The courier-index., 1919-01-31

Fontoy, Lorraine, France,
December &c. 1918.
My Dear Mr. McVeigh:
1t has been my good fortune to re-
ceive many interesting letters from
you since | wrote last, and please do
not think hard of me for not writing
more often than | do. ! have many
good excuses, but will not bother you
with them.
We were on the front, or in she'll
August to the end of the war. |
wrote you in August from Rambers-
villiers, in the Vosges, and from there
one platoon of us moved to st. Die,
nearer the line. 1t is very beauti-
full little city in the mountains. There
were lots of American troops there,
and it was quite privilege to be in
that place. They claim the honor or
naming our country 1t was there in
1907 that Amerigo Yes Pucies' Dis
coyeries of Americas" were first pub
lished, and called America. | spent
three days there and was sent out
with two other buck privates to keep
up some charged wire in No Mans
Land. 1t might be well to give you
an idea of the front and what we had
to do. You may have noticed in
reading the war news that there has
been no offensive pulled off on either
side on a major scale from around
Nancy to Switzerland. 1t seemed
that neither side wanted to push the
other out, so it settled down to ar
tillery duels, and then only for few
hours at time. The Americans took
over the Vosges sector and used 1t
like a training school for the new
army. The front was covered with
barb wire entanglements, artillery on
the mountain, machine gun strong
holds in the villages 1t was good
place to get used to the guns without
a heavy casualty list. The French
had a charged wire fence running
along the front in that sector. 1t was
in front of the front trenches, and
was supposed to electrocute Jerry If
he wandered too far from home. We
had about. a mile and half allotted
to us three. but we never caught
thing in it the whole time ! was there
They shifted the infantry about every
ten days and all the bunch in our
valley were Philadelphia negroes.
Every time new bunch moved into
the front they would blow up our
electric line with hand grenades. |
think they figured the posts in the
fence to be Germans. | was out one
day patrolling our lines with coon
patrol and one let his gun go off. We
were all scattered out and our first
thought was that we had been shot
at. No one tainted, but this guy
sure made time for the sunny side OF
a tree. We had a little cabin to live
in around mountain from the front
and were out of danger SO far as
shrapnel was concerned Our switch
board was in it. and we got orders
bv telephone from the major when
to put on and take off the juice. My
opinion of the charged wire was that
il was not worth the room 1t took
up. Ii was French relic and the
Americans never attached much in.-
portance to it, Those mountains were
covered with the finest pine trees
| ever saw. We were moved on the
Muse sector and attached to the
first army just before the big drive
started September 26, and there was
boo boo (my French for much or
many) excitement there until the
war ended. | was in 3uZancy when
the curtain dropped. Just few
weeks before the finish came, a
bunch of us were sent out near
Mt. Faulcon to build prison pen
We were there three days and ey'
erything was absolutely shot away
| hitched up with a shovel on that
lob and got shovelshocaed wish
that you could stand few minutes
on the roads that were behind the
army and see the endless chain oil
trucks going both ways. II was a
continuous thing night and day No
lights were on them at night foI
fear of airplanes France has the
best roads l ever saw and they sure
proved their worth in this war.
have been IL so many different
places and seen 20 mi'F that II Is
impossible to get 1t all in letter
/ have slept in places where II you
were to walk through them, you
would come out scratching, whether
YOU had a cause or not. dom
think that | have been infected viii
cooties. but | sure have had
genuine attack of Corn Willie itch
! The army has delousers that they
run the soldiers through. and the
interesting part of it is that the fel
lows are more anxious to go through
them than the cattle are to &c
into the dipping vats at home. ! was
sleeping with a New York soldier
that had asthma. | managed to pu
up with the snoring, but when M
began to scratch like he was threat