Father Duffy's story

by Francis Patrick Duffy

HALLOWE’EN

We are out of the line tonight with the exception of Reilley’s 3rd Battalion, which is to lie out there in their shelter pits under our barrage and whatever the Germans may send back in reply until the 2nd Division goes through them tomorrow. Twelve months ago we had scarcely left our native shores, a wonderful year in the lives of all of us, and the last one for many a poor fellow now sleeping in the soil of France. A lot of the officers are crowded together in Kinney’s quarters at the Esperance Farm. The room is hot and close, as shelter-halves and blankets screen every nook through which light might pass to give information of human habitation to a passing bomber. Everybody feels tired, dirty and discouraged.

I said to them, “You are the glummest bunch of Irish that I ever saw on a Hallowe’en. Johnnie Fechheimer, you are the best Harp in this bunch; start them singing. Frank Smith, warm us up with some coffee, since there’s nothing better to be had.” So Pete Savarese soon had the coffee boiling and the two Ganymedes, Bob Dillon and Charlie Lowe, ministered to our needs. Pretty soon they were all singing—Major Anderson, Kinney, Mangan, Fechheimer, McDermott, Flynn, McCarthy, O’Donohue, Joe McNamara, Smith, John Schwinn, even Flannery, Scanlon, and myself. Joe McNamara, who is as good a youth as they make them, and who has done great service during the past three weeks with his signal men, sang a song that was just on the verge of being naughty, with his handsome blue eyes twinkling provokingly at me. Dan Flynn knows all the old songs that our mothers used to sing, “Ben Bolt,” “You’ll Remember Me,” and all that sort of thing. Fechheimer and McNamara supplied the modern element in the concert. But no matter what it was, everybody joined in, including the men in the loft upstairs and in the shelter tents outside, especially when it came to songs in praise of Good Little Old New York; and truck drivers and ambulance men and passing officers along the road got first-hand information that the New York Irish 69th had come through their three long weeks of fighting and hardship with their tails still erect.

THE BATTLE OF THE ARGONNE

We had no doubt of the success of the 2nd Division. Artillery was lined up hub to hub on all the roads around Exermont, Fleville and Sommerance and the machine guns of both divisions were to give them a sustained preparatory barrage. I may add incidentally that the thorough preparations for their attack were the best justification for our failure to reach the last objective. We heard the artillery hammering away through the early morning and it was soon evident that the sturdy infantry and marines of the 2nd Division had carried the battle line well towards the north.

I started up with Sergeant Fitzsimmons on my own sad quest of looking for our dead in the enemy wires. Just ahead of us as we passed through Sommerance a German shell lit on the road right in a party of five German prisoners and four American soldiers. The nine men lay scattered in all directions. We ran up and I found one of ours with both legs blown completely off trying to pull himself up with the aid of a packing case. In spite of his wounds he gave not the slightest evidence of mental shock. While Fitzsimmons ran for an ambulance, he told me his name was Conover, and that he was a Catholic, and said the prayers while I gave him absolution. He had no idea his legs were gone until a soldier lifted him on a stretcher, when I could see in his eyes that he was aware that his body was lifting light. He started to look but I placed my hand on his chest and kept him from seeing. Three men were dead already and it did not seem to me as if any one of them could live. One of the Germans was an officer who cursed his fate that brought him to this death by the fire of his own guns after lasting through four years of war.

When we reached our old battleground I found that one man had gotten there before me on the same errand as myself. It was Father Davitt of Lenox, Mass., who had been detached from the 32nd Division as Corps Chaplain.

On both sides of the Sommerance road as it neared the wire we saw the bodies scattered, still well preserved and recognizable by reason of the cool weather. Right around the wire and in the sunken road that ran into it the Germans had buried them. It was a surprise to find that even now the wire was absolutely unbroken in any place. An occasional shell had landed in it, as was evidenced by the holes made, but the whole fabric was so well bound together that it simply jumped up and then dropped back into place again. The 2nd Division had evidently been wise enough to carry their attack around it as I found just one of their dead and he was lying in the chicane or passage made by the highway as it passed through it.

I arranged with Father Davitt to have his detachment of Pioneers look after the sepulchre of our dead in case the Regiment got orders to move on, and returned to make my report to Colonel Dravo.

The 3rd Battalion got back to our place in the rear during the morning, having suffered some losses from shell fire, amongst them being Jimmy Fay, who had part of his foot blown off. Orders to take up the advance were received on November 2nd, our 3rd Battalion being out of the line less than 24 hours.

The first day’s route laid down for us showed us that we were going to take over in the region to the west of that in which we had been fighting. In the plans for the attack of the 2nd Division they had moved rapidly towards the NNE., leaving the Germans on their left to wake up and find themselves in a salient between our troops and the northern extension of the Argonne Forest. The 78th Division was engaged in expediting the evacuation of these Germans. Two days’ march, neither of them very long, brought us to Brieulles, just north of which we were to relieve the 78th. The only difficulty about the march was for the wagons. Every outfit had lost half of its animals, and those that were left were in miserable condition. The artillery felt this hardest, but it made trouble for the infantry, too, in getting up the supplies and the kitchens. The worn down roads were frightfully crowded with ambulances, trucks, kitchens, guns, caissons, ration and combat wagons, headquarters automobiles; and the M. Ps. were kept swearing till their voices gave out trying to keep traffic conditions tolerable. When we got to Brieulles we found that the Germans were blowing up bridges and roads in their retreat. Colonel Dravo, following tradition and his own generous instincts of being nice to an old fellow like me, had sent me on with his car; and Brown was carrying me rapidly out of Brieulles towards the front when Major Doyle, our Brigade Adjutant, stopped me and said that while it didn’t matter much what became of me, cars were getting scarce and he had decided objections to presenting what was once a perfectly good car to the Germans. I deduced from this that the enemy were in the next town and that I had better stay where I was. The regiment was stopped at Authé, to which place I returned.

The villages which the Germans had left had a number of civilians, and in accordance with the order of the German Commander, the Mayors put a white flag on the church steeple to warn us against shelling them. I have never seen a happier lot of old people in my life than the French civilians whom we were instrumental in saving after four years of captivity. At Authé our P. C. was in what had once been a village inn. The proprietress was old and little and lively and pious. She gave a warm reception to M. l’Aumonier when she heard that I belonged to the Old Church, and immediately proceeded to make plans for a High Mass next Sunday in spite of my telling her that we would not probably be there more than one night. “I have been doing most of the preaching to the people around here the last four years,” she said. “M. le Curé is old and quiet and he hasn’t much to say; but me, I talk, talk, talk all the time. I tell these people that God sent the German Devils amongst them because of their sins. I preach so much that they have given me a nickname. Do you know what they call me? They call me Madame Morale. And I preach to the Germans, too. I tell them they will all be in Hell if they do not mend their ways.” “What do they say to you?” “Most times they laugh and call me Grossmutter, but some of them swear and get mad. But I preach at them just the same. My sister she does not preach, she just prays.”

I went up to see the sister. They must have been both around eighty; and she sat in her chair looking absolutely like Whistler’s picture of his mother, except that the hands were not idle in her lap, but fingered unceasingly a worn rosary.

Madame Morale’s piety was not limited to preaching. It included hospitality. We have brought along some fresh supplies of food for our Headquarters Mess; and as soldiers from different outfits kept drifting in to the kitchen looking for water and incidentally anything else they could get, the old lady dipped into our scanty stock, saying, “Here, my poor boys, there is much food here”—until nothing was left.

In going into action in this last phase of the Argonne fight Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dravo was in command, with Major Anderson second in command, Captain Merle-Smith (vice Kelly, evacuated with fever) commanding the 1st Battalion, Captain Henry A. Bootz, in charge of Anderson’s Battalion, and Major Reilley with the 3rd. We relieved the 78th Division at the village of Artaise-le-Vivier. Here the Germans had left in such a hurry that large stores of flour and vegetables had been left behind. On asking the inhabitants the reason for this extraordinary occurrence we were answered by the word “Avions.” In this sector we have absolute mastery of the air and we see vast flights of planes spread out like wild ducks in V-shaped fashion advancing over the German lines. I almost sympathize with the poor Boches, for I certainly do not like aerial bombs.

The next three days was a foot-race, each battalion taking its turn in the lead as the others became exhausted. They swept from village to village, or rather from hill to hill, carefully closing around the villages, generally meeting with but little resistance, the last of the Germans, invariably a machine gun group, taking their flight fifteen minutes to a half hour before our men could get up. Colonel Dravo was out in the front with his wild Irish, while Anderson had the equally important task of trying to get the kitchens and supplies through. Lieutenants Schwinn, McDermott, Goodell, Henry and Bell and Sergeant Scanlan labored night and day to get the kitchens through, crossing muddy fields and fording small streams because the roads were everywhere destroyed. Lieutenant Seidelman and Corporal Malone were busy putting up signs at every corner to guide the rear elements in the right direction to reach our swiftly moving advance.

I missed Major Lawrence, who is generally very much in evidence when action is on, but I discovered that he had very wisely made up his mind that the main thing was to see that the ambulances found a way to follow up the Infantry. He had plenty of willing doctors under him to look after any wounded men in the field, but it was evident by the rate our Infantry was traveling that wounded men would not be evacuated for several days unless the ambulances got through. When finally they were needed, he had them there, both for the use of our men and those of other outfits which had not been so carefully provided for.

For two days the advance was an interesting race. The 6th Division was coming up the road behind ours, anxious to get a chance to relieve us and get into line before the war would come to an end. Each night they thought that surely by morning they would catch up; but our lads, moving freely across the open country, always kept well in advance of troops that had to move by column; and each day they were still further in the van. Our own Mess Sergeants and Cooks labored night and day to get the food forward, but for two days and more they, too, were left behind in the race. The men in front were not left entirely hungry, as in every village from which they drove the enemy the inhabitants drew out all of their scanty stores and served them with coffee, vegetables and a little bread, with unlimited supplies of bouquets and kisses. In spite of drawbacks it was a nice war.

At 10:30 on the evening of the 6th, there came a most extraordinary order from Corps through Division that it was imperative that Sedan should be captured before the end of the next day; that if troops were resting they should be immediately aroused and sent on their way; and that the city should be taken if the last officer and man should drop in his tracks. Luckily for the men it took some time to get that order forward to the line, as the horses of Jack Percy, Earl Pierce and young Underwood were fatigued by the incessant work, in which their riders shared, of carrying messages night and day. So the kitchens got through and the men were fed before they started out once more.

On November 7th, Bootz with the 2nd Battalion was in the van. On Hill 332 the Germans put up a stronger resistance than they had hitherto shown; and it came at a time when our fire was growing weak on account of the expenditure of ammunition, which there was little means of replacing. Bootz told Captain Stout, who was in command of G Company, that the hill must be taken, and Stout advanced with thirty-eight men of his own company and a detachment from Company H to capture the hill. As they kept crawling in on the Germans the latter began to waver, and the Captain called on his followers to advance upon them with fixed bayonets. With a great cheer our fellows swarmed up the crest and the daunted Germans, after a futile stand, grounded their guns, threw up their hands and surrendered. The men whose names stand high in the Company annals for this deed are, first of all, the dead: John Danker, George Spiegel, Onefrio Triggiano and Raymond Hawkins. Also the gallant captain and Lieutenant Otto; First Sergeant Meagher, Sergeants Martin Murphy, Martin Shalley, Irving Framan, Denis Corcoran, John Brogan and Francis Malloy, the two latter being wounded; James Regan, Thomas Gallagher, Hilbert and Henry, Remington, Youmans and Leavensworth, and, to complete the list, a bold Choctaw Indian with the martial name of McCoy. Sergeant Patrick Travers, of Company H, received high praise from everybody. While the German resistance was still determined, he went alone against a machine gun on the right and captured it single-handed, taking three German officers and four men.

The same day B Company lost Sergeant Ed. Kramer, and Martin Gilfoyle; C Company, Frank Casserly, Michael Golinski, and Joseph Peressine; Company E, Orliff Gilbert, Samuel Kelly and William Lambert; Machine Gun Company, William Gunnell; and the Sanitary Detachment, Michael Cavanaugh.

Meanwhile events were happening which made the order to advance without ceasing seem more extraordinary. Elements of the 1st Division appeared on our flank and rear. They, too, had received orders to the same effect from their Corps Commander, and had advanced to the left across the front of the 77th Division, and were taking possession of our line, which was the one leading straight towards Sedan. They had crept up around Bulson in the morning, only to find General MacArthur and 84th Brigade Headquarters in possession of the village. Elements of the 16th Infantry now came on Bootz’s hill and claimed it as theirs. “This is my hill, and my line of advance,” said Bootz. “If you say it’s yours, show your booty. I have twenty-five prisoners and twelve machine guns; what have you got to show for it?” And Bootz ordered his battalion to advance, leaving to the others to do what they would.

Nobody blamed the 1st Division for this mix-up, because they certainly had orders the same as ours to advance and capture Sedan. The whole thing is a mystery. A staff officer told me that neither of us had any right here, as Sedan lies in the sector of the French Division on our left, and considering what it means to the French, they are certainly the ones who have the best right to capture it.

In this sector we had a visit from Sergeant Alexander Woollcott, who is well known in New York as a dramatic critic, and who has been assigned by G. H. Q. to the duties of reporter for the Stars and Stripes. He is always on hand when there is trouble, and the field of war becomes a pleasant place for me whenever he is there. We have swapped stories and discussed men and books in the weirdest places. He is communicative rather than inquisitive and one never thinks of him as a reporter, but he gets all the information he wants and all the more effectively because there is no appearance of seeking it. He can even make Anderson talk.

During this period Anderson had been forging ahead with his Headquarters group, expecting to find Bootz in Chaumont. He entered that town with a couple of doctors, Lieutenant Rerat, and his liaison men, only to find that they were the first to get there, and the enemy had not yet completely evacuated it. They were under rifle fire as they came along the street, and had a merry little sniper’s battle before they got possession. Then Lieutenant McCarthy set up his one-pound cannon on the edge of the village, and soon had the German gunners putting for safety over the hill. So Anderson captured a town for himself, and for once did Colonel Dravo out of the bouquets and kisses. Though, even here, Rerat got the cream of it.

We kept going through that day, the 3rd Battalion relieving the 2nd during the night, and reaching on November 8th, the village of Wadelincourt on the heights of the Meuse, directly overlooking Sedan. A patrol from Company M with orders to go down to the Meuse and scout up to the suburbs of Sedan, got nearest of all American troops to that famous city. Eighteen men started out, of whom most were wounded, but Corporal John McLaughlin, with two men, carried out the mission and reported the results of the reconnaissance. Under shell fire that night Albert Bieber and Carl Maritz of Company I were killed and Lieutenant Behrendts, the Company Commander, and many others were wounded. James P. Smith of Company M was also killed and Sergeant Lester Lenhart of Company E was mortally wounded.

That night our Division was relieved by the 40th French Division, which from the beginning had the right of way. As a matter of courtesy the French Division Commander invited a company of the 165th and 166th to enter with his troops for the occupation of the suburbs of Sedan. Company D of our regiment was selected for the purpose and Lieutenant Cassidy had them all ready, but through some mix-up of orders they were not called upon to share in the little ceremony.

On November 8th we marched back to Artaise and the next day to Les Petites Armoises; on the 10th, to Vaux-en-Dieulet. The 11th found us at Sivry-les-Buzancy, where we spent two days.

On our way in I got a rumor that the Armistice was signed. I had always believed that the news of victory and peace would fill me with surging feelings of delight. But it was just the contrary; no doubt because the constraint I had put upon my natural feelings during the year were taken off by the announcement. I knew that in New York and in every city at home and throughout the world men were jubilant at the prospects of peace. But I could think of nothing except the fine lads who had come out with us to this war and who are not alive to enjoy the triumph. All day I had a lonely and an aching heart. It would be a lesser thing to have been killed myself than to go back to the mothers of the dead who would never more return. Luckily for me my dear friend Chaplain Nash came over to see me and walked me for hours through the desolate country, encouraging me to express my every feeling until fatigue and the relief of expression brought me back to a more normal mood.

The men had no certainty that the rumors were true, and discounted them. On November 13th we marched to Landres et Saint Georges which we had striven vainly to enter from the other side five weeks before. The village was almost completely demolished and our troops with others of the Division pitched their shelter tents on all the hills surrounding the town. That night official information was given of the Armistice. The men raided the Engineer and Signal Stores for rockets of all descriptions and the whole sky was filled with lights which in war would have demanded the expenditure of at least a million shells. Bonfires were blazing all over the hillside Finie la Guerre. The war was over.

My duties, like my feelings, still lay in the past. With men from all the companies I went round the battlefield to pay as far as I could my last duties to the dead, to record and in a rough way to beautify their lonely graves, for I knew that soon we would leave this place that their presence hallows, and never look upon it again.

On the 15th, in accordance with Division orders, a formal muster was held. Our strength was 55 officers and 1,637 men, with 8 officers and 43 men attached, 1,300 short of the number we had brought into the Argonne. Of the survivors, not many more than 600 were men who had left New York with the regiment a little over a year ago. And most of these belonged to the Adjutant’s Office, Battalion and Company Headquarters, Kitchens, Band and Supply Company. In the line companies, there are about twenty-five rifle men to each company who are old-timers and nearly all of these have wound stripes earned in earlier engagements. The great bulk of the old regiment is in hospitals, convalescent and casual camps; some of them promoted, some transferred, hundreds of them invalided home, a great many, alas! buried on battlefields or in hospital cemeteries.

CHAPTER X
WITH THE ARMY OF OCCUPATION

On the 16th we took to the road again, happy at the thought that the Rainbow Division had received the honor of being chosen as part of the Army of Occupation. At the end of the first day’s march our Headquarters were at Baalon. Crossing the Meuse at Duns sur Meuse I ran into Hogstrom and Mullen of Company C, whom I had thought dead, but who had been captured by the Germans in the wire on the night of October 14th. They had been well used, they said, except for the fact that there was little to eat. We crossed the Belgian frontier on the morning of November 21st at the village of Fagny, which was all decorated up like Old Home Day. The village band—a nondescript outfit—played us into town. The people had made out of dress material American flags, or rather well-meant attempts at them, as five or six stripes and a dozen stars was about as near as they could come to it. After crossing the border we received a new commanding officer in the person of Colonel Charles R. Howland, a regular army man who had a regiment in the 86th Division. When that Division was broken up for replacement purposes, he was assigned to fill the vacancy in ours. About the same time Colonel Henry J. Reilly, who had been ably handling our brigade during the past five weeks, was superseded by General F. M. Caldwell, U. S. A. Colonel Reilly returned to the command of the 149th F. A.

As we crossed Belgium at its southmost tip, we made only a two days’ job of it, headquarters being at Ste. Marie on November 21st and at Thiaumont November 22nd. My chief impressions were of a clean, orderly, prosperous country as compared with the ruined parts of France, and a very intelligent curé in whose house I stopped at Ste. Marie. When we passed the borders of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg at Oberpollen on the 22nd there were no brass bands to greet us. The inhabitants were civil and pleasant but they adopted a correct attitude towards us as foreigners crossing through their territory. Most of the regiment was billetted, and rather well accommodated, at Useldingen, a comfortable town with a fine new parish church. Here we stayed until the 1st of December, till arrangements could be made for our passage into Germany. We are part of the Third Army now, and the Third Army has been organized on a shoe-string. It cannot be said to be functioning very well, and the system of supplies and equipment is not in good shape. We have gotten a good deal of equipment—and we never needed it worse than after leaving the Argonne—but there are many old and ill-fitting shoes, which makes hiking a torture for the men.

The principal sight of Useldingen is the ruins of a very extensive medieval castle, standing on an elevation in the middle of the town. I wandered through it with Vandy Ward and Read of H. Q. Co., trying with the aid of the Curé to get an idea of its original plan and the sort of life that was led there by other soldiers a thousand years ago.

Thanksgiving Day came round while we were here and everybody worked to celebrate it in proper fashion. There is a fair supply of food in the country, though one has to pay high prices for it, all the higher because the national currency is in marks and the people demand the old rate of 100 francs for 80 marks. But, like all Americans, we want what we want when we want it, so the canny Luxembourgeois get what they ask for. Our religious services were in thanksgiving for peace. In the church we had a solemn high mass and Te Deum and I preached, Father Hanley singing the Mass. As Chaplain Holmes had not yet returned, I unfrocked myself of my papistical robes and went out to hold general services in the romantic courtyard of the old Schloss, using a breach in the fortifications as a pulpit. My friend Chaplain Halliday of the Ohios came along and added a few words in his earnest, sensible style.

There is great joy in the regiment, for Captain Hurley is back. He looks thin and none too fit, and I know he is with us, not because the hospital authorities thought that he should be, but through his own strong desire and pleading eloquence. We had a visit from Donovan also—on crutches. The Provost Marshal General had him transferred to his department while he was in the hospital, and now he is touring the country in a car, performing his new services. It is not a bad sort of a job at all—with headquarters in Paris, and a chance to tour all over France in a first-class automobile, with the best billets and the best food wherever he goes—but not for Donovan. No one of our enlisted men marooned in a casual camp with a lot of absolute strangers ever uttered with greater longing and pathos the formula, “I want to be back with my old outfit.” For Donovan’s case I shall omit the pathos. When that young man wants anything very bad he gets it. I expect to see him back on duty with us in a very, very brief time.

My mail is a very full one these days. All of our old-timers back in hospitals and camps are clamoring to return to the regiment, and they think that if I only speak to somebody, a word from me will manage it. I went to Mersch to see my ever kind friend, Colonel Hughes, our Divisional Chief of Staff, to inquire if some general arrangement could not be made for the return of all men in combat divisions who had been evacuated from the line through wounds or sickness. I found that he was doing everything that he possibly could to get our Rainbow fellows back, and he promised to work for an order along the lines I proposed.

The regiment marched on the 1st of December, Headquarters passing the night at Mersch; and on December 2nd to Waldbillig. December 3rd was the day on which we finally accomplished what we had started out to do—make our invasion of Germany. We crossed the border by a bridge over the Sauer river into the village of Bollendorf. Captain John Mangan, who had come to the regiment on business from the 2nd Army, George Boothby of the New York World and myself crossed the bridge ahead of the others, very curious to see what reception we would get in the land of the enemy. The first indication of the sort of reception we were to have came from an invitation from an old farmer and his wife whose house stood at the end of the bridge to step inside and have a glass of schnapps; when we prudently declined this, we were offered apples, but not being there as visitors, we felt it proper to say no. The proffered kindnesses were inspired partly no doubt by a desire to propitiate, but nobody could doubt that it was largely the decent impulse of a nice old couple. We rejoined the regiment for the march across.

The column came down along the river, the band in front playing “The Yanks Are Coming” and, as we turned to cross the bridge, the lively regimental tune of “Garry Owen.” In front of us, above the German hill, there was a beautiful rainbow. As we marched triumphantly onto German soil, nothing more hostile greeted us than the click of a moving-picture camera. Every soldier in the line was glowing with happiness except myself, perhaps. On occasions like this of glory and excitement my mind has a habit of going back to the lads that are gone.

We marched, with advance and rear guards, as if entering a hostile country, our first stop being at Holsthum. We had hopes that our line of march would take us down the Moselle Valley towards Coblenz, but instead we struck off to the north and northeast, through the rough Eiffel country, along mountain roads that were badly worn down by the traffic of war. Our Headquarters for December 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th were Blickendorf, Wallerschein, Hillesheim (a romantic spot), Weisbaum and, after a desperate hike, Wershofen.

The greatest surprise of our first week in Germany was the attitude of the people towards us. We had expected to be in for an unpleasant experience, and I have no doubt that some of our fellows had a picture of themselves moving around in German villages with loaded rifle and fixed bayonet ready to repel treacherous attacks. We were received very peacefully, one might almost say, cordially. Farmers in the fields would go out of the way to put us on the right road, children in the villages were as friendly and curious as youngsters at home; the women lent their utensils and often helped soldiers with their cooking, even offering stuff from their small stores when the hungry men arrived far ahead of their kitchens. There were many German soldiers in these towns still wearing the uniform (they would be naked otherwise), and they, too, were interested, curious, almost friendly. Some of them had been against us in battle, and with the spirit of veterans in all times and places, they struck up conversation with our men, fighting the battles over again and swapping lies. I talked with the priests in the different towns—one of them a Chaplain just returned from the Eastern front. Like all the others that we meet, they say that their country had the French and British licked if we had stayed out; to which I make the very obvious retort that they had followed a very foolish policy when they dragged us in.

But it is only occasionally that this note is struck, the attitude of most people being that the war is over and they are glad of it. In fact, a surprising number have wanted to have it over for a considerable time past. No doubt the historical background of life in these countries makes them able to take defeat with more philosophy than we could ever muster up if foreign troops were to occupy our country. As for us, we are here in the rôle of victors, and our soldiers are willing to go half way and accept the attitude that for them also (unless somebody wants to start something) the war is a past issue.

Civilians hold grudges, but soldiers do not; at least the soldiers who do the actual fighting. The civilian mind is fed up on all sorts of stories about atrocities, most of which I believe are fabricated to arouse decent human beings up to the point of approving of this rotten business of war. We fought the Germans two long tricks in the trenches and in five pitched battles and they never did anything to us that we did not try to do to them. And we played the game as fairly as it can be played. We followed their retreat through three sectors, in two of which they had been for years, and we never witnessed at first hand any of the atrocities we read about. A church burned at St. Benoit without any good military reason that I could see; the shelling of the hospital in Villers sur Fere, in which case there was no way for them to know it was a hospital; some valuables piled up for carrying away—that is the whole indictment. But no crucified soldiers, no babies with their hands cut off, no girls outraged in trenches, to provoke our soldiers to rush on to death to rescue them, no poisoned food or wells (except of course through gas shells), no women chained to machine guns, and no prisoners playing treachery.

In the invaded territory of France we found plenty of evidence of harsh military occupation. It was bad at its best, and some local commanders made it more intolerable. The people were taxed without much to show for their money, forced to work for little or no pay, rationed rather slenderly though with enough to sustain strength, had to put up with requisitions of animals, houses and some minor property, such as linen and copper down to bedsheets and the brass knobs off the stoves. They were also dragooned about to various places to do work for their conquerors. I heard plenty of tales in Eastern France and Belgium of terrible experiences and unwarranted executions during the first couple of weeks of the German occupation from witnesses whose word I believe absolutely. After the civilians were thoroughly cowed these atrocities ceased, though many of the lesser hardships of military occupation persevered during the four years.

Most of the French and Belgians told me (though some voiced suspicions to the contrary) that the Germans saw to it strictly that none of their soldiers took the relief goods sent from America. One old lady told me that she had proof that all Germans were robbers; for they give her some patched clothing as coming from America and she knew that nobody in America would send over such stuff as that. It was hard to have to choose between being just and being loyal American. I refuse to state which attitude I took, but I am afraid that the dear old lady still thinks she has an argument to prove that the Boches are robbers.

At any rate, the older griefs of these people are for the soldiers who have come through an intense war experience, echoes of “Old unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago.” They judge the German soldier by their own experience and by soldier standards. They do not fear him, they do not hate him, they do not despise him either. They respected him when he put up a good fight or made a clean getaway, and that was most of the time. It was a rare thing to hear a soldier in a combat division talk about “Huns.” It was always the “Heinies,” the “Jerries,” the “Boches” or, simply the “Germans.”

The fine spirit on the part of our troops was much better, even for military value, than hatred would have been. I cannot see that deep bitterness could have made them any bolder. It would only have made them less efficient. And the spirit is admirable in itself.

At any rate we were convinced from the beginning that our experiences as part of the army of occupation were not going to be as unpleasant as we expected.

Aside from the attitude of the people the things that strike us most are two. Putting the two into one, it is the number and the fatness of the children. There are few children on the streets in French villages; German villages swarm with youngsters. Our coming is like circus day and they are all out, especially the boys. Boys everywhere! And such sturdy little towheads—chubby is the word for the smaller ones. I do not know about the rest of Germany, but the Rhineland is certainly not starved. Perhaps, as in Belgium, it is the townspeople who do the suffering. These children wear patched clothing, but the clothing covers rounded bodies. We find it easy to purchase meals at rates that are astoundingly reasonable after our experience in other European countries. Germany lacks many things—edible bread, good beer, real coffee, kerosene, rubber, oil, soap and fats; and in the cities, no doubt, meat and milk. The people here say that they eat little meat, their sustenance being largely vegetable and based on the foundation of the potato. It scores another triumph for the potato.

But I would like to know how they fatten the children. With good advertising a man could make a fortune on it at home. German breakfast food for boys, with pictures of chubby young rascals playing around American soldiers. But perhaps Germans are plump by nature or divine decree, and it would not work with lantern-jawed Yanks like ourselves.

During this period Lieutenant Colonel Donovan returned to duty with us by direct orders of General Headquarters, Lieutenant Dravo going back to his duties as Division Machine Gun Officer, thus being still near enough to us to keep up the ties of friendship which he had established in the Regiment. We remained in Wershofen and surrounding villages for five days, during which time the equipment was gone over, animals rested and some attempt made to patch up the shoes of the men, which had been worn to nothing by hiking with heavy packs on rough roads. On December 14th, we marched through the picturesque valley of the Ahr river over a good road to Altenahr, the scenery of which looks as if it had been arranged by some artistic stage manager with an eye to picturesque effect. It is a summer resort country and we had the advantage of good hotels for billets. On December 15th, we marched through Ahrweiler, an old walled town which was to be our Division Headquarters, and Neuenahr, a modern summer resort place with good roads, commodious hotels and attractive shop windows, and thence to the Rhine, where, turning north about two kilometers, we entered the most pleasant and excellent town of Remagen-am-Rhein, which was to be our home for the next three or four months.

Remagen was already in existence in Roman days. It is a charming well-built place of 3,500 inhabitants, with a large parish church and also an Evangelical church and a synagogue. In addition, there is on the hillside a striking pilgrimage church attended by Franciscan Friars and dedicated to St. Apollinaris, with the Stations of the Cross built on the roadway leading up to it. The much advertised bottled waters which flow from a source near Neuenahr get their name from this shrine. Remagen has also a large convent, Annacloster, a hospital and a town hall, in front of which our daily guard mounts are held.

I am afraid, however, that these edifices for religious and municipal uses made less immediate appeal to our fellows than the fact that the town possessed a number of large and commodious hotels, some of them ample for a whole company. We immediately took possession of these as well as of stores, beer-gardens and extra rooms in private houses; the principle being that every soldier of ours should have a bed to sleep in, even if the German adult males had to go without. Donovan and I went on ahead to billet for Headquarters. We called on the Bürgermeister, a kindly, gentlemanly, educated man, who was anxious to do everything to make our stay in town a harmonious one. His assistant, an agreeable young man who had been in America for a couple of years and had every intention of going back, came along with us on our tour. We had our pick of two or three modern villas of grandiose type north of the town on the hillside, the only difficulty about them being that they were a little too far away.

At first two of our battalions were placed in mountain villages to the west, but after a week or so we had everybody accommodated in Remagen. I settled down with my gallant followers, Halligan and McLaughlin, in the house of the Bürgermeister, which faced on the river just north of the parish Church. My German is a very sad affair, but he speaks French and his wife English. They have three nice children, the oldest about twelve. I keep my relations with the parents as official as is possible, when one is dealing with gentlefolks, but if I am expected to avoid fraternizing with the youngsters, they will have to lock me up or shoot me. I had a conference with the Parish Priest, a sturdy personality who has his flock in good control, at my house the other day and we were talking four languages at once—German, French, English and Latin. But I worked out my plans for a Christmas celebration.

Christmas Mass on the Rhine! In 1916, our midnight mass was under the open sky along the Rio Grande; in 1917, in the old medieval church at Grand in the Vosges; and now, thank Heaven, in this year of grace, 1918, we celebrated it peacefully and triumphantly in the country with which we had been at war. Attendance was of course voluntary, but I think the whole regiment marched to the service with the band preceding them playing “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Adeste Fideles.” We took full possession of the Church, though many of the townsfolk came in, and when at the end, our men sang the hymn of Thanksgiving, “Holy God, we praise Thy name” the Germans swelled our chorus in their own language “Grosser Gott wir loben Dich.” I preached on the theme “Can the war be ascribed to a failure on the part of Christianity?” I have been often irritated by ideas on this subject coming from leaders of thought who have given little place or opportunity to Christianity in their lives or projects. As Chesterton says: “Christianity has not been tried out and found wanting; Christianity has been tried—a little—and found difficult.” Father Hanley sang the Mass, the Guard of Honor with the Colors being from Company K, with Captain Hurley in charge.

For the Company dinners I was able to supply ample funds through the never-ceasing generosity of our Board of Trustees in New York City, and funds also placed at my disposal which were sent by Mrs. Barend Van Gerbig through the Veteran Corps of the 69th New York. But in their purchase of food, the wily mess sergeants found that soap was a better medium of exchange than money.

During January and February the men were kept busy during the day in field training, infantry drill, range practice and athletics. Particular attention was paid to smartness of appearance and punctiliousness in soldierly bearing and courtesy. The weather was mild though often rainy. Coal was not too hard to procure and the billets were kept fairly comfortable. The regiment being all in one town there was a fine soldier atmosphere in the place. The townspeople are a kindly decent sort, but our fellows have enough society in themselves and there is little fraternization, and none that is a source of any danger—there is more chance of our making them American in ideas than of their making us German.

The Welfare Societies are on the job with good accommodations. In the “Y” we have still Jewett and the ever faithful Pritchard and two or three devoted ladies, one of whom is Miss Dearing, a sister of Harry Dearing who was killed in the Argonne. Jim O’Hara of the K. of C. got the Parish Priest to give up his Jugendheim, a new building with large hall, bowling alleys, all the German Verein sort of thing. There is no lack of places to go or ways to spend an evening. Lieutenant Fechheimer took charge of athletics and we had brigade contests, and also with the Canadians, who were just to the left of the Ohios.

The 3rd Battalion has lost the service of Mr. Kelly of the “Y.” When I first knew Mr. Kelly of the “Y” he was Corporal Kelly of Company I, 69th Regiment, at McAllen, Texas, and was sometimes known, Irish fashion, as “Kelly the Lepper,” as he was a famous runner. His eyes were not as good as his legs, so he was turned down for reenlistment. Being determined to have a part in the war he got the “Y” to send him over as an athletic instructor and finally worked his way up to our regiment and was attached to the 3rd Battalion which includes his own company. The assignment was more to the advantage of the 3rd Battalion than of the Y. M. C. A. for Kelly gave away gratis everything he could wheedle, bully, or steal from the “Y” depot officials. When we reached the Rhine, things were too quiet for Kelly and he started off to visit his native town in Ireland. If I ever hear that somebody has gotten stores from the police barracks to equip the Sein Feiners, I shall know that Kelly the Lepper is on the job.

My own life is an altogether pleasant one. I have for my office a well furnished parlor on the ground floor of the Bürgermeister’s house where I spend my mornings with Bill Halligan, mainly at the task of writing letters to soldiers who want to get back and to folks at home who ask news of their dear ones, living or dead. In the afternoons I float lazily around amongst the companies, just chatting and gossiping, and getting in a good deal of my work in my own way, sort of incidentally and on the side; or I drop in at headquarters and bother Captain Dick Allen and Jansen and Ed Farrell of the Personnel Department for correct data for my diary, or Ted Ranscht and Clarke for maps. Or I look in on the juvenile pro-consuls Springer and Allen to smile at the air of easy mastery with which they boss the German civilians into observing American Military Commands. My nights I spend at the building of the “Y” or K. of C. amongst the men, or at home, receiving numerous guests with a world of topics to discuss. It is an agreeable kind of existence, with no urgent duties except correspondence, and with the satisfaction of performing a not unimportant service without any feeling of labor, but merely by kindly and friendly intercourse. My orderly, “Little Mac,” is having the time of his life. If I only had a car for him to drive me around in, as Tom Gowdy did in Texas, he would never want to go home to the Bronx.

Father Hanley was made director of amusements and was kept busy providing entertainment five nights a week from our own and other Divisions for the two large halls conducted by the Y. M. C. A. and the K. of C., a task which he accomplished as he does everything—to complete satisfaction.

One thing that astonished everybody in this New York regiment was the number of illiterates amongst replacements from the Southern States. We had two hundred men who could not sign their names to the pay-roll. A strong movement was started throughout the American Expeditionary Forces after the Armistice to teach such men to read and write, and the simplest problems in arithmetic, as well as to give a better knowledge of English to foreign born soldiers. In our regiment this task was confided to Chaplain Holmes, who went at it with his usual devotion to duty and attention to details, so that Chaplain Nash who was Divisional School Officer told me that the educational work in the 165th was by far the best in the Division.

I had many examples of the need of schooling for certain of the men. Many of our recent replacements had been kept going from place to place and had not received pay in months. Whenever I heard of such cases I advanced them money from our Trustee’s Fund. One evening three of our old-timers came to my billet to borrow some money to have a little party, but I had to tell them that my stock of francs was cleaned out. Just then a fine big simple fellow from the Tennessee mountains came in to return the money I had loaned him. “How much do you owe me?” I asked. “Thirty-seven francs.” “All right, hand it over to these fellows here.” “Well, I reckon I’d rather pay you.” After a certain amount of joking about it, it dawned upon my slow intelligence that the poor fellow was embarrassed by not being able to count money, so I took him into another room and tried to teach him how much change he should have out of a fifty franc note.

The efforts of our generous friends in New York in supplying funds were much appreciated by the whole regiment. We had been in line for months and the men were seldom paid. Even when payday came those who were absent in hospital, or those who had been absent when the pay-roll was signed, got nothing. The funds were left absolutely at my disposal, and I knew from the calibre of our Trustees that it was their wish that they should be disbursed in a generous spirit. Many of our bright sergeants were started off to Officer’s School without a sou in their pockets. I believed that our New York backers would like to have the best men of our regiment able to hold up their heads in any crowd, so I saw that every one of them had fifty or a hundred francs in his pocket before starting. When I could be sure of addresses, I sent money to men in hospitals and in casual camps. While the regiment was in line money was no use to anybody, as there was absolutely nothing to buy, not even an egg or a glass of wine, but here in Germany, with shops and eating houses open, my cash was a real boon, and I did not hesitate to disburse it.

Just after the armistice, with the prospect that leaves might at last be granted, I sent to our trustees a bold request for $20,000.00, to guarantee the men a real holiday. When the permissions for leaves came I found that in most cases this money was not needed, as the long deferred pay gave most of the men sufficient money of their own. So I devoted a generous amount of it to help finance the company dinners which were gotten up on a metropolitan scale in the hotels of Remagen. These were joyous affairs—feasts of song and story-telling and speech-making. Colonel Donovan and I made it a practice to attend them all, and he got in many a strong word on spirit and discipline which had better results in that environment than could have been produced on a more formal occasion. Father Hanley was always a favorite at these gatherings as he handed out the latest rumors (which he himself had manufactured), discoursed on the superiority of Cleveland over New York, and of the 3rd Battalion over any other bunch of fighting men in the whole universe. It was a part of my share in the function to speak on the good men in the Company that had paid the great price; and it is a tribute to the loyalty and steadfastness of human nature to see how the merry-makers would pause in their enjoyment to pay the tribute of a sigh or a tear to the memory of their companions of the battlefield who were absent from their triumph.

Our winter on the Rhine was our happiest period in the whole war. First and foremost the regiment was all together in one place; and companionship is by far the biggest element of satisfaction in a soldier’s life. The men had good warm billets and most of them had beds to sleep on. The food was substantial and plentiful, though, for that matter, I think we were at all times the best fed army that ever went to war. There were periods of starvation in battles, but the main difficulty was even then in getting it from the kitchen to the men in line.

The men had enough work to do to keep them in good healthy condition and to prevent them from becoming discontented; but all in all, it was an easy life. All of the old-timers got a chance to go off on leave, most of them choosing Paris, the Riviera, or Ireland. Short excursions to Coblenz by rail or river were given to everybody.

Our band had a prominent part in adding to the pleasures of life. Bandmaster Ed. Zitzman had returned from school, and he with the Drum Major John Mullin and Sergeants Jim Lynch and Paddy Stokes made frequent demands on me for funds to purchase music and extra instruments. In France I had bought sixteen clairons or trumpets for the Company buglers to play with the Band. Here on the Rhine I bought other instruments, including orchestral ones, so we were well supplied for field or chamber music. Lieutenant Slayter took charge of the Band in matters of discipline and march time, with excellent results.

One of the greatest of our successes during this period was the 165th Minstrels, organized by Major Lawrence, always active in everything for the good of the men. After having scored a distinct hit at home and throughout the Division, they went on a tour through the Army of Occupation, and were booked to go back through France if we had remained longer abroad. The performers were: Interlocutor, William K. McGrath; End Men, Harry Mallen, Thomas McCardle, Harold Carmody, Edward Finley, and Charles Woods; Soubrettes, Robert Harrison, James O’Keefe, James F. O’Brien, William O’Neill, James Mack, Melvin King, and John McLaughlin; Chorus: Charles Weinz, Edward Smith, John Brawley, John Ryan, John Zimmerman, John Mullins, Thomas O’Kelly, Eugene Eagan, Walter Hennessey, Peter Rogers, William Yanss, Clinton Rice, Thomas Donohue, Chester Taylor, Sylvester Taylor, James Kelly, Charles Larson, with T. Higginbotham as strong man and Milton Steckels as contortionist.

The health of the command has been excellent, although since we have come into civilized parts we have developed a certain amount of pneumonia which we escaped while living in the hardships of the Argonne. Since leaving Baccarat I know of only two of our men who have died from other than battle causes; Private Myers of the Machine Gun Company was drowned in the Marne in August and John E. Weaver of Company L died during the same month of illness. In Germany we lost Corporal Patrick McCarthy, Company E, died of pneumonia October 20th, W. J. Silvey of Company D, James Kalonishiskie and Robert Clato of M, James C. Vails of H, Corporal Joseph M. Seagriff, James O’Halloran, Charles Nebel and Terrence McNally of Supply Company, Emery Thrash and George Sanford of L, Carl Demarco of F, and one of the best of our Sergeants, John B. Kerrigan of Headquarters Company.

Our only grievances were the difficulties of getting back our old officers and men, and the stoppage of promotions for officers after the Armistice. Every day my mail had a number of letters from soldiers all over France asking me to get them back to the Regiment; and work on this line constituted my greatest occupation. Many of the men took the matter in their own hands and worked their way across France, dodging M. P.’s, stealing rides on trucks and trains, begging meals from kindly cooks and nice old French ladies, and finally, if their luck held out, getting back amongst their own. Others were returned by a more legitimate route, until, by the time we left the Rhine we had nearly fourteen hundred men who belonged to the original command.

A large number of our officers had been recommended, some of them over and over again, for promotion, and had not received it on account of wounds which kept them in hospitals when the promotion might have come through. And now they were barred from receiving the rank which they had earned on the battlefield, the vacancies being filled by replacements. Some of these replacement officers made themselves a warm place in the heart of the regiment especially Major James Watson, who joined us in Luxembourg and was put in command of the 3rd Battalion; and also an old friend of ours from the 12th New York, Major Jay Zorn, who was with us for a short time.

Finally this legitimate grievance was settled in the most ample and satisfactory fashion. Lieutenant Colonel Donovan was made Colonel, and placed in command of the regiment, Colonel Howland going to take charge of a leave area in France. Major Anderson was made Lieutenant Colonel, and Bootz, Meaney and Merle-Smith Majors. There were also a number of promotions to the rank of Captain both in the line companies and in the Sanitary Detachment. There were two other men that we all felt should have gotten their majority, but when the original recommendations were made they were both suffering from wounds in hospitals with no seeming prospects of ever getting back to the regiment. These two were Captain John P. Hurley and Captain Richard J. Ryan, who also, to everybody’s great delight, rejoined us on this river (which we call the Ryan river) though still in a doubtful state of health.

Many of these promotions came after Donovan’s accession to the command and through his energetic efforts. He also made use of every possible means through official and private channels, to get back every officer and man of the Old Regiment that was able to come. First and foremost amongst these was Lieutenant Colonel Timothy J. Moynahan, who left us in Baccarat as a Major and had won his Lieutenant Colonelcy as well as a D. S. C. and a Croix de Guerre with the 37th Division. Jack Mangan, now Major Mangan, came back from 2nd Army Headquarters. We had an abundance of majors though we had lost one of them—Major Tom Reilley, who had been sent home much against his will for a promotion which he never received, just after the fighting was over.

We also got back a lot of happy lieutenants who had gone to officers Candidate Schools, and had been commissioned in other Divisions, the happiest of the lot, I think, being Leo Larney, a fine athlete and a fine man. We had often recommended men for promotion in the regiment but had been successful in very few cases. Sergeant Thomas McCarthy was commissioned after the Ourcq; and later on Sergeants Patrick Neary and John J. Larkin were sent back to us from school as sergeants because the war started too soon after they left Ireland. When facilities for becoming citizens were extended to men in their case, they received their commissions in the regiment, and both did remarkable work in the Argonne. Sergeant Frank Johnston of Company E was for a long time an officer without knowing it, as his commission had been sent to his home address.

Colonel Donovan also inaugurated a series of little entertainments and dinners, inviting the leading officers of other regiments in the Division to partake of our Metropolitan Hibernian hospitality. Everybody in the Division likes Donovan, and they were as much delighted as we when he finally got command of the Regiment that he had so often led in action. One of our greatest friends is Colonel John Johnson of the Engineers, a manly forthright two-fisted South Carolinian; we delight also in verbal encounter with Colonel Henry Reilly of the 149 Field Artillery, a man of wide experience, unlimited mental resources, and agile wit. The other three infantry colonels Hough, Screws and Tinley have been with the Division from the beginning and our interchange of visits with them will be always one of the pleasantest recollections of the campaign.

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day on the Rhine in the best approved manner with religion, games and feasting. My altar was set up in a field beside the river. The theme for my discourse was the debt that the world owes to the sons of Saint Patrick for their fight for civil and religious liberty at home and abroad, with the prayer that that debt might now be squared by the bestowal of liberty on the Island from whence we sprung.

The day before Saint Patrick’s Day the whole Division was reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief, General Pershing, at Remagen. It was a note-worthy military ceremony in an appropriate setting, by the banks of that river of historic associations. When he came to our regiment the eyes of General Pershing were taken by the silver furls which covered the staff of our flag from the silk of the colors to the lowest tip. In fact, that staff is now in excess of the regulation length, as we had to add an extra foot to it to get on the nine furls that record our battles in this war. “What Regiment is this?” he asked. “The 165th Infantry, Sir.” “What Regiment was it?” “The 69th New York, Sir.” “The 69th New York. I understand now.”

This visit was the final hint that our stay was not to be long. The whole Division got together to organize the Rainbow Division Veterans which we did at an enthusiastic and encouragingly contentious meeting at Neuenahr.

When the orders finally came for our return to America I received them with a joy that was tinged with regret that the associations of the past two years were to be broken up. They had been years full of life and activity, and take them all in all, years of happiness. There never was a moment when I wanted to be any place other than I was. There were times of great tragedy, of seeing people killed and of burying my dearest friends, but all that was part of the tragedy of our generation. It would not have been any less if I were not present, and it was some consolation to be where I could render some little comfort to the men who had to go through them and to the relatives of those who paid the big price.

The sense of congenial companionship more than makes up for the hardships incidental to a campaign. What I am going to miss most is the friendships I have formed. In a very special degree I am going to miss Donovan. Nearly every evening we take our walk together along the river road that parallels the Rhine. It is the very spot which Byron selected for description in Childe Harold. The Rhine turns sharply to the right to make its way through the gorge of the Siebengebirge. “The castled crag of Drachenfels” looks down upon the peaceful cloistered isle of Nonnenwerth, upon pleasant villages and vineyard terraces and beautiful villas which, with the majestic river, make the scene one of the most beautiful in the world.

The companionship makes it all the more attractive. This young Buffalo lawyer who was suddenly called into the business of war, and has made a name for himself throughout the American Expeditionary Forces for outstanding courage and keen military judgment, is a remarkable man. As a boy he reveled in Thomas Francis Meagher’s “Speech on the Sword,” and his dream of life was to command an Irish brigade in the service of the Republic. His dream came true, for the 69th in this war was larger than the Irish Brigade ever was. But it did not come true by mere dreaming. He is always physically fit, always alert, ready to do without food, sleep, rest, in the most matter of fact way, thinking of nothing but the work in hand. He has mind and manners and varied experience of life and resoluteness of purpose. He has kept himself clean and sane and whole for whatever adventure life might bring him, and he has come through this surpassing adventure with honor and fame. I like him for his alert mind and just views and ready wit, for his generous enthusiasms and his whole engaging personality. The richest gain I have gotten out of the war is the friendship of William J. Donovan.

That is the way I talk about him to myself. When we are together we always find something to fight about. One unfailing subject of discussion is which of us is the greater hero. That sounds rather conceited, and all the more so when I say that each of us sticks up strongly for himself. Those infernal youngsters of ours have been telling stories about both of us, most of which, at least those that concern myself, attest the loyalty of my friends better than their veracity. There is only one way to take it—as a joke. If either of us gets a clipping in which his name is mentioned he brandishes it before company under the nose of the other challenging him to produce some proof of being as great a hero. The other day Captain Ryan gave Donovan an editorial about him from a paper in Watertown, N. Y. It was immediately brought to mess, and Donovan thought he had scored a triumph, but I countered with a quotation from a letter which said that my picture, jewelled with electric lights, had a place of honor in the window of a saloon on 14th Street. Donovan surrendered.

I got a letter from Tom Reilley, who is back in New York, and disgusted with life because he is no longer with us; and he gave me some choice ammunition. “Father Duffy,” he said, “You are certainly a wonderful man. Your press agents are working overtime. Recently you have been called the ‘Miracle Man,’ thus depriving George Stallings of the title. In the newspaper league you have Bill Donovan beat by 9,306 columns. I wish you would tell me, How do you wade through a stream of machine gun bullets? And that little stunt of yours of letting high explosive shells bounce off your chest—you could make your fortune in a circus doing that for the rest of your life.”

It is all very amusing now, but it is going to be extremely embarrassing when we get back amongst civilians where people take these things too seriously. They kept me too long as a professor of metaphysics to fit me for the proper enjoyment of popularity. Donovan says that after his final duties to the regiment are finished he is going to run away from it all and go off with his wife on a trip to Japan.

On April the second we boarded our trains for Brest—the first leg on the way home. We had a happy trip across France in the most comfortably arranged troop trains that Europe ever saw; remained three or four days at Brest, and sailed for Hoboken, the regiment being split up on two ships. Our headquarters and the first six companies were on the Harrisburg, formerly the City of Paris in the American Line. Jim Collintine used to sail on it and is very enthusiastic in his praises. It is funny to hear him telling a seasick bunch “Ain’t it a grand boat! A lovely boat! Sure you wouldn’t know you were aboard her. And she’s the woise ould thing. She’s been over this thrip so often that if niver a man put a hand to her wheel she’d pick her own way out and niver stop or veer till she turned her nose into the dock, like an ould horse findin’ its way to the manger.”

After the men had found their sea-legs we had a happy trip. We spent Easter Sunday aboard, celebrating it in holy fashion.

It was a happy throng that stood on the decks of the Harrisburg on the morning of April 21st, gazing at the southern shores of Long Island, and then the Statue of Liberty, and the massive towering structures that announce to incoming voyagers the energy and daring of the Western Republic. Then down the bay came the welcoming flotilla bearing relatives, friends and benefactors.

The number of our welcomers and the ampleness of their enthusiasm were the first indications we had of the overwhelming welcome which was to be ours during the following two weeks. I do not intend to speak here at any length, of these events, as the gentlemen of the press have described them better than I could ever hope to do. The freedom of the city was conferred upon Colonel Donovan and his staff by Mayor Hylan and the Board of Alderman; and a dinner was given to the officers by the Mayor’s Committee headed by the genial Commissioner Rodman Wanamaker. Our own Board of Trustees, the most generous and efficient lot of backers that any fighting outfit ever had since war began, gave the whole regiment a dinner at the Hotel Commodore which set a new record in the history of repasts. Our brethren of the 69th New York Guard also gave a dinner to the officers of the 165th. And Colonel Donovan and I enjoyed the hospitality of the Press Association and the Lamb’s Club. Another big baseball game, through the good will of the owners of the Giants, added fresh funds to the money at my disposal for needy families. My own fellow townsmen in the Bronx prepared a public reception, for which every last detail was arranged except the weather; but I was prouder than ever of them when they put the thing through in good soldier fashion, regardless of the meanest day of wind and rain that New York ever saw in the month of May.

There was nothing that imagination could conceive or energy perform that our Board of Trustees was not willing to do for us. Dan Brady, who has neglected his business for the past two years to look after the 69th, and all the rest of them, devoted themselves entirely to furthering our well-being and our glory. The only thing I have against Dan is that he makes me work as hard as himself, and bosses me around continually. At one of the dinners I said that if Dan Brady had taken up the same kind of a job that I had, he would be a bishop by now; but if he were my Bishop I’d be a Baptist or a Presbyterian; in some Church anyway, that doesn’t have Bishops.

The part of our reception which I enjoyed most of all was the parade up Fifth Avenue. The whole regiment shared in it, including the extra battalion, seven hundred strong, of men who had been invalided home, and others of our wounded who had a place of honor on the grandstand. Archbishop Hayes, who had blessed us as we left the Armory, Mayor Hylan, men prominent in State and City, in Army and Navy affairs, united to pay their tribute of praise to the old regiment. And thousands and thousands of people on the stands cheered and cheered and cheered, so that for five miles the men walked through a din of applause, till the band playing the American and Irish airs could scarce be heard.

It was a deserved tribute to a body of citizen soldiers who had played such a manful part in battle for the service of the Republic. The appreciation that the country pays to its war heroes is for the best interest of the State. I am not a militarist, nor keen for military glory. But as long as liberties must be defended, and oppression or aggression put down, there must always be honor paid to that spirit in men which makes them willing to die for a righteous cause. Next after reason and justice, it is the highest quality in citizens of a state.

Our fathers in this republic, in their poverty and lowliness, founded many institutions, ecclesiastical, financial, charitable, which have grown stronger with the years. One of these institutions was a military organization, which they passed on to us with the flag of the fifty silver furls. To these we have added nine more in the latest war of our country. As it was borne up the Avenue flanked by that other banner whose stars of gold commemorated the six hundred and fifty dead heroes of the regiment, and surrounded by three thousand veterans, I felt that in the breasts of generous and devoted youths that gazed upon them there arose a determination that if, in their generation, the Republic ever needed defenders, they too would face the perils of battle in their country’s cause.

Men pass away, but institutions survive. In time we shall all go to join our comrades who gave up their lives in France. But in our own generation, when the call came, we accepted the flag of our fathers; we have added to it new glory and renown—and we pass it on.