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October 21, 1917
October 28, 1917
October letters to Eva
November 4, 1917
November 22, 1917
Dear Mother,
The middle of this last week found me with things started and
going fairly regularly & systematically, and a little of
my time now I can call my own. I worked this morning and about
a half hour this afternoon; since then not a thing. I am O.K.
in every way, so much so that a 15 1/2 collar is beginning to
be tight. But I have just had to keep steadily at it, day &
evening, since three weeks ago, when our full quota of men was
so suddenly transferred to us. Except the first week, I have
kept reasonable hours.
The full quota of our men was entirely too large for the two
buildings we were to occupy, and the Tuesday after they came
we moved down to the next section of buildings, where Uncle Ed
& Aunt Sarah found me the day afterward. The group of buildings
we now occupy are 9 in number, 6 main men's barracks, one building
used as guardhouse & storehouse, one building used as an
exchange or "canteen", & the officers' quarters.
The arrangement is as follows:
[____] Guard & store house
[____] Exchange building
[_Co.6] [_Co.5]
[_Co.4] [_Co.3]
[_Co.2] [_Co.1]
==============================Road
[____] ---Officers' barracks
Co.1 and 4 are not occupying their buildings yet, but we are
trying to get the quartermaster lieutenants who now occupy them
out as soon as possible. Half of Co.1 is boarding with Co.2,
half with Co.3 at present, and Co.4 is similarly split up between
Cos. 5 & 6. The first week & a half I devoted a great
deal of time to the messes, getting the kitchens organized, getting
supplies, both commissary supplies & kitchen utensils, getting
cooks & assigning them, settling no end of troubles, getting
ready to tell the other officers how to handle the mess, as each
was to oversee, & now is overseeing his own company mess.
I got them all together & gave them about an hour and a half
talk on it one night. Then splitting up as we did, & being
still split up as we are, I took it on myself to do the accounting
which should show what the proportionate savings of each company
are for the month of October. It may not seem like it, but it's
pretty involved figuring. For a week now I've had the messes
pretty well saddled off my shoulders & on to their own company
commanders. Of course I have my own, but the mess sergeant does
all the detail work, even the buying, now, although of course
I keep close tabs on what he's doing. I also run the Officers'
mess; started it the very day we moved down here, with an Armenian
cook named Piranian at the helm. He is a born cook, and we have
been enjoying most excellent meals. He has had experience as
a restaurant owner, is an intelligent & conscientious man,
and I leave pretty much of everything to him for our mess. He
is a very close buyer, knows prices, & I have no fear of
anyone fooling him.
Of course, in addition to work on the messes, I've had my own
company to organize and run and keep contented and lead or drive
in the paths of righteousness. We divided up the original members
of the Supply Train among us, and made them non-commissioned
officers. I have a chap from Brockton by the name of Tolsom for
acting first sergeant and he is proving a good man for his place.
He spent a year and a half at Norwich University, which means
of course that he is familiar with drill work. And when I can't
be present during the drill hour, I can rely on him, as I had
to do a good deal the first two weeks, to take care of it. The
men are just getting regular infantry work now; this last week
about 3 hours a day close order drill, an hour of physical drill,
signal work, guard duty instruction, marches, and an hour of
athletics - relay races, jumping, and so on, which I think everyone
enjoys. This last week I have been able to get into the work
pretty thoroughly with my company, and I enjoy it. It of course
takes quite a little planning, and not a little study.
We guard our own section of the camp, each company furnishing
the members of the guard in turn daily, with its commanding officer
as Officer of the Day. This means I'm Officer of the Day every
six days; receiving the reports from the different companies
at reveille & retreat, seeing that the guard properly performs
its duties, to do which you must make at least one inspection
of the sentinels on post between midnight and reveille. Those
nights I go to bed with my clothes on, & with the light on,
so I'll more likely wake up sometime in the middle of the night,
and invariably thus far I have waked up at quarter after two
- three different times.
The men's barracks have four main rooms, the mess room, with
kitchen adjoining, over it a room we are going to use as a recreation
room, and two large sleeping rooms. Then there is a small room
upstairs where the 1st sergeant sleeps. I have had to give a
lot of attention to planning improvements to barracks & grounds;
the first thing I did was to clear a half acre drill ground;
then other things have been boardwalks, garbage can stand, coal
box, kitchen table, inside storehouse, and closing up the space
between the barracks & the ground with stones, of which we
have a lot. We have been able to secure absolutely free of charge
from a club in Brockton a pool table, which we are going to set
up in the recreation room & charge 2 1/2 cents a cue to players,
to bring in money to the company fund. We also got a piano from
a concern in Boston for footing a bill of $10 for repairs, and
we got a $25 victrola new for $15. We also have a promise of
some checkerboards, and I got thru one of the men 3 months' quotations
on certain newspapers & magazines the men would like to have.
A half of Co.1 is occupying our recreation room now, but as soon
as they are out, we'll fix it right up, and I think it ought
to be very pleasant.
There are probably other things that have been going on which
I have forgotten to speak of. I am in general trying by best
to make Co.3 an efficient and contented company, which will be
with me and a credit to me.
Thank you for sending the sweater and gloves; they prove very
useful. Thank you also for the candy, & the cookies &
fruit. Eva sent me a big box of all sorts of things this week
- fudge, jelly made from apples picked at Hemlock Manor, cranberries
from that region, cookies, and limedrops & jordan almonds
(specialties we used to carry on our wanderings), and a bit of
decoration; all by the way of a last Manor party for the old
house is being torn down.
I wonder if Ralph isn't home by now. Don't bother to send on
the Yale Obituary Record.
Today has been a glorious day here. Three of the officers have
had visitors. It makes it very pleasant, having our own little
mess, so that we can bring visitors in. And the cook likes it,
for he takes pride in showing people what he can do.
I hope everyone is feeling tip-top, and hope I won't have to
be delinquent again.
With much love to you & all
Sylvester.
Dear Mother,
Raymond and Eleanor have been up to see me to-day. They came
up with the two Miss Cooks in their car, and brought along also
Mr. Fritz & his little daughter. They got here about eleven
and I went down to the gate to get them in. They were here until
about half past two. I wrote Eleanor earlier in the week to see
if they couldn't come up. They were impressed, as everyone is,
by the tremendous size of the camp.
I don't know just when I'll be coming down home again. I thought
I'd arrange to go and see Lucinthia next week-end. And then I
was wondering if perhaps when Ralph got pretty thoroughly on
his feet he & the rest of you couldn't take a run up here.
I would plan to get down home some Sunday next month, too.
Monday night most of us went to Lowell and saw a vaudeville show.
Otherwise the week has been as other weeks. I had a couple of
disciplinary cases this week, which of course aren't too pleasant
- one for bringing liquor into the barracks and the other for
insubordinate conduct toward a non-commissioned officer.
This week is going to be another extra busy one, for the end
of the month is always busy with payrolls, muster rolls, mess
accounts, and Lieut. June has let loose a lot of new things to
inaugurate this week.
I must get at a little note to Lucinthia & then some work.
Lots of Love,
Sylvester.
If you could send along some cloths with the laundry next week
I should appreciate it. And I wonder if you use the checkers
much now, & if not, whether Co.3, Supply Train, might use
them for the period of the war. We can make our own checker boards.
Dear Mother,
I have just gotten thawed out after a good cold automobile ride
in from Wellesley, and have taken my post by the kitchen fire
for the balance of the evening. I have had a most refreshing
and enjoyable day, and the weather has been perfect. Lucinthia
met me in Boston yesterday afternoon, and we spent the evening
at Symphony Hall, the first time I have ever heard the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. The concert was rather of a disappointment,
not the fault of the orchestra, but the music. The first and
of course longest selection was a symphony by Sibelius, a modern
composer, and was an incomprehensible sort of thing, which didn't
strike my fancy at all. The second was a concerto by Saint- Saens,
with Miss Frances Nash as soloist at the piano, and the last
number was an overture from Beethoven's opera Fidelius, which
I enjoyed listening to very much. We had some of the best seats
in the house and heard it for almost nothing - it was this way;
One of the men in my company took me in to Boston in a car he
has up here, and on learning I was going to the symphony concert,
offered to go around to Symphony Hall with me to help me get
tickets, if the house should be pretty nearly sold out, because
he knew the manager very well; when we got in there, he went
into the inner office, came out with two seats in K and the manager,
with the news that they were mine if I wanted them & would
pay the war tax on them. He told me later he could get seats
in there anytime he wanted to. I went out to Wellesley with Lucinthia
after the concert and stayed at the Hotel Waban - in a room usually
occupied by a female osteopath, and profusely decorated with
osteopathic literature. The first thing Lucinthia had for me
this morning was a breakfast party at Agora. [note - Agora was
Aunt Lucinthia's sorority] Her society house is surely attractive,
and in a wonderful location. Her roommate, a Miss Miller &
Miss Mackenzie, and a Miss Ward for chaperone made up the party.
Miss Mackenzie is quite an accomplished pianist and we enjoyed
music from her after breakfast from the luxury of that downy
blue divan in front of the fireplace. Later Lucinthia and I went
to Chapel and afterward met Hester Lewis, whom we took with us
over to the Old Natick Inn at South Natick for dinner. I hold
that all salads are silly - but this is the most ridiculous combination
I have yet seen; a half a canned pear on a piece of lettuce,
crowned with a wreath of red pepper, with crackers & cheese.
Can you beat it? So much for the decorations. The real part of
the meal was some nice tender roast duck. When we left there
we walked back way round the lake, came up thru Tower Court &
over to the Quadrangle. I saw Frances Pattee for just a minute
and the rest of the afternoon, a matter of an hour and a half,
we spent in that fine big living room on the second floor of
Lucinthia's dormitory. The man who brought me in came out there
to get me about half past five and we drove back to Ayer in good
fast time.
This past week has been a busy one. Pay-rolls have been gotten
out for October, I have spent quite a little time on mess accounts,
and muster rolls are bimonthly lists made up by each company
in the army of all officers and men attached to it with everything
that has happened to each man during the two months previous.
Of course this was the first one, & the whole story of enlistment
and assignment for each man had to be forwarded to Washington,
and a lot of these forms were missing. I made personal visits
to any number of companies from which my men were transferred
here, and managed to dig up quite a few of them. They all should
have been sent down with the men, but weren't.
I am looking into that matter of the third series of Officers'
Training Camps. They are going to be held in each Regular Army,
National Guard, and National Army division, I know, and applications
have to go thru the immediate company commander of each enlisted
man applying, I know. How this affects those divisions already
in France, I don't know. I am going to try to get a special letter
off to you in a day or two about it.
I meant to have told you before that I had bought a Liberty Bond;
because when payments on it are completed the bond will be sent
to you for safe keeping.
Where did you get the idea I was connected with the 304th? Our
connection is practically direct with the 76th Division, although
we come under the jurisdiction of Col. Estes, who commands all
trains and military police.
Thank you for the old cloths; they will be fine. This week please
leave all my BVD underwear home, and send up six pairs of my
balbriggans - I think I have them - I just bought some balbriggan
undershirts. I had a visit from the Baldwins Saturday morning.
I must get on with one or two other letters.
With lots of love
Sylvester.
Dear Mother,
Probably Ralph has written you most everything. That ward surgeon
who promised to give me information by Monday eve failed to comply
with his promise. I have tried all I could to find out what his
status is but satisfactory information hasn't come forth in great
abundance. The chief trouble seems to be that the authorities
at the Hospital have had no orders concerning Ralph & other
men in the same boat. They admit he doesn't need to be there,
but have no orders as where to discharge him to, & no authority
to grant furloughs. I went as far as the Division Surgeon to
try to get information, as to any orders that might have come
concerning him.
If we can't get the matter settled as to whether he is to ultimately
get back to Capt. Bulkeley or not, I believe on the whole the
wisest thing is to try to get him transferred to the Supply Train
here. The only person I fear who would ever make things awkward
here is Moody, and I'll post Ralph thoroughly on him. I've found
a fairly successful way of getting along with Moody, I think.
Ralph would naturally not come into my company; Lieut. June suggested
without any impetus from me that I get him down here & into
the Headquarters Co., a small unit of 8 under Lieut. June's personal
direction. I think everything would be allright. What to my mind
is the weightiest thing in the argument is that here he would
be under officers who are familiar with the facts of his recent
illness. If he is sent back to that 1st Conn. Inf. or somewhere
else where he is unknown, they will not be thus familiar with
his condition, and would thus have no consideration for the same
in assigning him duties. I'd like to have him here first-rate.
If it weren't for the circumstances of his being up here, the
uselessness & annoyance of it all to him & you, I'd say
without reserve it seems good to have him where I can see him,
as it does. Of course I don't know positively that such a transfer
can be affected. I'll be glad for his sake & yours when the
uncertainty is over. Cheer up, I know of a man right here in
the Supply Train, the sole support of a rheumatic father, a mother
with cancer in the stomach, an invalid sister, and a brother
who broke his leg since the man came into the army, and he himself
has a double rupture incapacitating him from drill. He waited
almost two months for a discharge which came yesterday.
Ralphie'll be all right. I'm trying to look after him to the
best of my ability.
All the news I get this week is bad; there must be one of those
ill winds that blows nobody good. Eva's mother, who has been
in Philadelphia thru the fall with her husband, came back to
Pleasantville last week following a broken leg the father sustained,
and in a jealous fit over the happy time Eva and her brother
were having living with Miss Tolbert, took the boy away, which
is very unfortunate, for Eva knows how to run the boy & the
mother doesn't; she also threatened to take Eva away. What Eva's
rights in the matter are, I don't know, for she is just 20; but
I hope there is nothing will break her resolve not to go back
to her home while her mother is there. She should not do so;
her mother has always made life just as unhappy for the girl
as she could, and denied her the mother-love which she craved.
Eva has only given me hints of it herself, but I learned of course
a great deal more from Miss Tolbert. I hope she is not going
to be denied the happiness she is enjoying and richly deserves.
To-night I had a letter from Sam's nurse, which, cheerful enough
to begin with for him to censor, ended up with quite a different
tale written after he had seen it. She doesn't expect him to
live another month! He came to have a tubercular infection in
his leg, and it spread to his lungs; he has had hemorrhages from
the lungs, & they are completely shattered, she says, and
great quantities of pus are being drained from his knee constantly.
And she's giving him the maximum quantity of opiates every 24
hours. He's most cheerful & optimistic, she says, and is
confident of recovery and is looking forward to a trip to Saranac
and Colorado, which she told about in detail in the part of the
letter he saw.
He is staying in a little private bungalow fixed up like a miniature
hospital out in Mt. Airy where his aunts live. Perhaps better
news may come, but things don't look very much so; as I think
back over his case, he seems just to have gone from bad to worse
from start to finish. And I have feared this very thing that
has come to him. I wish I might see him before I go, but I don't
see how it's possible, unless we're here for some monthes. Of
course there's no telling.
Obviously, in toto, this communication should be private, and
a selection made of parts for general dissemination.
Lots of love
Sylvester.
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