From Camp Lee to the Great War: Episode 39 [March 17, 1918]

From Camp Lee to the Great War: The Letters of Lester Scott & Charles Riggle

"You were speaking of the 314 Co....coming to wheeling for the third Liberty Loan. There will be one from each county, Ohio and Brooke... They just go to talk the people into buying them..." In his twenty-ninth 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 about a teacher at No. 2 school named Roy Strickland. He then explains the process by which men of the 314th were elected to go to Wheeling to push Liberty Loans — war bonds sold by the US government to finance the war effort. Buying Liberty Loans came to be viewed as one's patriotic duty. Elsewhere on the same day, the German army raided northeast of Verdun, and the British launched a daylight air-raid on Kaiserslautern in southwest Germany near the Palatinate Forest. Unexploded ordinance from both World Wars is still occasionally found in the area. 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 “A,” 80th (Blue Ridge) Division in France. This is his twenty-ninth letter from Camp Lee, dated 100 years ago today, March 17, 1918. Digital scans and a transcript of Lester Scott's February 5, 1918 letter can be viewed at: http://www.archivingwheeling.org/blog/camp-lee-great-war-september-24-1917 Credits: "From Camp Lee to the Great War: The letters of Lester Scott and Charles Riggle" is brought to you by http://archivingwheeling.org in partnership with the Ohio County Public Library (http://www.ohiocountylibrary.org) and the WALS Foundation (http://walswheeling.com). Jeremy Richter is the voice of Lester Scott. The letters of Lester Scott and Charles Riggle were transcribed by Jon-Erik Gilot. This podcast was edited and written by Sean Duffy, audio edited by Erin Rothenbuehler. [Music for March 17, 1918 episode: "Poor butterfly," Jaudas, Eugene. (performer)Jaudas' Band (performer), 1917, courtesy the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/00694036/]