Knowing that the United States would enter World War I in spring 1917, we might figure that in the year before, the Arkansas Gazette had a lot to say about the Great War in Europe. And we would be correct. But another conflict in 1916, on this continent, had already disturbed the peace ... and inspired in Arkansas a keen interest in the travel opportunities afforded by war.
I'm talking about the Arkansas National Guard's role in the U.S. Army border campaign against Gen. Francisco "Pancho" Villa.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's July 10 Perspective section included an essay about this adventure by historian Tom Dillard. His "Arkansas Postings" column explained how the Guard wound up defending New Mexico against Mexico: President Woodrow Wilson sent Army Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing and 11,000 regular Army soldiers into Mexico to catch Villa, leaving the border unguarded.
The National Defense Act federalized state militias June 3, 1916, and so Wilson was able on June 19 to call up the National Guard of the United States and send thousands of farm boys and businessmen south to border posts left vacant in the (futile) hunt for Villa.
Dillard describes in a most amusing way the tedium of camping in New Mexico. Subscribers can read his essay wherever Democrat-Gazettes are piled or by searching the newspaper's online archives. Please do that now, I will wait. I want to feel free to focus today's Old News on my new favorite unnamed employee of the old Arkansas Gazette, "Staff Correspondent."
From Aug. 11 to Aug. 27, 1916, the Gazette published long dispatches "By a Staff Correspondent" who rode to New Mexico on one of the Arkansas Guard trains and mingled with guardsmen of various ranks and civilians. The Gazette didn't use reporters' names in 1916, and so I don't know who this guy was. But I'm confident he was male, because female reporters were like meteors.
Whoever Staff Correspondent was, bless him, he was keen for details.
Arkansas mustered two regiments, the First Regiment and the Second Regiment, and after about eight hectic weeks of testing and training at Fort Roots near Argenta (North Little Rock), on the afternoon and evening of Aug. 10, about 1,300 "boys" left by train.
In the first of what I believe to have been a string of reports by this one writer, the Gazette vividly described the Guard's
departure from Fort Roots, after which "not a scrap of paper remained":
"Here and there scattered over the camp, seated on boxes ready for shipment, and under shade trees were little family groups, saying the last goodbyes. Officers and enlisted men mingled regardless of the difference in rank. Quartets gathered. Some sang. Others butchered all scales of music ever known. 'Home Sweet Home,' from one group, mingled with 'Oh! You Beautiful Doll' from another.
"One group started a crap game -- 'for fun.' The Gazette staff photographer caught them. They only grinned at him. 'Shoot a million,' one cried as the camera clicked."
It had rained, and so breaking camp took four hours longer than expected Aug. 10. Still, thousands showed up at the Rock Island freight depot at Fourth Street and Washington Avenue in Argenta to see the First Regiment leave in two sections, beginning about 4 p.m. The governor spoke and, the Gazette reported, "true to all military traditions, the band played 'The Girl I Left Behind Me.' As the train pulled out, the men craning their heads out of the windows, cheered loudly and waved to the crowd, which responded enthusiastically as the train turned the curve and swept out of sight."
When the First's second section left, the band played "Dixie."
Thanks to mud delays, the Second Regiment departed about 10 p.m. on a Rock Island spur below Fort Roots at the foot of Big Rock with "none of the exciting scenes of the afternoon."
The reporter's good eyes stayed open on the four-day, lumbering train trek to New Mexico, and so readers learned that their men had accidentally set a car on fire using camp stoves, that the trains slowed to a crawl through small towns where Indian children begged for nickels (aka jitneys), that the scenery was amazing and that some men amused themselves by writing letters while others sat on top of the caboose to slaughter jackrabbits and prairie dogs.
Two officers' hats blew off, and they were afraid to hop down to retrieve their "sky pieces."
After 60 hours the weary trains arrived at "a sporty little burg" -- Deming, N.M. The sandy Mimbres Valley proved a mostly boring place where all manner of odd things occurred, from some Arkansans' accidental attack on the Delaware Guard's camp while hunting rabbits, to a mule stampede and a guy who deserted after his wife found out he'd married another woman. People had horses that stood stock still if you tossed reins over their heads.
But alas, at the first of September, "By a Staff Correspondent" was replaced with "Special to the Gazette." My guess is Staff Correspondent's boss noticed that nothing heroic was happening and called him home.
NOT SO SPECIAL
The earnest freelancer who replaced him, "Special to the Gazette," appears to have collected info only from officers.
Many civilians traveled with the Guard to the border, including truck drivers, so it's possible Special was one of them. Or he might have been one of the guardsmen who were soon publishing a camp newsletter -- the "Razorback." Special did give the readers back home lots of information, but his viewpoint was officious:
"Arkansas may well be proud of her two regiments -- what there is of them -- but it may well be ashamed of the size of her regiments," Special writes at the end of a dispatch that suggests the Guard will be home Nov. 1 at the latest (in fact, Arkansans began deserting in real numbers in late December). "The boys from Massachusetts, Delaware and the other Eastern and Northern states come visiting to see the natives of the Razorback state. They remark to each other, 'What's the matter? Hasn't Arkansas men physically fit and loyal enough to fill her depleted companies?'
"Arkansas is standing before the nation today as a state without enough men loyal to their state and nation to fill the ranks of her two regiments ... Those boys who answered their president's call and have come to the border -- and incidentally are having the best time of their lives -- have decided opinions of those who never even tried to enlist."
Oh, Staff Correspondent, why did you have to go home?
Next week: Sporty Little Burg
ActiveStyle on 08/22/2016