 cinderblock wood frame buildings have been erected containing 3,000 beds with a medical staff over 1,000 doctors, nurses, reconstructive aids, army medical corpsmen, so it was a very, very large facility that went up very, very quickly. Blind patients were cared for at hospital number seven at a Baltimore mansion known as Little Evergreen

now on the Loyola campus. They were taught Braille and given job training. Hospital number two at Fort McHenry received other kinds of wounded soldiers including those who were shell shocked or had suffered from the German gas attacks and here they specialized in the treatment of patients with severe wounds. We constructed and newer surgery was one of the specialties here at Fort McHenry. In fact, probably some of the earliest techniques of reconstructive surgery. Using plaster casts as guidance, pioneering surgeons reconstructed faces and rebuilt shattered arms and legs. Then therapists help patients learn to walk, use artificial limbs and practice the skills they would need for the return to their normal lives. Emily Rain's whims worked at Fort McHenry during the World War I hospital period. She's a very interesting personality and she played a major role here. She was chief of the nursing staff.

In the memoir she wrote about her years at the fort, nurse Williams described the schools and shops that enabled patients to develop practical skills. The school is one of the most complete in the country. The shoe shop not only repaired old shoes but made new ones. Soldier patients made the artificial limbs and braces which were used in the orthopedic wards. We had a regular post office. Five convalescent patients delivered the mail. Just east of the main road was the Ibercover Chapel. We had services every Sunday for Catholics and Protestants and on Friday night at seven there was a Jewish service. It's interesting to view her diary from the woman's perspective of the war story. What the women came here to do, what their role was. She was very industrious. She set up the cafeteria facilities and she was in charge of several of the major wards. But she took a real personal interest in a lot of the patients that she grew to know and love over the time period. Laurie Bacchleth's father was a medic at Fort McHenry.

He was a soldier but he never served on the front. They sent it to train to be a male nurse and he was put in the medics unit down at Fort McHenry. My father received this medal when he was in the service and on the back of it it's rather interesting. It says the great war for civilization and it has the U.S. symbol of the eagle with over the shield and on either side it has all the countries that were on the allied side in the war. Nurse William's memoir sums up the contribution made by the staff of General Hospital number two. It was we who had to recreate out of the record of war clean, whole and useful men fit to fight or live in the better world we intended to have after the fight was ended. Most of those patients did live

but whether they and the other returning service men and women were entering a better world seemed doubtful. They request you men, fix it out the forms, you know, they said, now you can take and put your clothes on and let us have your uniform. I said, well, what am I going to go home in? I said, it's nothing in the suitcase there but a toothbrush and stuff like that. They said, well, just go ahead and go home then but they did want to know where my rifle was. And I said, well, I'll tell you, the rifle is out on the battlefield because one of medical men found me in the shell hole and he seen I had my rifle with me

and he said, throw that thing away and that's what I did. I threw it away. But they wanted the rifle back. Well, I was just there. We got $60 to come home. There was no work. None. You couldn't find it done. I did everything I'd be in a full brush ran. Now that's getting low on the totem pole as far as I'm concerned. I said, now, then, I've got fine place to work, something like that. So, me and the World War I call Bill Parnell. I tell you what to do. I said, sir, handle this. Have them. They put this timber cut to you. I won't see it. I said, look, I'm cut timber. I said, okay.

But across the soil, it was full. I mean, him went out there. We stayed. We stayed. And when they come down to load a car, we're just long timber. Like we see a truck down there. They say, boy, load too hard. Yeah, your days work done. Well, we are out there. So a full-middle knife knew we had them too hard. Loader and everything. We just learned how to do things right swift, you know. It's a discharge button that I received, along with $159, which included a $60 bonus. And then, we're allowed to go home. We're in the work of the way. We're coming home. We're coming home. Many of the things that the war seemed to bring about.

In fact, the war only hastened, that is to say, the rise of the automobile, the internal combustion engine, and everything associated with it in the way of roads and businesses. It accelerated the development of heavy industry, including shipbuilding and iron making, steel making in Baltimore and in Virens. It hastened the movement toward women's rights, for the simple fact that women really did play an important part in the war. It dislocated, maybe constructively, a great many African-Americans who came to Baltimore as they did to other northern and border cities in search of work, often finding work, of one sort or another. At the end of the war, African-Americans returned to a society, a social media, that was as unyielding as it had been before they left, but there was a difference.

If the war had done anything, I think, what it had done was even though black officers were persecuted. It's the largest number of officers of African-American descent up to that time in the history of the United States. Many of these people became leaders in their communities. Many of them became doctors, lawyers, and they would serve as shock troops in the civil rights movement. The Great War in Maryland, especially in Baltimore, transformed if it didn't completely eliminate the German community. The German club itself, the place where middle-class business men had gone for generations, closed its doors, the German singing society disbanded, and the German newspaper, the correspondent, simply stopped publication altogether. And what became of the people whose letters and memoirs and photographs have enabled us to recreate the time of the Great War?

The former reporter who thought about the ancient Romans when he served in France was killed five months before the armistice. He was the first Baltimore officer lost overseas, and the city changed the name of German street to Redwood in his honor. The other men whose letters described life overseas all made it back home. Several of them decorated for gallantry in action. Howard Waters, who'd gone to work so young, he had to teach himself to read by studying the sides of boxcars, recently celebrated his 100th birthday. For the party at the Snow Hill Middle School, 225 people showed up to wish him well. Paul W. Engler, who carried a camera to war to record his experiences, served again in World War II. He's now 102 and lives in Carroll County. Eugene Fitzpatrick took up painting when he retired, because he says his wife wanted to get him out of the house. He's still winning ribbons for his work.

George Mann's has a purple heart for the wound he got fighting in the muse argon offensive. He lives in the Charles Town Retirement Community and remains active. Emily Raines-Williams kept up a busy correspondence with many of the nurses she served with at the Fort McHenry Hospital and died in 1961 at the age of 82. Will Shellberg's letters have survived because war memorabilia collector Jerry Harlow found them and turned them into a book called Your Brother Will. I always think of World War I as the Forgotten War. Nameless veterans, you see photographs of black and white photographs. It seems like it's 100 years ago, and we don't know anything about them. Even if the Great War has been a forgotten war, the landmarks remain.

The army camps and proving grounds. But not US Army General Hospital No. 2 at Fort McHenry. The 100 or so temporary buildings were torn down. Contractors trucked inside and replanted the grass. The Great Star Fort must be returned to its 1814 star-spangled banner condition. So all traces of the hospital were removed. Or were they? On a real hot summer day here in Baltimore, especially in August, you can get up on the walls of the fort, and if it hasn't rained for a couple weeks, you can see the outlines of most of all the hospital buildings. So it's very interesting to go out on the grounds with a map of the hospital and say, this is where this was, this is where this took place. On November 22, 1921, the French commander, Marshal Ferdinand Fash, traveled to Baltimore, and broke ground at Lexington and Gay Streets for Maryland's War Memorial.

The inscription in the Great Marble Hall says, On the walls below are inscribed the names of those citizens of Maryland, who died in the service of their country in the World War. Now once you see a rainbow cloud,

I told them to come on into a town. Now you'll go to Chippo down on the farm, up to St. Tony. You'll miss St. Tony, you'll miss St. Tony. You'll miss St. Tony, you'll miss St. Tony. You'll miss St. Tony, you'll miss St. Tony.

He's on the way from home, that's on the body. They never want to see a rainbow flower. And suppose there's just a party for a town. Now you're going to keep them down on the palm of the city body.