In the eyes of the law this was every man’s war, and all must get under and back of it with no exceptions. A deserter was a deserter. Some were dangerous men, and some no more than yellow slackers. We could not in these pages give a great many instances of either type. One A. P. L. report, however, that comes from Birmingham, Alabama, is peculiar in that it gives details regarding several investigations and arrests of deserters.
One of the most remarkable cases handled by the Birmingham Division was that of Dan D—— of Tuscaloosa County, who deserted from the regular army of the United States on November 27, 1917, and was not captured until September 1, 1918. Information having been received by the Chief on the 23rd of August, 1918, that Dan was hiding near Reno Mines, he immediately ordered a number of his men under Special Agent M—— to go after the deserter. The trip was taken in automobiles on the afternoon of August 23, and through very heavy mist. Arriving at Reno Mines, some information was given the party as to the location of the man’s home, which proved to be a four-room boxed house in front of which and about sixty feet away was a small frame barn about twenty by thirty feet, built of rough plank, with four horse stalls in the main building and some cow stalls in the lean-to shed.
A careful search of house and barn failed to show any signs of the missing man, his parents and sister denying any knowledge of his whereabouts. The mother said, “The last I hear’n of Dan was a letter from Long Island two months or more ago,” and she remarked, “Of course, you’uns know he was home on a furlough last November.” A request to produce the letter was met with the reply, “The chillun tore it up.”
The search of the barn was again renewed by the men, and the loft was searched with the aid of a ladder from the outside. It was found to be filled with fodder, hay and grass, and prodding with poles and forks convinced the parties that there was no chance for any one to be hiding under same.
Very much mystified, and yet satisfied by the demeanor and sullen manner of the father, mother and sister that Dan was somewhere close, the Special Agent divided his men, leaving part of them to watch, while the others sought for outside information.
Mr. W——, a Deputy Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, had been trying to locate Dan for ten months, and had watched continuously as much as ten days at one time, both house and barn. A number of searches prior to the arrival of the A. P. L. squad, made in and around the mines of the different operating companies, had given no clue. One thing was certain, however: nearly everybody in the district was related to him, due to the intermarriage during several generations of the people, and, as usual, there were some of his own kin-folks who would “shore like to see him pulled.”
At last, the patience of the party being exhausted, and feeling sure that Dan was somewhere, either about the house or barn, the father, William D——, and the mother, and a sister, who had denied any relationship to Dan, were told positively either to surrender him or go to jail. They asked for time, and it was refused. They pleaded for the officers to come again to-morrow. This also was refused. After pleading again to give them till afternoon, they finally asked one of the League operators to a conference behind the house with the mother and father. They then renewed their pleadings for time, but finally agreed to show the hiding place of their son and deliver him to the party, as they now realized that the “U. S. was a blame sight stronger than kin-folks who were liable to split on you at any minute.”
The father was then accompanied to the barn. He knocked on the wall of the barn and said, “Come down, son!” Almost immediately a wide plank in the floor of the barn loft, almost over the heads of the astonished men, mysteriously arose from its resting place, revealing the most unique and simple hiding place imaginable. It was nothing more or less than a box, about as large as a good sized coffin, in which there were bed clothes, food and water. The box was cut to fit the joists, hiding all joints, and being apparent from below as a part of the loft floor. It was covered with fodder and hay above, the occupant using one loose plank of the box as his trap door. When occupied, it would naturally be as tight as any other part of the floor. Later, the party saw a hole dug out under the cow stall which he had occupied until his more palatial quarters in the coffin box had been provided.
The District was noted in years gone by as the “favorite stamping ground of Jim Morrison and kindred outlawed spirits.” Most of the inhabitants of the surrounding country are employed in the mining of brown iron ore, which is taken out of large open cuts and washed by machinery and shipped to the furnaces of the Birmingham district. Nearly all of the labor, black and white, are the descendants of small farmers of Tuscaloosa County and the southern part of Jefferson County. Many of them still carry on farming in a small way, and the region has long been famous for its smooth and creamy “moonshine,” which in some mysterious way still continues to be made. It was for many years a favorite pastime of old Judge Shackelford, who lived and died in sight of the D—— home, to mix his corn juice in an old sugar bowl while dispensing justice in the good old way. Shortly after the events narrated here, the sheriff of the county was murdered in cold blood on the village street by one of the outlaws of the section.
Two other interesting cases handled by the Birmingham Division concerned two brothers, S—— and R——. S—— deserted from Camp Pike, Arkansas, October 5, 1917, and R—— from Camp Mills, N. Y., September 25, 1917. The peculiar part of the case was that while S—— was listed as a deserter, the War Department had no record of R—— deserting, though they were advised that he was in this section of the country and efforts were made to check the records. While their desertions took place the latter part of 1917, it was not until August, 1918, that Operative No. 202 of the Birmingham Division received confidential information that both men were in Shelby County, Alabama, making moonshine whiskey, which they were selling to the miners and also to citizens in Bessemer, Alabama, a town thirteen miles southwest of Birmingham.