{"id":6442,"date":"2018-01-23T12:52:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T12:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=6442"},"modified":"2018-01-31T04:13:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T04:13:00","slug":"from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-january-23-1918-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-january-23-1918-podcast","title":{"rendered":"From Camp Lee to the Great War: January 23, 1918 – Lester Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have been having some pretty hard luck\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n
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In his twentieth letter home from Camp Lee, Virginia, to his sister Minnie Riggle, US Army Wagoner (mule team driver) Lester Scott, a World War I soldier from Wheeling, West Virginia, writes that he is \u201ctaking the mumps\u201d and his \u201cjaw is swelled some.\u201d He fears a long hospital stay (18 days for mumps) will ruin yet another attempt to visit home. Even the ever-optimistic Les has to admit he\u2019s been the victim of some \u201chard luck,\u201d but he still sees the silver lining in that if he has mumps now, he won\u2019t have them \u201csometime again.\u201d He says the mule drivers will be getting their trucks soon [American manufacturers had produced more than 225,000 trucks<\/a> by 1918].<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the same day the Germans captured trenches on the Belgian coast, Brits and Germans fought a submarine battle near the Canary Islands, rioting occurred in Moscow even as the Congress of Soviets met in Petrograd, and future Nobel Laureate, American biochemist\u00a0Gertrude B. Elion<\/a> was born.<\/p>\n

Lester Scott was drafted in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, where so many Wheeling soldiers were trained. And, like so many of his Ohio Valley comrades, he served in the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, Battery \u201cA,\u201d 80th (Blue Ridge) Division in France. This is his twentieth letter from Camp Lee, dated 100 years ago today, January 23, 1918.
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January 23, 1918 Letter \u2013 Lester Scott to his sister, Minnie Riggle<\/h2>\n