TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SPRINGDALE NEWS JUNE 14, 1918 P. 3
Camp Beauregard Detention Camp, May 20, 1918.
Dear father, sisters, brother and uncle:
Monday morning and nothing to do except lay around, and you know that is a lazy man's job so I just thought for a change I would write you a line or two. I am just fine and danty. As fat as a pig.
Alvie is not going with me. He was over to see me yesterday. He sure would like to go but he couldn't get in with this bunch. I never saw a bunch that was more anxious to get started anywhere than this bunch is to get started across and I am just as anxious as any of them. Every fellow you see on the outside is "rarin'" to go. I would be glad if Alvie could go with me, but he can't. I I have an idea that he will follow soon though. Don't think for a minute that I am not satisfied for I am. I have been in service now nearly ten months, which is longer than I thought we would be on this side when we were called out. I would not be satisfied if I could not go over there and get in the game with the boys. I know it is a hard, rough, and dangerous game to play, but the U. S. boys have never failed and it would not do for us to lay down on the job this time.
I know we have the dangerous part of the work to do, but you people back home have the big work to do, and without your help we could not do anything. I think the people in civilian life are playing just as big a part in the game as the boys on the western front are and if you are reading the papers you know what they are doing.
The Red Cross is playing a most important part in the war. They sure have done a great work here, and you as well as I, know they are not doing anything here to what they are doing on the battle front. If it was not for the Red Cross we would be in hard luck. The Y.M.C.A. is playing a great part in this war, also. Any time a fellow has the blues or in any hard luck he will always find a Y. man ready to help him. We have two here in the detention camp with us and you know we are quarantined to our Battery street. We can't go to the Y. so what good do they do us, is probably what you would like to know. Here is what they are doing for us: each morning they come down in each battery with stamps, stationery, and money orders, which we could not possibly get otherwise. That is not all they do. Of evenings they hold religious and song services in our mess hall, give us movie entertainments, and I think they have supplied every fellow in the regiment with a pocket testament and magazines to read. A Frenchman told us the other day that he was in the trenches and he said there was a boy by his side on the firing step, when a Y man came along and said after the man had gone on the boy turned to him and said that he believed that if he was blown up 500 feet in the air by a German shell that a Y. man could be there with a cup of hot coffee.
I will write again before we leave here unless we should go tomorrow, and I will write when we get to our next stopping place which will be on the coast, somewhere. I guess you need not worry about me getting shot anyways soon for the lieutenant that has charge of us said we would have six months training over there before we saw the front.
I will bid you goodbye for this time. Give my love to all.
Ellis.
NOTES: Ellis E. Thornburg is writing to his father G. W. Thornburg and family of Elm Springs.
Thornburg departed New York for France on June 8, 1918 onboard the Saxon. He was serving as a Private in Battery B, Camp Beauregard FA June Automatic Replacement Draft. He returned to the US departing Bordeaux on April 26, 1919 onboard the Kentuckian. He arrived on May 9. 1919. He was serving as a Private in Battery C, 320th FA.
TRANSCRIBED BY LAEL HARROD
Camp Beauregard Detention Camp, May 20, 1918.
Dear father, sisters, brother and uncle:
Monday morning and nothing to do except lay around, and you know that is a lazy man's job so I just thought for a change I would write you a line or two. I am just fine and danty. As fat as a pig.
Alvie is not going with me. He was over to see me yesterday. He sure would like to go but he couldn't get in with this bunch. I never saw a bunch that was more anxious to get started anywhere than this bunch is to get started across and I am just as anxious as any of them. Every fellow you see on the outside is "rarin'" to go. I would be glad if Alvie could go with me, but he can't. I I have an idea that he will follow soon though. Don't think for a minute that I am not satisfied for I am. I have been in service now nearly ten months, which is longer than I thought we would be on this side when we were called out. I would not be satisfied if I could not go over there and get in the game with the boys. I know it is a hard, rough, and dangerous game to play, but the U. S. boys have never failed and it would not do for us to lay down on the job this time.
I know we have the dangerous part of the work to do, but you people back home have the big work to do, and without your help we could not do anything. I think the people in civilian life are playing just as big a part in the game as the boys on the western front are and if you are reading the papers you know what they are doing.
The Red Cross is playing a most important part in the war. They sure have done a great work here, and you as well as I, know they are not doing anything here to what they are doing on the battle front. If it was not for the Red Cross we would be in hard luck. The Y.M.C.A. is playing a great part in this war, also. Any time a fellow has the blues or in any hard luck he will always find a Y. man ready to help him. We have two here in the detention camp with us and you know we are quarantined to our Battery street. We can't go to the Y. so what good do they do us, is probably what you would like to know. Here is what they are doing for us: each morning they come down in each battery with stamps, stationery, and money orders, which we could not possibly get otherwise. That is not all they do. Of evenings they hold religious and song services in our mess hall, give us movie entertainments, and I think they have supplied every fellow in the regiment with a pocket testament and magazines to read. A Frenchman told us the other day that he was in the trenches and he said there was a boy by his side on the firing step, when a Y man came along and said after the man had gone on the boy turned to him and said that he believed that if he was blown up 500 feet in the air by a German shell that a Y. man could be there with a cup of hot coffee.
I will write again before we leave here unless we should go tomorrow, and I will write when we get to our next stopping place which will be on the coast, somewhere. I guess you need not worry about me getting shot anyways soon for the lieutenant that has charge of us said we would have six months training over there before we saw the front.
I will bid you goodbye for this time. Give my love to all.
Ellis.
NOTES: Ellis E. Thornburg is writing to his father G. W. Thornburg and family of Elm Springs.
Thornburg departed New York for France on June 8, 1918 onboard the Saxon. He was serving as a Private in Battery B, Camp Beauregard FA June Automatic Replacement Draft. He returned to the US departing Bordeaux on April 26, 1919 onboard the Kentuckian. He arrived on May 9. 1919. He was serving as a Private in Battery C, 320th FA.
TRANSCRIBED BY LAEL HARROD