Charles “Dutch” Riggle to his brother, James: “Dear sir…”
In his second letter home, dated October 20, 1917, PFC Charles “Dutch” Riggle tells his brother James about the drilling at Camp Lee, how farming suits him better than Army life, how he misses the sounds of the fox hunts, and how everything is overpriced at camp.
Charles “Dutch” Riggle was drafted into the US Army in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, Virginia, where so many Wheeling draftees and volunteers—including his sister-in-law Minnie Riggle’s brother, Lester Scott—were trained. Dutch Riggle was a Private First Class in the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, Battery “A,” 80th (Blue Ridge) Division in France.
Riggle was a farm boy with little formal education who grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He spelled many of his words phonetically. His letters have been transcribed exactly as they were written. This is his second letter from Camp Lee, dated 100 years ago today, October 20, 1917.
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