Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1919-03-12
Was In The
Lost Ba ttalion
Cirfontaines, France,
January 10th, 1919.
Dear Brother

S ~, . 8
Dear Brother s5
Will now take. time and answer your
welcome letter, which received few
days ago see you folks are all well
and the same can ] say. I was Ger.
tainly glad to hear from you. as. {
thought probably that you had not re-
ceived my letters.
/ got your letter and. the Xmas pack
age on New Years day, so the New,
Year started pretty good. I also got
letter from Laura, New Years eve.
Well, suppose it is pretty cold in
Minnesota now by this time. Here in
France, where we are now, it has not
been any winter to talk about yet. It
is about the same as in Oregon, only
| think it is little colder, and an
awful lot of rain. It has showed only
once and that was Xmas Day einathe
evening, but it stayed only one hay!s{I
don't believe they have much snow here
as l have not seen any sleighs here vet.
They may have when you get farther
north in France don't know what
part Of France we are in, but I think
it is pretty far south. We are staying
in town here, and are billeted in
houses. 1t is only small country
town. 1t has no railroad There Are
Saa lot Of small towns here without rail-
roads. You hardly ever see a farm
house out in the country like in the
states. They all live together and make
a town Of it. si5
We are drilling five hours every day.
so we are kept in trim all right. AS
we are now allowed to. write about
where we have been, and what we have
been doing, etc., I will tell you little
about it We left New York August
9Th tlh and landed in Liverpool, England,
Aug AUG, Goth. We stayed in England four
days and then went to France. We
went we to, q town say the name Of San
Coins, there ined about three
VEL; the ision, which / went
aade requirements out
OF, 50 ] was sent, together with bunch
to the 18th Disision. to fill that up,
where am also now. MY first ex-
peri peri in warfare was in the morn
ing of Sept. Goth, at sos A. NJ. when
we Went over the top in the Argonne
woods swas.si,t the lines ~ DAYS.
i suppose you probably read in the
papers about the battalion that cot sur
rounded by the Germans, I think the
heading read ."The Lost Battalion. J,
Well, was in that battalion. I tell
you that was an awful trap to be in.
| thought for once that we would never
get out alive as we had Germans all
around us. Is:tell you we certainly
We're l''el glad when they broke the Ger
mans lines and we saw the khaki boys
come marching towards, us. 1 did not
have anything to- eat5for six days So
I tell u certainly was hungry and
weak We had plenty water so that
helped lot, you knowaatIf it had not
been for the water we had suppose
It would have gene harder on us. There
was two springs below where I had my
.dugout;; we had to get the water early
in the morning or late in the evening:
Is we tried in the day time the Ger
mans would open up on us. / tell you
lfwould not like to get in trap like
that again.
Well, I could write a whole lot about
it, but will let it go till come home
and then will tell you about it.
7 got sick when got out of the trap
so was sent to the hospital. had
the influenza I was in the hospital
when I wrote the letter to mamma, but
] did not want to mention it, as Il was
afraid you folks might think IL was
wounded. I was in the hospital a little
more than three weeks. From there
went to a convalescent camp where I
was when the armistice was signed. I
tell you it was some cheering there
when we heard about it. When / got
back to my company they were here in
the town where we are now, so you
see I was not in the lines very long,
but I got all wanted when I was
there, | have not met one soldier yet
that know from the states, and very
few from Minnesota. In the nth Di-
vision they are mostly from New York.
When that division came over 1 think
they were nearly all from that vicinity.
. don't know when I will come home,
but I suppose you will see In the papers
when the nth Division has landed.
You have to tell Papa and Mamma
many thanks for the Xmas package