TRANSCRIBED FROM THE COURIER INDEX AUGUST 9, 1918 P. 10
Have been trying to write you for some days but actually haven’t had time to shave for a week. Last week we were moving into our new barracks, for which I am surely thankful. Sunday we left for a ten day hike and are now camped about fifty miles from nowhere on the target range. I have been doing some mighty good shooting, but my shoulder is black and blue from these high power rifles. We are shooting at five and six hundred yards now, and out of four hundred shots have only had one miss. Some of them miss nine out of ten at that range.
Yesterday took a detail of mean in the pit. It is surely some sensation to have all those bullets passing just over your head. Was glad to go through, as I want to get something of everything here.
Our camp is right in the barren mountain. No water near. Have to haul it in truck tanks 12 and 15 miles. You can hear the coyotes all night long---in fact, they come right into camp.
No one has been called from this regiment for the officers’ training camp. We all expected to be called on the 15th of July and now expect to be called by the 15th of this month. Don’t know what is the matter and we are getting very uneasy. My lieutenant says I will be called in due time and not to worry about it. It they don’t hurry up I am not going, as we now think we will go “over” sometime soon, and don’t want to miss that. Really believe the way will be over in a few months now. If I am called soon will wire you as to where I am going, etc.
NOTES: Jasper Wooten Freeman was writing from Douglas, Arizona where he was attending cavalry school. He was born in Vineyard, Arkansas in Washington County on December 29, 1890 and died in Clayton County, Georgia on August 16, 1955. He is buried in the Westview Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. This partial letter was written to his father George Wooten.
TRANSCRIBED BY ADIN TYGART
Have been trying to write you for some days but actually haven’t had time to shave for a week. Last week we were moving into our new barracks, for which I am surely thankful. Sunday we left for a ten day hike and are now camped about fifty miles from nowhere on the target range. I have been doing some mighty good shooting, but my shoulder is black and blue from these high power rifles. We are shooting at five and six hundred yards now, and out of four hundred shots have only had one miss. Some of them miss nine out of ten at that range.
Yesterday took a detail of mean in the pit. It is surely some sensation to have all those bullets passing just over your head. Was glad to go through, as I want to get something of everything here.
Our camp is right in the barren mountain. No water near. Have to haul it in truck tanks 12 and 15 miles. You can hear the coyotes all night long---in fact, they come right into camp.
No one has been called from this regiment for the officers’ training camp. We all expected to be called on the 15th of July and now expect to be called by the 15th of this month. Don’t know what is the matter and we are getting very uneasy. My lieutenant says I will be called in due time and not to worry about it. It they don’t hurry up I am not going, as we now think we will go “over” sometime soon, and don’t want to miss that. Really believe the way will be over in a few months now. If I am called soon will wire you as to where I am going, etc.
NOTES: Jasper Wooten Freeman was writing from Douglas, Arizona where he was attending cavalry school. He was born in Vineyard, Arkansas in Washington County on December 29, 1890 and died in Clayton County, Georgia on August 16, 1955. He is buried in the Westview Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. This partial letter was written to his father George Wooten.
TRANSCRIBED BY ADIN TYGART