The daily commonwealth. (Greenwood, Leflore Co., Miss.) 1916-1919, 1919-03-20
.YANK SAYS WAR
WORSE THAN HE'LL
Hugh Niece Of Cruger Writes Par
ents of Some of the Harhships
He Encountered.

ger are in receipt of an interesting
letter from their son Hugh, who is
somewhere in France. His letter was
written on December IA and W.
layed in transmission. It folloe.:
"St. Menehauld, France, Dec. IA, 1918.
"My Darling Mother, Dad and All:
To-day in a most beautiful little
French city which not so long ago
was mo Mans Land" with peace and
quietness on every side, your boy, far
away from home and loved ones, who
has tasted of the bitterness of war
and hate, tasted of the glory of be-
ing privileged to play the part of a
man in a real mans game, is sending
this message, born and grown into
Importance in his heart and soul,
straight into the heart and soul of
| those who mean the most to him.
"To begin with, / must a that
I was dumb-founded when the follow
ing appeared in yesterdays pepper:
Hugh T. MCGEE, Battery B. 800 F.
| A., write to your mother" / am at
a loss to understand why you haven't
heard from me because l try hard to
write some member of the family at
least ono a week. Every n in my
regiment seems to be having the
same trouble though. l received
your letter Of October 18th yester-
day which was the first mail Eve
had since the latter part of Sep
TENDER or the first of October.
I have been IN two fronts, the st.
Mihiel and the Argonne. | suppose
you read the papers enough to have
an idea of what kind of a place the
Argonne front was. 1 lived for forty
days on the Argonne front in the
very midst Of the fiercest struggle
Of the whole war;; forty days with the
booming of the guns, the nerve rack
ing whine of the projectiles and the
crash of the bombs ever in my ears,
breathing and eating the damnable
igases hat have shocked the civilized
world. Forty days Of struggling, toll
ing and praying with very little food
and sleep. 1t was forty days Of un-
ison is hardly fair to hell. Nobody
knows what hell is like except that
it is probably hot. The many thous-
know it is never warm in the Ar
come. God knows where the sun
has gone. 1t rained continually from
the time we got there until the time
we left. 1t "a always cold. The
rain was finely woven and as clammy
as a funeral garment, 1t had a way
of soaking through the skin, on into
the body of a man, until his very
heart seemed to be pumping the rain
water along his veins instead OF
blood. 1t would wet all the world
Failing from the trees into grass.
rain drops cleaned damply under a
dripping sky. Overhead hung a gray
'cob-webby vapor. It was most i'm
pressive. 1t seemed to clog the lungs
and make breathing difficult. 1t was
a s%mothering, chilly, depressing fog
A man gets hungry for just n blast
Of sunshine. Up thefessleep was al
most an impossibility. No man car
sleep in a cold puddle or q. mud hole
with gun fire fora lullaby
The men take owe the best the!
can. They advance and dig in
They advance some more and dig IN
1t is slow work. It is deadly work
They moved on against the fire from
the German guns, which would thick
en- the air like the very mist. TIL
campaign in the Argonne was shee
drudgery. There was nothing specta
,cular about it. It compares to tn
leverage great battle in point O
glamor, as ditch digging compare
with portrait painting.
"In the Argonne all glamor wa
pretty we'll dulled with mud, yet j
was a great battle. 1t was the mos
important of the war. The Germa
view Of it is indicated by the terri
|fic resistance they made. They pou,
ed in the pride of their army to sto
our infantry. At most any hour C
the day, you could see big punches c
Kaiser's best soldiers coming dow
the roads from the fronteminus thei
guns, with Americans herding thel
along toward the prison cages. The
could be seer lying in clusters on tn
ground over which the Americans &C
vanced.
81 shall not attempt to tell you an
more of the battle, for my vocabu
airy is far too limited to even sugge:
to you just what l have seen, ju:
what l have lived. For over fou
years the most noted journalists
the world have been trying to pictu1
the horrors, the glory, the wonder
the very hell on earth, and the
haven't awakened your in1aginatle
to realization of even the smalle
part of that which, upon u entran'
upon the field of battle, was sudde1
ly thrust upon us. In fact when tt
languages of the world was beir
coined into words, phrases and Sc
fences, which would express to "
that which l lived for forty days we
not conceived and if I could erpla
to you just what l have in my min
my heart, my soul today, no hums
mind has the power to picture it,
\ realize just what it is. Come al
see and live the same period of tim
under such conditions, is the only pc
sible way to realize and know VIII
war is.
after going through all tt
thousands Americans who took pa
in the drives were happy, happy
the thought that they were Eighth
land fighting a winning fight for &c
country and home.
"The spirit of the American solid
is the most wonderful sight of a
To daunt him is an impossibility, y
can not work him too hard, and wi
his faith in. God, he fears nothir