Evening star., 1916-12-10
Legion, i
Special Correspondence of The Star.

Special Correspondence of The Star.
COMPIEGNE, French war zone,
November 26, 1916.
N1HIS is the story of the last re-
naming four of the original
Americans who joined the
q French Foreign Legion in Au-
gust, 1914-Sweeney, Casey, Trinkard
and Bouligny.
After the long, terrific pounding to
which the Foreign Legion was sub
jected there came day when prac-
tfcally the whole contingent of Ameri
cans who had enlisted in it at the be-
ginning of the war were mustered out
by death. by wounds and a great trans
fer to line regiments. Their story will
live.
Four stalwarts stuck to the legion,
the adventurous, reckless and romantic
Foreign Legion. The writer has had
much to do with one of them, Edgar
J. Bouligny. thoroughbred young
American of New Orleans. because 1
know his uncle, DR.. John Huguet Pike
OF Paris. The boys life is a romance,
though he knows it not, and he came
close to being like the poem:
"A soldier of the legion lay dying in
Aksiers,'' because he was wounded, in
the first month of the war, at Charleroi,
and again in the battle of the Marine.
In 1915 he was wounded for the third
time, in the Champagne offensive, and
in 1916 he was announced all over
America as dead and his mother noti-
fed by some extraordinary mistake. --
Edgar Bouligny is very much alive.
AT this moment he is fighting in the
trenches near Noyon or reposing with
his section in some ruined village of
the front near Compiegne, yet he con-
tinues to receive belated American
newspapers, with the photograph and
notice:
"Sergt Bouligny of New Orleans, one
of the Americans in the Foreign Legion,
killed in the fighting at Navarin farm"
The obituaries are fiattering for any
boy to read about himself. although
when we come to splendid physical
specimen, six feet six inches tall, his
great strength craved for action" the
boy bushes red and snatches the clip
pings.
The Boulignys are old Louisiana
stock, with a French marquis some
where back among their great-grand-
fathers, who helped build New Or
leans while fighting duels. This ex-
plains the ancestral throw back by
which Edgar, at the age of fourteen.
found city life and studying for col
lege too prosaic, and shipped, quietly,
.all around the Horn.
One day, on the west coast, it struck
him, sudden: "Why, l should be study
ing for college, He hurried home.
worked with his books for nearly four
years. and then-caught the Klondike
fever. His people let him go. His
Going to Seattle by train. he started
to work his way as sailor to some
where in Skagway. but brutal mate
went for him with a Delaying pin be-
l,-t,. adt
pay in pestiferous hold. and Edgar.
lodging round the cabin, where he
waited on the defensive, punched the
captain by mistake. who happened to
be coming. So they took him in irons
to port where the United States Judge
came only once in six months. Fortu-
nately, he was there. Would you en-
ploy this man who punched his cap
tain? the Judge ssn,sd adksd tbs samon
you go with him?" inquired the judge
of Bouligny. why. sure" said Edgar.
So he worked eight months in the
gold. Grand days" he says. Then.
with a wad of money. he returned
home and began college work In ear
nest.
Again the call for adventure got him.
He Joined the United States Army. was
promoted sergeant. served three years.
was honorably discharged. and felt
ripe, finally, for tranquil civic ways.
Then came the war in Europe. in which
his sympathies were all for France.
from where his ancestors had come 200
years ago. Here was real lighting. at
last! He quietly disappeared from
home, and the next thing anybody knew
he was at the front with the second
marching regiment Of the Foreign
Legion.
'His height made him an exceptional
target" conclude the obituaries "He
evidently ,scorned to keep himself out