1921 Duluth & St Louis County MN, Van Brunt.pdf - Garon.us

CHAPTER XXVI
THE WORLD WAR, 1917-18
The World War, the most tremendous and stupendous of all
modern wars, probably of all wars since history was first chronicled,
found Duluth and St. Louis County practically at "attention." Companies
A, C, and E, Supply Company and Hospital Unit, all Duluth
units of the Third Minnesota Infantry, Company F of Eleventh and
Company M, of Hibbing, had only returned a few months before from
active campaigning on the Mexican border during the time of Pershing's
expedition into Mexico. But from the moment President
Wilson declared that the nation actually was (in the first days of
April, 1917) in an actual "state of war" with Germany, the national
guard units of Minnesota were ready for an immediate call to arms.
On April 10, 1917, companies of the Third Minnesota National Guard
were called into active state service, including companies A and E
of Duluth.
On April 28, 1917, the citizens of Duluth gave way to what was
at that time an unique outburst of patriotic fervour, seventeen thousand
three hundred citizens marching in well-marshalled procession,
to "do homage to the Red, White and Blue."
It was a memorable and inspiring day. the Duluth "News-Tribune,"
next morning stating: "Citizens of Duluth yesterday reached
a common level before the flag. The steady tramp of marching thousands
thrilled Duluth with the biggest thing in its history. It was
patriotism. It was the crystalization of an ideal—that tramp of marching
thousands. Its citizens, rich and poor, mingled ; its streets
devoted to business waved with a pulsing line of color—the Red,
White and Blue."
Duluth, in common with all other communal parts of the United
States, was destined to experience many even greater thrills during
the next two years of united effort to adhere, even unto death, to
the cause of right over might. Those who went into the armed forces
of the nation, those who enlisted in the national industrial effort
in the home sector, those who prayed and gave to their utmost to the
governmental funds so that this country might be sustained unto
victory, will ever vividly remember the stirring times; and at times
may long for the renewal of such fervent patriotism, and wholesouled
fellow-feeling. Common dangers uncover truer and nobler
traits in man than do any other situations.
On August 26, 1917, the Duluth and Range companies of the
Third Minnesota Infantry entrained at the Omaha station, Duluth,
for Camp Cody, New Mexico, where the state regiment would be
mustered into the federal service, and intensive training would begin.
There were many pathetic scenes at the station, women fainting
and men weeping as they saw their sons depart perhaps never to
return. But, as a whole, the regiment left cheered and inspirited by
the warm-hearted, sincere and cheerful farewell tendered them by
the people of Duluth. Colonel Eva's "message to the home folk."
as he left with his regiment, was: "Duluth will be proud of its boys
when they get into active service on the French battlefields." They
expected to be in France early in the new year.
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