Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1915-03-04
STRENUOUS LIFE
OF FOREIGN LEGION
In Trenches With Americans of
Famous French Unit.
READY FOR FEAST OR FIGHT

There Are Men From Every Part Of the
United States and From the Higher
to the Lesser Degrees In the Social
ScaIe-GaIveston Negro Serving as
Cook Mourned by All When Killed.
London.-Always ready for feast or
a frolic and the greatest fighting unit in
the French army is the description ap-
piled to the French-American Foreign
legion by one Of it's members, Phil
RAIDER, Chicago writer, artist and sol
dier.
Back on furlough from the
trenches, where sometimes waist deep
In water the troops hide from the ter
rife artillery fire, the Chicagoan paint
ed an intimate word picture Of the
type of men who have adopted the
tricolor as their flag in the present
war.
"There are Americans in the service
from every part of the United States
and from every walk of life." said
RAIDER. Il think the most interesting
of the whole lot that | met was Eu-
gene Jacob. whose wife is running his
butcher shop in Pawtucket, r. l., while
he fights for France. Both he and his
wife were born in Belgium.
"Jacob is the most fervent German
hater that | know Of Even during the
Christmas truce he refused to lay his
feelings aside, and just before we left
our trenches to meet the Germans and
exchange cigars and greetings he fixed
his bayonet and declared that if we
brought a single German into the
trench he would kill him. And all day
Christmas he sulked.
Fought, Then Shook Hands.
"Then, later, one day German who
was drunk wandered into our trenches
and taunted us, but we respected his
bravery and admired him. But not
Jacob. He and the German had a
dandy fist fight in the trench, but aft,
erWard they shook hands and became
friends. Jacob told the camp if he had
whined he would have killed him, but
that he had found that he was man
even though he was a German.
Bartlett Donnell of Brooklyn was
killed by a shell while was near him.
He told me that he came to the war
because his girl had told him to go
out into the world and accomplish
something. I don't know who the girl
was, but she lost the coolest, quietest
and bravest man in the legion.
another American is from st. Louis
John Street. an evangelist. He grew
very hopeful that a reconciliation was
coming during the Christmas truce,
when we smoked, walked arm in arm
and played with the Germans. The
following day Street got out Of his
trench in the cary morning and waved
his hand to a German friend in a
trench fifty feet distant. A bullet went
through his head and he dropped dead.
Missed Negro Singer.
George Ullard, q Galveston negro,
was our cook and a fine one. He was
the best singer for hundreds of feet on
both lines of trenches, and the Ger
mans loved his songs. He taught them
to sing Sailing Down Chesapeake Bay
but one day a shell blew Ullard's
trench to pieces and he was killed.
Next day the Germans yelled to us to
have George sing. When we told them
that he was dead they yelled back that
they were sorry. as all of the rifiemen
in the trenches had agreed not to shoot
the cheerful black man who sang so
WELL
RAIDER was mentioned in dispatches
for destroying a straw stack in which
four German machine guns had been
hidden. RAIDER and two companions
fastened beet leaves to a gunny sack
and, shielded by it, crawled to the
straw stack through a beet field and
set fire to it. For forty-seven days,
RAIDER says, he was in trenches filled
with water and mud.