{"id":7173,"date":"2018-05-19T20:19:25","date_gmt":"2018-05-19T20:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=7173"},"modified":"2018-05-20T20:24:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-20T20:24:18","slug":"from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-may-19-1918-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/from-camp-lee-to-the-great-war-may-19-1918-podcast","title":{"rendered":"From Camp Lee to the Great War: May 19, 1918 – Charles Riggle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe han\u2019t allowed to write any military information anymore, and you see a fellow hasn\u2019t got much to write\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n
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In his fifteenth letter home from Camp Lee, Virginia, dated May 19, 1918, PFC Charles \u201cDutch\u201d Riggle, a WWI soldier from Wheeling, WV, tells his brother James \u201cAbe\u201d Riggle that he\u2019s still in Battery F but doesn\u2019t know for how much longer. He\u2019s drilling a great deal but he can\u2019t talk about the military anymore. He had his picture taken and he\u2019ll send one home. That\u2019s about it!<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the same day, German planes raided London and bombed British hospitals outside the war zone, killing or wounding hundreds. Airman Gervais Raoul Victor Lufbery<\/a>, who served in both the French Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Service, was killed in aerial combat. Meanwhile on the home front, the Washington Senators Walter Johnson pitched a grueling 18 innings to beat the Cleveland Indians (whose pitcher also went the distance) 1-0.<\/p>\n

Charles \u201cDutch\u201d Riggle was drafted into the US Army in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, Virginia, where so many Wheeling draftees and volunteers\u2014including his sister-in-law Minnie Riggle\u2019s brother, Lester Scott\u2014were trained. Dutch Riggle was a Private First Class in Battery F of the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, 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 fifteenth letter from Camp Lee, dated 100 years ago today, May 19, 1918.<\/p>\n

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May 19, 1918 Letter Home \u2013 Charles Riggle to his brother James Riggle<\/h2>\n