{"id":6459,"date":"2018-02-12T03:31:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T03:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=6459"},"modified":"2018-02-15T17:10:39","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T17:10:39","slug":"from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-february-11-1918-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-february-11-1918-podcast","title":{"rendered":"From Camp Lee to the Great War: February 11, 1918 – Lester Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cCleo is trying to apologize now but that don\u2019t go with me. I would like for you to see the letters she wrote. They remind me of the notes the Kaiser used to [send] to the president\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n
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In his twenty-fourth 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\u2019s out of the hospital, feels fine, weighs the same, has lots of friends in camp, and probably won\u2019t be coming home. A five-day furlough just isn\u2019t enough time. He hears they might be moving the troops to Pennsylvania. They won\u2019t be going overseas at least until summer. Les got two letters from Cleo, who is trying to apologize. But Les isn\u2019t buying it. Minnie will see him when she\u2019s not expecting him.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the same day,\u00a0President Woodrow Wilson addressed a Joint Session of Congress, assessing the Central Powers\u2019s reaction to his Fourteen Points, and adding what are now known as the \u201cFour Principles<\/a>,\u201d which included \u201cadjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent;\u201d \u201cthat peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game;\u201d that \u201cevery territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned;\u201d and \u201cthat all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.\u201d<\/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 twenty-fourth letter from Camp Lee, dated 100 years ago today, February 11, 1918.
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February 11, 1918 Letter \u2013 Lester Scott to his sister, Minnie Riggle<\/h2>\n
\"Letter<\/a>
Letter to Minnie Riggle from Lester Scott, February 11, 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n