TRANSCRIBED FROM THE CLEVELAND COUNTY HERALD MARCH 6, 1919 P. 1
Dearest Mother:
I will try to answer your most welcome letter of Nov. 25 the reading of which was a great pleasure to me to hear that your are all well.
I am in bed with slow fever, but am getting better right along. I think I will be out with the boys now soon. I have been sick now two weeks, only have a little fever this afternoon, and should be under my blankets, but am so tired of that bed. I am sitting up just long enough to write you. I have only this paper, torn from a French book.
I am not in a hospital, but in a home with an old French couple, who are very good to us, and sell us “eats” cheaper than we have found anywhere else in France, a few nights ago she fried us four nice squabs for four of us boys, for just two francs, which is forty cents, ten cents apiece.
If we buy a chicken it costs us four dollars, a rabbit at most ten and a pig about thirty dollars and not over six months old at that. So you see our francs do not go very far; but we are all serving these days as we are expecting to come home sometime in a few months, by July or August.
You asked if I was still in 32nd Division. Our Brigade is at present back of the lines, attached to Division 88 for the purpose of getting food, though we are still in the gallant old 32nd, which is the best on earth, I dont care where they come from. The 32nd dough boys have done their “bit” at Chateau Thierry, Soissons, Verdun, the Marne where the river looked like a river of blood, Argonne Forest and Sedan. My division and one more fought forty “Hun” divisions and they had to retreat and the prisoners we took asked us how many 32nd Divisions were in the U.S. army. They said their had been a 32nd Division on every front the Americans had fought on so they thought there must have been four or five 32nd divisions, but there was only one. Our artillery can put down the best barrage of any of them, the “Fritz” couldnt face us.
The French say the Americans have no hearts, for when they went to battle they went laughing, singing and joking each other, and not worrying at the job they had to do. Our motto is “Let’s Go” and we go at the order. We worry about nothing. The French are scared of death and we say we have but one time to die and just as likely go when we are called as to wait and go later and maybe have to suffer a good deal before hand.
Don’t worry about me. I will come home just as soon, without you worrying yourself. I will be home by August anyway to start work on 1920 plan, as all our plans for 1919 are torn up anyway, so I will plan for the next year.
Has the Arkansas Artillery (142nd) got back to Fort Logan H. Roots yet? Write me all you can about old division 39, and tell Mark if he sees Ray Cash or any of the boys tell them to write me as I would be very glad to hear from them.
I wouldn’t give one friendship in Cleveland county for all of France that I have seen, and I think that I have seen the most of it. I would rather be a mangy house dog in any place in the U.S.A. than a French civilian.
I am sitting up against the doctor’s orders, so must go back to bed.
As ever your son,
Hugh L. Mosley
Bat. F 149 F. A.
A.E.F.
NOTES: The Ray Cash mentioned is the father of music star Johnny Cash.
TRANSCRIBED BY TAYLOR AHART
Dearest Mother:
I will try to answer your most welcome letter of Nov. 25 the reading of which was a great pleasure to me to hear that your are all well.
I am in bed with slow fever, but am getting better right along. I think I will be out with the boys now soon. I have been sick now two weeks, only have a little fever this afternoon, and should be under my blankets, but am so tired of that bed. I am sitting up just long enough to write you. I have only this paper, torn from a French book.
I am not in a hospital, but in a home with an old French couple, who are very good to us, and sell us “eats” cheaper than we have found anywhere else in France, a few nights ago she fried us four nice squabs for four of us boys, for just two francs, which is forty cents, ten cents apiece.
If we buy a chicken it costs us four dollars, a rabbit at most ten and a pig about thirty dollars and not over six months old at that. So you see our francs do not go very far; but we are all serving these days as we are expecting to come home sometime in a few months, by July or August.
You asked if I was still in 32nd Division. Our Brigade is at present back of the lines, attached to Division 88 for the purpose of getting food, though we are still in the gallant old 32nd, which is the best on earth, I dont care where they come from. The 32nd dough boys have done their “bit” at Chateau Thierry, Soissons, Verdun, the Marne where the river looked like a river of blood, Argonne Forest and Sedan. My division and one more fought forty “Hun” divisions and they had to retreat and the prisoners we took asked us how many 32nd Divisions were in the U.S. army. They said their had been a 32nd Division on every front the Americans had fought on so they thought there must have been four or five 32nd divisions, but there was only one. Our artillery can put down the best barrage of any of them, the “Fritz” couldnt face us.
The French say the Americans have no hearts, for when they went to battle they went laughing, singing and joking each other, and not worrying at the job they had to do. Our motto is “Let’s Go” and we go at the order. We worry about nothing. The French are scared of death and we say we have but one time to die and just as likely go when we are called as to wait and go later and maybe have to suffer a good deal before hand.
Don’t worry about me. I will come home just as soon, without you worrying yourself. I will be home by August anyway to start work on 1920 plan, as all our plans for 1919 are torn up anyway, so I will plan for the next year.
Has the Arkansas Artillery (142nd) got back to Fort Logan H. Roots yet? Write me all you can about old division 39, and tell Mark if he sees Ray Cash or any of the boys tell them to write me as I would be very glad to hear from them.
I wouldn’t give one friendship in Cleveland county for all of France that I have seen, and I think that I have seen the most of it. I would rather be a mangy house dog in any place in the U.S.A. than a French civilian.
I am sitting up against the doctor’s orders, so must go back to bed.
As ever your son,
Hugh L. Mosley
Bat. F 149 F. A.
A.E.F.
NOTES: The Ray Cash mentioned is the father of music star Johnny Cash.
TRANSCRIBED BY TAYLOR AHART