{"id":6471,"date":"2018-03-07T01:35:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T01:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=6471"},"modified":"2018-03-07T01:35:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T01:35:14","slug":"from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-march-6-1918-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-march-6-1918-podcast","title":{"rendered":"From Camp Lee to the Great War: March 6, 1918 – Lester Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cI would like for you to hear the firing we have here. Some are three inch and some machine guns. They make some noise, believe me. The shells weigh 16 lbs, so you can imagine what they are like\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n
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In his twenty-seventh 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 during a thunderstorm. He\u2019s finally gotten a letter from Cleo (his girlfriend). She wanted her \u201csovallier\u201d [Cleo may have been asking for the return of a lavaliere, a piece of jewelry, as part of the couple\u2019s ongoing relationship issues]. He sent it back. He\u2019s still on the firing line. They\u2019ll be going to Dutch Gap [a canal dug during the Civil War by freed African American workers pressed into service by Union troops] for target practice, and he\u2019s looking forward to camping out. The three-inch guns fire 16-pound shells and are noisy. He\u2019s spoken to Dutch (our second letter writer, PFC Charles Riggle), who is \u201chappy as can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the same day, the USS Cyclops, a US Navy Proteus-class collier carrying 11,000 tons of manganese ore (used in munitions production) mysteriously disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. No trace of the vessel, nor any of the 306 crew and passengers,\u00a0was ever found. No distress signal was sent, and Germany later denied any knowledge of the ship.<\/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-seventh letter from Camp Lee, dated 100 years ago today, March 6, 1918.<\/p>\n

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To listen to the podcast, visit our SoundCloud page<\/a>, or subscribe through your favorite podcast app.<\/p>\n

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March 6, 1918 Letter \u2013 Lester Scott to his sister, Minnie Riggle<\/h2>\n
\"March<\/a>
Letter to Minnie Riggle from Lester Scott, March 6, 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n