'Cannon and musket balls flew around me'

Page 1 of Michael McCarty's letter
(Thanks to Brendan Foley for the image)

This week I thought we'd have a bit of change from the First World War, although you may not guess it from the first few lines of this soldier's letter:

'My dear wife, I take my pen in hand in order to let you know that I am well and I hope this may find you enjoying the same. No doubt but that you have heard of the great battle, which was fought last Thursday the 7th. I was there and done all I could for my adopted country.'

No, it wasn't written during the First World War but in 1861, during the American Civil War. Its author was a Unionist soldier called Michael McCarty and the things he wrote about were very similar to those in letters some 50 years later: a vivid description of battle, acceptance that death may be just around the corner, the wait to be paid, and concern for those at home.

McCarty was an immigrant from Ireland who served with the Illinois 31st (nicknamed the 'Dirty First') Regiment and he wrote the letter three days after the Battle of Belmont, in Missouri. It was kindly sent to me by McCarty's great-great-grandson, Dan Foley, and you can read the rest below. The gunboats mentioned were on the Mississippi River (in case, like me, you were wondering whatever boats were doing in the middle of a continent!) and the 'Sesh' referred to the Confederates - the Secessionists.

'The battle was fought in Missouri at a place called Belmont opposite Columbus on the Kentucky shore. The gunboats began the battle about 9 o'clock in the morning and we infantry a little before 11o'clock, which lasted until night. I can not give you a full account of whole fight as it would fill several sheets of paper but this I know that I never saw such a time in all my life and I hope that I may never see such another. But if I must, I must and therefore am ready.

'I escaped unhurt, but how it was God only knows for I am sure that I don't. Cannon and musket balls flew around me as thick as hale [sic]. Cutting down trees and bushes and tearing up the ground in every direction. Others of whom there were many were less fortunate and met a soldier's doom - Death. The Sesh were badly cut to pieces losing a great many more than our side, but ours is bad enough and who the victory belongs to it is hard to tell but it is claimed by the Union troops.

'We captured and spiked their guns but had to retreat to the boats hotly pursued by the enemy who were reinforced by many thousands from Columbus. We lost a considerable of clothing. Consisting of coats and other equipments. I would have written to you before but was expecting to get paid off every day and will write to you again when we get paid, we are looking for it every day. Write me how you and the children are getting on. No more at this time, but remain yours Michael McCarty'

Sadly, McCarty was injured later in the war at Atlanta and did not survive, but his family remains proud to this day: 'He died in the service of his new country. He was a hero, as the letter establishes pretty well,' said his great-great-grandson.


'I escaped unhurt but how, God only knows' - pages 2 and 3 of McCarty's letter
(Thanks to Brendan Foley - McCarty's great-great-great-grandson! - for the image)

'My washing water is frozen every morning'

Freeze-up in France

How soldiers on the Western Front must have longed for the winter to finish!
Even those who were used to temperatures falling well below zero were finding things hard going by the end of January 1917.

This medic, for example, came from central Canada where severe weather is the norm, but he certainly wasn't feeling at home in France. He wrote home: 'We are having real winter weather now, colder than anything experienced last year. There has been quite a depth of snow lying for the last 10 days and the ground is frozen hard. The temperature could not have been much above zero this morning which is very cold for this country. Fortunately we are not in the trenches but in billets in a village behind the lines. It is none too comfortable in billets but I hate to think of what it must be like in the trenches.

'The day the snow started we marched 10 miles in a thick storm. A hard wind was blowing and the storm at times looked almost like a blizzard. The roads are now covered with ice and frozen slush. This mess makes very bad going for horses. I have sick parade now at 6.30am and this means getting up at 5.30. My washing water is frozen in the room every morning.'

Six months later, though, life was transformed as can be seen from this letter he wrote in June 1917 which makes it hard to believe there was a war on at all!

'Yesterday was the Brigade sports day and the program lasted all day. It was blistering hot but everything went off well.Our unit won a number of events including 1st and 2nd in the mules race.

'This morning after church parade a few of us got our horses and rode off to our swimming pool which is about 3 kilometres away. The pool is an old disused quarry filled with water. It must be about 500 feet long, half as wide and very deep. It makes an ideal place for swimming although I must confess that I shouldn't mind having a chance to take a dip in the sea again. However, we all enjoyed both our ride and swim. The day is too hot for walking. 'I noticed some children out picking wild strawberries. It made me think of strawberry shortcake. Lord! It seems to me to be years and years since I have seen or eaten a piece of strawberry shortcake.'

It's good to see that soldiers knew how to enjoy themselves when the opportunity arose; after all, another harsh winter was only months away

A brisk trade in the souvenirs of war

The real thing: a piece of Zeppelin wire
raises money for the Red Cross

The word 'souvenir' is one we tend to associate with holidays or other pleasureable events we want to remember, so I was quite surprised by how often it crops up in letters written home from the battlefont. It was not all uncommon for soldiers to collect souvenirs of war- in fact it was a very popular pastime.

'I was hoping we should soon be home on leave and bring all those lovely war souvenirs such as Prussian Guard helmets and even Austrian helmets,' wrote one Tommy from France in 1916. 'I was in possession of lots of nice things but we were told we had to charge a wood on a certain day and so I had to abandon everything.'


Any old iron: WW1 memento
- an Austrian helmet

Some soldiers made a business out of buying and selling sourvenirs, like this Canadian in 1917: 'I had a lovely Fritz revolver and case, an automatic which an Aussie had taken from a German officer. I bought it for 75 francs and sold it to one of our doctors for 100. I bought a German watch since for 10 francs. It had been hit with shrapnel twice but still goes, so I am going to keep it till "Apa la Guerre" (some French eh!) [he no doubt meant "Apres la guerre"].'

But by the end of the war, some solders had no desire for keepsakes, certainly not this soldier who wrote to his wife in October 1918: 'I have not collected any souvenirs, but I have the chance to have plenty, but they do not apeal to me and I have plenty of weight to carry as it is. There is a little religious emblem I picked up at the place where I am now, and thought Tommy [the soldier's young son] would like it, so I am putting it in with this letter and I also got a small Rosary, but I have seen some beauties...'

Some souvenirs could be a reminder of happy events (if they could be called that) or friendships made during adversity. Early in the war, British soldiers were almost mobbed when they arrived in Belgium to take on the invading Germans. 'We halted in one village for an hour and a half and when we left there was scarcely a badge or a button in the regiment, all gone as souvenirs. Good luck to the Belgians,' wrote one sergeant.

Meanwhile something similar was happening at hospitals in Britain, where wounded Belgian soldiers were befriending the nurses: 'All Belgians in our ward left for camp, very sad, gave us coins and buttons for souvenirs,' wrote one Red Cross nurse in her diary in 1914.

Thanks to Lorraine Judge in Australia for the Zeppelin souvenirs, above and top

The spying game - a wartime obsession

Trust in me: the notorious spy Mata Hari

A theme which constantly crops up in the letters and diaries I have been reading is spying - something made famous during the First World War by the notorious Mata Hari who spied for the Germans and was executed by the French.

From the very start of the conflict, British civilians were always on the lookout for spies in their midst and it didn't take much to start them talking. One young nurse from Weymouth wrote very matter-of-factly in her diary in early 1916: 'German spy caught on White Star liner, in harbour.'

Another teenage girl from Bristol, who was staying with friends in Cornwall in the summer of 1914, wrote home in great excitement to say that a German spy had been discovered at Porthcurno and was being taken to Penzance to be shot there the following week. In fact condemned spies faced the firing squad at the Tower of London - and there were far fewer of them than public speculation suggested.

There are some fascinating records of those who were tried for spying at this website:  www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/wwi_spying.htm . Some accounts are fairly graphic, for example, this is what happened when 22-year-old Albert Meyer faced the firing squad: 'Before the bullets of the firing party could reach him he had torn the bandage from his eyes, and died in a contorted mass, shouting curses at his captors, which were only stilled by the bullets.'

Not all those who were accused of spying received a fair trial. One British soldier, who kept a diary while fighting in France during the early months of the war, witnessed what sounds like a fairly summary trial and execution. In the market square of Landrecies he saw a Lieutenant Colonel of the French artillery, who had been convicted of selling secrets to the German, sentenced to be shot. 'He was led away, as I stood there, to be executed.'

Back in Britain, anyone suspected of being a threat to national security could be interned and that is what happened to one Jewish refugee whose family had sought sanctuary in Britain after fleeing pogroms in Russia at the turn of the 20th century. He was interned as an enemy alien at the start of the war, although no-one in his family knows exactly why - maybe it was because of his German-sounding name.

Later he was released - only to be conscripted into the Russian Labour Corps of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and sent to France! From there he sent home a series of beautiful postcards on which he described the scenes of devastation at the end of the war. You'll be able to read these in my book.

At last, the hard work is about to begin!

Troops receive a warm welcom at Ostend, Belgium, at the beginning of the war

After six months of fascinating research into letters and diaries from the First World War, the time has come for me to start writing my book, and just as these troops must have felt when they arrived at Ostend in Belgium at the beginning of the war - the hard work is about to begin!

My background is in journalism and although this may sound well suited to book-writing, I'm afraid that's not quite the case. Writing for newspapers involves getting the facts across to the reader in an objective way, usually in as few words as possible because space is tight. Generally, there is a formula to writing news stories, they begin with an intro which gives the story in a nutshell, then continue with paragraphs explaining: who, what, where, and when.

A year or so before I was offered the chance to write this book, I moved on to writing articles for magazines, a fairly big jump in writing style which meant allowing my words flow rather than expressing everything in short, factual sentences.

Finally I'm starting work my book and yet more new skills are called for. I am having to develop a writing style which is comfortable and interesting for the reader. This means, among other things, not starting each new paragraph with 'However...', and lengthening my sentences with a few sub-clauses rather than pouncing at the earliest opportunity with a full-stop. I am now also interpreting information and presenting it my own way, rather than simply setting out the facts for the readers . This is very liberating - and also rather exciting - but I must constantly remind myself that I am allowed to do so!

There is one way, though, in which journalism has prepared me very well for this book - it taught me how to sniff out a good story. Without journalistic experience I would probably have taken the war letters at face value, simply as letters, rather than looking behind them for stories.

This is where those who have let me use their WW1 material have been so helpful. They have filled me with some some fascinating stories about their relatives during the war and I would like to say a huge thankyou. Their helpfulness, friendliness and interest in my project has made the last six months of research a pleasure.

My task now is to do justice not only to the letters but also to the men and women who wrote them. So let battle commence! (Meanwhile I'm still on the lookout for WW1 letters and diaries, so please get in touch if you have anything which may be of interest. Contact details are to the right.)

Welcome to the New Year ... 2013 and 1918

Happy New Year everyone and may your 2013 be a good one.

Before I turn the clocks back to the First World War, here's a bit of festive whimsy from this century which I hope you enjoy - just click the arrow. What did your decorations get up to when your back was turned? 

And so to the Great War and below is a card - with ribbon still attached - sent home from Europe by an Australian soldier in 1918, the year that finally saw the end to a war so terrible that it's hard to imagine how anyone could have lived through it. The card is from a marvellous collection belonging to Lorraine Judge, an Australian family historian. I look forward to bringing you lots more interesting bits and pieces from my research during the coming 12 months, and I will also let you know how my book is progressing now that the writing stage has just begun. Happy New Year.

 

 

 

'Remembering absent friends at Christmas'

This week here's another of the Christmas letters George Lamb sent home to his family in Canada. The year is now 1917 and at last he's arrived in France, enjoying Christmas in fine style but also remembering absent friends. Tragically, this was to be his final Christmas. George Lamb was killed in action the following March, aged 22. His-larger-than-life personality comes alive in the letters he wrote home, though, and George will be one of the stars of my book. (For his 1916 Christmas letter, see last week's post.)


'Our menu was everything
that could be expected'

December 26, 1917

My Dear Mother,

As you will see by the date Xmas is over and although it was my first one in France, I hope I shall enjoy my next one as well in Canada. Our menu was everything that could be expected and the quantity was plenty, I wished I had one of the menus, in fact I remember now I have it, so will enclose it. You could not imagine the good time we had, several of the old faces were absent, but at the same time we have to expect casualties, and perhaps a greater percentage next year when our smashing will begin for a clean sweep.

The officers and sergeants acted mess orderlies and of course we made them all reply with speeches, which they did. In the evening a couple or so of us journeyed out to a little estaminet [cafe] where there are two of the nicest girls I have seen in France. They were driven from some Belgian city, have plenty of money, well educated and so obliging and different from most of the French over here. It was a fine finish after such a good day as we had.

Winter has settled in for good alright now, snow has fallen about four to six inches and although it is not so cold, the melting and snowing again make it disagreeable for the feet. One thing I felt glad about is when the 22nd of December, the shortest day, had finished and from now on we shall be getting longer days although it won't have much effect for awhile.

I suppose you received my card by now, it was kind of late coming. I only had two, it was all I could get, I sent the other to Cassie [his fiancee]. I haven't had any Xmas parcels from anyone. I suppose the mail will be tied up for a while, so much to handle. I had one from Aunt Alice in England, also several letters, she has been very good indeed to me and I wished you would write her once in awhile.

I am helping fix up cars to-day so must get back to work or I'll get fired. Very little news these days only that the war is still going on and glad that conscription passed in Canada.

With fond love to all, I am as ever your loving son George.