TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ASHLEY COUNTY EAGLE JULY 19, 1917 P. 2
We arrived in Chicago April 22, at noon, ate dinner there and took a train on the North Western line and arrived at Great Lake (33 miles north of Chicago) about 1:30 Sunday and ate some more dinner. When we came in at the main gate a guard carried us across a ravine to Detention Camp (the place where you are given your clothes, vaccinated, and examined.) It was as cold as ‘blue blazes’ and the wind was blowind hard. There were so many ahead of us that we did not get our outfit until next day, and mind you we had to stay out in that cold wind all afternoon and slept in hammocks that night without a blanket, as they were rushed so they didn’t have time for anything. The next day we got our outfit and also our first drilling. By Tuesday we were in a company of 105 men (old 3-7 co., now E 2-4) and then sent across to the main camp with Mr. Carroll as our commander, and a fine man he is too. We were put in brick barracks (buildings) and slept in hammocks with mattresses to fit and a good extra heavy blanket to cover with, and I was afraid to move, for if you made a crooked move your hammock would turn over and out you would come. Everything was new and everything you did it seemed like some one would yell at you, and oh gee it was cold, but after we got used to it (which we did after about two weeks half frozen) it was better and I began to like it and have liked it better every day since. We are now living in tents (3 men in each one, but part of our company has left us, so there is only two) and I sure do like to live in them. We have a good floor in them and they keep out the cold as well as the rain.
Our Program every day: we get up at 5 o’clock and go down in the basement of the barracks for a shower bath, then we go up and fold up our mattresses toward the head of our cots and fold our blankets and put everything on our cots and set them away on the outside, then take a mop and scrub it out and raise up the floor so it can air under your tent. Then we brush our clothes, shine our shoes and “fall in” for mess (all meals are called “chow.”) After breakfast we clean up around our tents and lay around until about 7:45, then we “fall in” with guns and belts to drill. If we drill good the chances are we wont drill over an hour, and if it is “punk” the chances are that you’ll drill about three hours and a half. We “fall in” for chow at 11:45, and again to drill at 1:30, and so on. We have supper at 5 and then we have until 9 o’clock to do our washing, writing or just anything you want to do. We do our own washing and it isn’t hard a bit, for we have bowls in the basement and plenty of hot and cold water and a good scrub brush, and steam dryer to dry them in. All of our clothes have our names on them. At 9 o’clock a cannon is fired and a bugle is blown for taps and you have to be in bed at that time, with lights out and quiet. I didn’t like it much for the first two weeks, for it was so cold and everything was an order to do something, but now it is all different to me and I like it fine, and if I had to do over, knowing what I do now, I sure would join. We get to go ashore every Saturday and Sunday night, and I feel quite at home in Chicago now, as you see I have been up there quite a few times. Have seen so many things that I will have to wait until the next time to tell you the rest.
We have something in the way of parades and visitors, also sham battles, every week, and it is just something doing all the time, and plenty of good substantial food. We have pork and beef nearly all the time, potatoes, stew, beans twice a week, rice, pork sausage, weanie sausage, carrots, turnips, cauliflower, and spagetti, butter every meal, bread every meal, coffee for breakfast and dinner and tea for supper. For desert we have pie cake, fruits of all kinds, sometimes pudding and sometimes ice cream and strawberries and watermelon over half the time. Of course we don’t get all this at one meal, but nearly every meal we get something new and we certainly do get plenty of it. I weigh 153 now and am much heavier than I was. Tell all my friends not to forget me, for I often think of them all. My address is, James C. Riley, Company E--2-4, Grand Lakes, Illinois.
NOTES: James Cooper Riley was born in Hamburg, Arkansas on April 30, 1898 and died in McGehee, Arkansas on October 24, 1968. He is buried in the McGehee Cemetery in McGehee. His military headstone identifies him as a Arkansas Sea US Navy.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS
We arrived in Chicago April 22, at noon, ate dinner there and took a train on the North Western line and arrived at Great Lake (33 miles north of Chicago) about 1:30 Sunday and ate some more dinner. When we came in at the main gate a guard carried us across a ravine to Detention Camp (the place where you are given your clothes, vaccinated, and examined.) It was as cold as ‘blue blazes’ and the wind was blowind hard. There were so many ahead of us that we did not get our outfit until next day, and mind you we had to stay out in that cold wind all afternoon and slept in hammocks that night without a blanket, as they were rushed so they didn’t have time for anything. The next day we got our outfit and also our first drilling. By Tuesday we were in a company of 105 men (old 3-7 co., now E 2-4) and then sent across to the main camp with Mr. Carroll as our commander, and a fine man he is too. We were put in brick barracks (buildings) and slept in hammocks with mattresses to fit and a good extra heavy blanket to cover with, and I was afraid to move, for if you made a crooked move your hammock would turn over and out you would come. Everything was new and everything you did it seemed like some one would yell at you, and oh gee it was cold, but after we got used to it (which we did after about two weeks half frozen) it was better and I began to like it and have liked it better every day since. We are now living in tents (3 men in each one, but part of our company has left us, so there is only two) and I sure do like to live in them. We have a good floor in them and they keep out the cold as well as the rain.
Our Program every day: we get up at 5 o’clock and go down in the basement of the barracks for a shower bath, then we go up and fold up our mattresses toward the head of our cots and fold our blankets and put everything on our cots and set them away on the outside, then take a mop and scrub it out and raise up the floor so it can air under your tent. Then we brush our clothes, shine our shoes and “fall in” for mess (all meals are called “chow.”) After breakfast we clean up around our tents and lay around until about 7:45, then we “fall in” with guns and belts to drill. If we drill good the chances are we wont drill over an hour, and if it is “punk” the chances are that you’ll drill about three hours and a half. We “fall in” for chow at 11:45, and again to drill at 1:30, and so on. We have supper at 5 and then we have until 9 o’clock to do our washing, writing or just anything you want to do. We do our own washing and it isn’t hard a bit, for we have bowls in the basement and plenty of hot and cold water and a good scrub brush, and steam dryer to dry them in. All of our clothes have our names on them. At 9 o’clock a cannon is fired and a bugle is blown for taps and you have to be in bed at that time, with lights out and quiet. I didn’t like it much for the first two weeks, for it was so cold and everything was an order to do something, but now it is all different to me and I like it fine, and if I had to do over, knowing what I do now, I sure would join. We get to go ashore every Saturday and Sunday night, and I feel quite at home in Chicago now, as you see I have been up there quite a few times. Have seen so many things that I will have to wait until the next time to tell you the rest.
We have something in the way of parades and visitors, also sham battles, every week, and it is just something doing all the time, and plenty of good substantial food. We have pork and beef nearly all the time, potatoes, stew, beans twice a week, rice, pork sausage, weanie sausage, carrots, turnips, cauliflower, and spagetti, butter every meal, bread every meal, coffee for breakfast and dinner and tea for supper. For desert we have pie cake, fruits of all kinds, sometimes pudding and sometimes ice cream and strawberries and watermelon over half the time. Of course we don’t get all this at one meal, but nearly every meal we get something new and we certainly do get plenty of it. I weigh 153 now and am much heavier than I was. Tell all my friends not to forget me, for I often think of them all. My address is, James C. Riley, Company E--2-4, Grand Lakes, Illinois.
NOTES: James Cooper Riley was born in Hamburg, Arkansas on April 30, 1898 and died in McGehee, Arkansas on October 24, 1968. He is buried in the McGehee Cemetery in McGehee. His military headstone identifies him as a Arkansas Sea US Navy.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS