Supporting Written Works Help the Telling of Jack Sullivan’s WWI Story

Jack C. Sullivan was a soldier of the 4th Engineers during World War I. His military file was among many that burned in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel and Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis. More than 75% of the Army and Air Force records were destroyed. The NPRC sent me only the last pay voucher, a three-page listing of soldiers’ final pay. At least I have his signature.

Because of that, I have had to build his service information using other documents. I have found departure and arrival passenger lists, muster rolls, rosters, and morning reports for the unit he served; all created during his service.

Other records were created after his service, such as the Veterans Administration Master Index (VAMI) cards and the Montana Military Cards.[1] With this information, I have been able to construct a timeline of his activities. Still, he was mentioned only once in the morning reports, and his Montana card said he was gassed on August 5. Besides that, I do not know much about his service. It was time to look at other sources.

Supporting Written Sources
Next, I looked for sources that might mention the 4th Engineers. The first source I located was a regimental history written by men of the regiment as they served. It begins with their training at Vancouver Barracks in Washington and Camp Green in North Carolina, their voyage across the Atlantic, and their experiences in France and Germany. The book is Columbia to the Rhine: Being a Brief History of the Fourth Engineers, and Their Trip from the Columbia River, in the State of Washington, U.S.A., to the Rhine River in Germany. A copy can be found on the Internet Archive.[2]

I found first-hand accounts written by officers of the 4th online at Fold3 in the database, “US, WWI, Officer Experience Report.”[3] Not all the reports were about Company E, the unit Jack served in, but these officers gave first-hand accounts of their experience in France and Germany.

The 4th Engineers were part of the 4th Division, and I found a book detailing the 4th Division’s activities, The Fourth Division: Its Services and Achievements in the World War.[4] I am currently reading this book. It gives much more than the story of the 4th Engineers, but mentions the 4th Engineers specifically or mentions engineers in general. Their role in the division was critical. I decided the book was important enough, especially the photos, that I purchased a used copy for my bookshelf. The digital copy is useful for searching for keywords.

I plan to use both the Columbia to the Rhine and The Fourth Division and compare notes, especially since The Fourth Division covers many more regiments than the 4th Engineers. I will also review the Morning Reports for Company E against both books.

I found some additional supporting works: Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America by Jennifer D. Keene (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). This book will have good background information. Chapter titles include: A Force to Call Our Own: Establishing a National Army, Americans as Warriors, and Forging Their Own Alliances: American Soldiers’ Relations with the French and the Germans, to name a few.

The other book I found was America in the Great War: The Rise of the War Welfare State by Ronald Schaffer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Some chapter titles include: Managing American Minds, The Managed Economy: Creating the Regulatory System, The Great War and the Equality Issue: African-Americans and Women, and Motivating the AEF, to name a few.

These two books, published by university presses, contain endnotes pointing to other great sources to check out!

These written sources will be the start and perhaps enough to help me tell Jack’s military story during the Great War.

 

#52Ancestors: Week 49: Written

This is my eighth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

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[1] To search in the Veterans Administration Master Index database, see https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/2968245. For the Montana military database, see https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/62068/.

[2] Fourth Engineers, Columbia to the Rhine: Being a Brief History of the Fourth Engineers, and their Trip from the Columbia River, in the State of Washington, U.S.A., to the Rhine River in Germany (Wald, Germany: Westdeutsche Grossdruckerei GMBH, 1919), imaged at Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/columbiatorhineb00unitrich).

[3] “US, WWI, Officer Experience Report,” Fold3 (https://www.fold3.com/publication/764/us-wwi-officer-experience-reports-aef-1917-1920).

[4] Christian Albert Back & Henry Noble Hall, The Fourth Division: Its Services and Achievements in the World War (Bach, 1920), imaged at Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/fourthdivisioni01hallgoog). 

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