The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1919-02-14

The following letter from rev
Saml. Polk, formerly pastor of West
Nottingham Presbyterian church
telling of his work with the Y. NJ
C. A. in France, will be OF unusual
interest to his many friends here
Mr.. Polk expects to return to his
home in Lawrenceville, N. j., this
month.
Gondrecourt, France.
Dec. 81, 1913.
My Dear Folks
Christmas is over and I am won
dering how you spent, it. have had
a most unusual Christmas. | think
told you of the intention Of the
Y. M. C. A. to give Christmas pack
age to every man in the A. e. F.
overseas. So I started out TO find
the fellows whom no one else would
be likely to know about. l found a
few of them. There is a little mar
row gauge railroad which has one
of it's termini in our division that
was used to carry provisions and
ammunition to the soldiers in the
line. Parts of it were built, owned
and operated successfully by the
French, Germans and Americans.
l learned that up along this railroad
which runs in a wavering line up
past Mont Lee, Verdun and through
the Argonne Forest, where our
heaviest fighting was done, there
were about three thousand men scat
tered along in little groups, from
two to six hundred. These men are
doing salvage work, burying any
dead yet unburied and completing
the registration work OF those
buried. So l started out with four
thousand portions, knowing it is
generally safe in this mans army to
count on about twenty-five per cent
more than you know about.
The management of the railroad
let me have an engine and one car
and train crew of an engineer and
a conductor / took Y. M. G. A.
secretary and soldier, making in
all five of us. They built us hunks
in the car and we took stove and
had one end of the car piled up with
about thirteen thousand francs
worth of chocolate bars and
smokes, also all the reading mat
ter I could scrape up, five hundred
testaments and writing materials,
fifty thousand sheets of paper and
twenty-five thousand envelopes. We
started out Immediately after service
Sunday morning, Dec. twenty-sec-
ond, travelled all that afternoon
until we reached a point in the Bots
De la Montague, fifty miles away
from Gondrecourt, in the midst of a
forest where was camp of two hun
dred and fifty men. The men were
just going in to supper. 1t was
drizzling rain and the dreariest
homesickest bunch you ever saw
came out to meet our little dinkey
engine and car. When they found
we had come to bring them each a
present they invited us in to supper.
While they still sat at the table we
had a little sermon, sing and a
short prayer and passed out the
Testaments, religious literature,
chocolate, cigarettes, etc. After
about an hour we puffed on through
the woods until ten O'Clock when we
pulled off on siding and went to
bed in our hunks and slept until
morning, when we again took up our
journey. We did this for eight days.
We were most cordially received by
the boys all through the woods. At
the camps they set their best before
us to eat Each time the C. O.
would line his men up to receive the
Christmas gifts and a little Christ
mas message. On Christmas day
we had reached our farthermost
point. 1t was a camp Of about a
thousand men in the heart of the
Argonne Forest amidst a scene of
dilapidation that I could not begin
to describe nor could you conceive
of unless you saw it with your own
eyes. There were trees two feet in
diameter cut off and as far as you
could see in all directions there was
not a tree uninjured. Shell holes
were so thick you could step from
one to another-many of them big
enough to bury horse in. These
men were gathering up ammunition
and exploding it, salvaging clothing,
allied ammunition, guns and equip
ment of all kinds and burying the
dead. Some of the men get SO
lonely and homesick they go mad
and commit suicide. 1t was about
six o'clock when we got to Haricourt.
Tho officer in command had made a
pathetic effort to have a Christmas
tree with decorations and they had
a fine dinner. We stepped up with
our little gifts. They whooped and
vaI1od fhomcoJvoc L1..rco -