Posted Friday, May 26, 2017 11:33 pm

Other Berkshire County Medal of Honor recipients PITTSFIELD — Along with Charles W. Whittlesey, leader of World War I’s “lost battalion,” Berkshire County was home to 10 other Medal of Honor recipients. Two of the men, James N. Strong and Henry T. Johns, were honored for action in the same battle in Louisiana in 1863. And two others, Richard Welch and Robert J. Gardner, were recognized for valor in action in Petersburg, Va., in April 1865, just days before the end of the Civil War. Here are capsule biographies. James Montross Burt, Lee VITAL DETAILS: Born July 18, 1917, in Hinsdale. Died Feb. 15, 2006, in Pennsylvania. MILITARY SERVICE: Captain in 2nd Armored Division, U.S. Army, 1941-1945. Fought in North African campaign in 1942 and in Sicily in 1943. Relocated to England to prepare for Normandy invasion. Was commander of Company B, 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored on Omaha Beach on June 9, 1944. Among one of the first units to fight their way into Germany. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded not for a single act of valor, but for actions during 10 days in October 1944 as the 2nd Armored Division fought to capture Aachen, Germany. During the battle Burt commanded his tanks and attached infantry in engagements defending the city and surrounding area. Twice, tanks from which Burt was commanding were destroyed. He received four Purple Hearts with two Oak Leaf Clusters for multiple wounds. After receiving the Medal of Honor, Burt was honored with a parade in Lee that drew 2,500 people. LATER LIFE: After a career in the plastics industry he became a mathematics and business instructor at Franklin Pierce College and lived most of his life after the war in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. OTHER HONORS: James Burt Memorial Park, next to Lee Library. Henry Van Ness Boynton, West Stockbridge VITAL DETAILS: Born June 22, 1835, in West Stockbridge but raised in Ohio. Died June 3, 1905, in Atlantic City, N.J. MILITARY SERVICE: From July 1861 to September 1864 Boynton served as a commissioned officer in the 35th Ohio Infantry in the Civil War. Elected regiment's first major, but rose up the ranks to become the commanding officer of the regiment and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for his actions at the Battle of Missionary Ridge on Nov. 25, 1863, when he led his regiment in the face of a severe enemy fire and was severely wounded. Also led the 35th in the Battle of Chickamauga. LATER LIFE: After war, resumed civilian life and became a newspaper correspondent in Washington, D.C., and led committee that oversaw development of the Chattanooga National Military Park. In June 1898, returned to active military service as a brigadier general during the Spanish–American War. He was discharged in April 1899. OTHER HONORS: Funeral attended by President Theodore Roosevelt and by a delegation representinghis old comrades in the Army of the Cumberland. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His name is memorialized at Boynton Park atop Cameron Hill in Chattanooga. Frederick Nelson Deland, Sheffield and Great Barrington VITAL DETAILS: Born Dec. 25, 1843, in Sheffield. Died Aug. 23, 1922, in Great Barrington. Deland’s family moved to Great Barrington in 1850. MILITARY SERVICE: Deland enlisted at Camp Briggs, Pittsfield, into Company B, 49th Massachusetts Infantry at the age of 18. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for his actions during the siege of Port Hudson in Louisiana May 27, 1863. The citation said he volunteered under heavy fire to help fill a ditch that presented an obstacle to Union troops. LATER LIFE: After the war, Deland returned to Great Barrington and went to work at with The National Mahaiwe Bank as a clerk. He retired as president of the bank, due to poor health, in 1916. Robert J. Gardner, Egremont VITAL DETAILS: Born Sept. 28, 1837, in Livingston, N.Y. Died Sept. 23, 1902, in Iosco, Mich. MILITARY SERVICE: Was a 24-year-old farmer when he was mustered into service July 17, 1862, in Egremont as a corporal with Company K, 34th Massachusetts Infantry. Was commissioned a 2nd Lt. May 1, 1865, and mustered out June 16, 1865, as a 1st sergeant. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for extraordinary heroism on April 2, 1865, for action at Petersburg, Va. A sergeant at the time, Gardner was among the first to enter Fort Gregg, “clearing his way by using his musket on the heads of the enemy.” LATER LIFE: Moved to Iosco, Mich., where the census later listed his occupation as farmer. Peter Grace, Berkshire County VITAL DETAILS: Born March 18, 1845, in Ireland, but raised in Berkshire County. Died March 27, 1914 in Pennsylvania. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery. MILITARY SERVICE: Enlisted Aug. 28, 1861, for three years and rose to rank of sergeant with Company G, 83rd Pennsylvania Infantry, Union forces. Present for battles at Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, The Wilderness and Petersburg. Was wounded and taken prisoner at Gaines' Mill, Va., June 27, 1862; was wounded at Fredericksburg on Dec. 13, 1862; was wounded and taken prisoner at Laurel Hill, May 8, 1864. Was promoted to 2d Lt. in Company E on Nov. 1, 1864. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for extraordinary heroism on May 5, 1864, in action during the Wilderness Campaign in Virginia. Credited with rescuing a comrade from two Confederate guards, knocking down one and capturing the other. Henry T. Johns, Hinsdale VITAL DETAILS: Born April 8, 1828, in Philadelphia. Died May 13, 1906, in Oakland, Calif. MILITARY SERVICE: Was a member of the clergy when he joined Company C, 49th Massachusetts Infantry in Hinsdale on Sept. 11, 1862. Commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the 61st Massachusetts Infantry in August 1864, then promoted to 1st Lt. Jan. 15, 1865 and breveted captain in April 1865. Mustered out June 4, 1865, then from the 49th Massachusetts, on Sept. 1, 1863. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for extraordinary heroism May 27, 1863, while serving with Company C, 49th Massachusetts Infantry, for action at Port Hudson, La. As a private, he volunteered for an attack under heavy fire in advance of a general assault. LATER LIFE: The 1865 census recorded him living in Pittsfield with his wife Martha and children. Was appointed first state police deputy constable for Berkshire County in July 1865. In 1870 census was said to be living in St. Paul, Minn., and listed his occupation as hotel keeper. By 1880 he was living in Washington, D.C., and listed his occupation as journalist. Wrote a book on his Civil War experiences, “Life with the Forty-Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers.” James N. Strong, Pittsfield VITAL DETAILS: Born Feb. 28, 1818, in Pittsfield. Died Dec. 17, 1900, in Fairfield, Iowa. MILITARY SERVICE: Mustered into service with Company C, 49th Massachusetts Infantry as a corporal Sept. 8, 1862. Promoted through ranks to 2nd Lt. June 24, 1863. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for gallantry in the face of the enemy. While a sergeant he volunteered to lead an attack against the Confederate fort at Port Hudson, La., May 27, 1863. Under heavy fire, his group advanced to weaken the rebel position making the general assault possible and ensuring the fort's surrender. LATER LIFE: The 1895 Iowa Census lists his occupation as laborer, with no family living with him. Charles A. Taggart, Otis VITAL DETAILS: Born Jan. 17, 1843, in Blandford. Died April 10, 1938, at the Soldiers & Sailors Home in Dayton, Ohio. MILITARY SERVICE: Was living with Elisha and Julia Prentice, his sister and brother-in-law, in Otis and working as a farm laborer when he joined the Army. He mustered into service and was paid a $25 bounty for three years with Company B, 37th Massachusetts Infantry at Camp Briggs, Pittsfield Aug. 30, 1862. While serving as a private, Taggart was wounded July 3, 1863, at the battle of Gettysburg from Confederate artillery fire during the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble charge. He served until June 21, 1865. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for capturing an enemy flag at a battle near Farmville, Va., April 6, 1865. According to a book published in 1897, Taggart made his way through hand-to-hand fighting,“with the fate of the contest still in the balance,” to seize a battle flag and bring it back to his regiment.” LATER LIFE: In 1870, Taggart had returned to the Prentice farm in Otis, employed as a peddler. He continued to sell goods door to door, moving to Albany by 1900. The census listed him as a retired widower in 1920. Francis Emory Warren, Hinsdale VITAL DETAILS: Born June 20, 1844, in Hinsdale. Died Nov. 24, 1929, in Washington, D.C. MILITARY SERVICE: Enlisted as a private in Company C, 49th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry, Union Army. MEDAL OF HONOR: At Port Hudson, La., on May 27, 1863, at the rank of corporal, Warren volunteered to take part in movements against a Confederate artillery position. After his platoon was destroyed by bombardment, and he was wounded, Warren disabled the enemy artillery and was awarded the medal for “gallantry on the battlefield.” LATER LIFE: Moved to Wyoming, where he did business in real estate, retail and raising livestock. In February 1885, he was appointed governor of the Territory of Wyoming by President Chester A. Arthur. He was removed from that position by President Grover Cleveland in November 1886 but was reappointed by President Benjamin Harrison in March 1889, and served until 1890. At that point he was elected the state’s first governor. Later he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate and held that office until his death at the age 85. OTHER HONORS: F.E. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming, is named for him. Richard Welch, Williamstown VITAL DETAILS: Born in 1828 County Longford, Ireland. Died March 13, 1894, in Williamstown and is buried in the town’s Eastlawn Cemetery. MILITARY SERVICE: Was a shoemaker when he became a sergeant with Company E, 37th Massachusetts Infantry. MEDAL OF HONOR: Awarded for “extraordinary heroism” on April 2, 1865, for action at Petersburg, Va., and capturing an enemy flag belonging to the 37th North Carolina unit. He and Gardner were among 19 soldiers recognized for that action. A superior officer said of him, "In the assault on the enemy's works at Petersburg … Richard Welch … knocked down the rebel color bearer, took his flag and shot one of the gunners while in the act of discharging his piece.” LATER LIFE: Welch returned to shoemaking. The 1880 Federal Census for Williamstown listed his occupation as bootmaker. In 1894, he was struck by a train and killed. — Larry Parnass and Andy Etman Andy Etman, a former resident of Berkshire County, provided assistance with research. He holds a master’s degree in military history and is a member of Gettysburg Camp #112 Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. He lives in Gordonville, Penn.

PITTSFIELD — Memorial Day, when Americans reckon with war's cost, came early that year.



It was Dec. 11, 1921. Three thousand people crowded into the State Armory in Pittsfield to honor the late Lt. Col. Charles W. Whittlesey, famed leader of World War I's "lost battalion."



Now he too was lost.



Every newspaper reader in America knew the story. Whittlesey, a tall, bookish citizen-soldier, had led 554 men of the 308th Infantry up a thickly wooded French ravine early on Oct. 2, 1918, then become trapped and isolated.



When relief finally came, just 194 soldiers could get to their feet; 107 were dead, 63 missing. And of those able to walk, only a half dozen were deemed fit to continue the advance.



Pittsfield families knew these sacrifices well. Of the 2,780 men the city sent into service when America entered the war in 1917, 85 were killed in action.



The war would be over in a month. But not for Whittlesey.



Two weeks before the standing-room-only crowd at the armory, Whittlesey had left instructions in his New York City law office and booked passage on a United Fruit Co. steamer south toward Havana. He paid his landlady for December's rent.



On Nov. 26, 1921, after dining with the captain of the S.S. Toloa on its first night out from New York and leaving nine letters in his cabin, he jumped overboard.



Whittlesey became a statistic no one was yet tallying — the veteran suicide.



"He was someone who had a lot of emotions trapped inside," said Jim Clark, Pittsfield's director of veterans services. "When you look at it now, why would that be a surprise? Whittlesey and his men suffered a lot of what we now call PTSD."



The Department of Veterans Affairs now estimates that 20 veterans die by suicide every day in the U.S. Last year, after reviewing 55 million military records from 1979 to 2014, the VA charted the depth of the problem. Eighteen percent of all suicides in the U.S. involved veterans, though they make up only 9 percent of the population.



Rising public concern about veteran suicides led the VA to hire thousands of mental health counselors and revamp its Veterans Crisis Line. That service provides 24-hour help to people who call 800-273-8255.



In April, the VA launched a new system to try to predict veteran suicides by analyzing data from health records. The hope is to identify veterans who are at a higher risk for suicide.



The 2016 study suggested that intervention helps. Since 2001, the rate of suicide among veterans who use VA services rose 8.8 percent, compared to an increase of 38.6 percent for those not in touch with the VA.



FACING THE PROBLEM



Whittlesey's suicide was national news. The New York Times stacked up six headlines on its front-page story. One said he'd left a note for a law partner saying, "I shall not return."



Another read: "WAR PREYED ON HIS MIND."



Grieving friends, as protective of Whittlesey's privacy as the man was himself, managed to keep his final letters from a hungry press corps. In a statement, though, they were clear: "His was a war casualty."



But people at the time struggled to speak openly about suicide, Clark notes.



While returning veterans were celebrated — Whittlesey perhaps more than any other, leading to his receiving one of the first Congressional Medal of Honor awards from his war — the public might have been leery of hidden wounds.



"A lot of people came home messed up," said Clark, whose great uncle, Reynold Nielson, was killed in action April 12, 1918. Some returning veterans were viewed as "not right."



A biographical page about Whittlesey filed in the local history collection of the Berkshire Athenaeum is vague about his cause of death, listing it as "sickness."



An article published in The Eagle in 1948 backed off the candor some were able to muster even at the time of Whittlesey's suicide. The World War I hero, it said, "died on a sea voyage."



In 1982, one of the letters Whittlesey had left behind in his steamship cabin reached the Williams College Archives & Special Collections. It was addressed to John B. Pruyn, a fellow Williams graduate and his former law partner. The Eagle has not previously reported its contents.



"Dear Bayard," it began. "Just a note to say goodby. I'm a misfit by nature and by training and there's an end of it."



Whittlesey apologized for asking his old friend to be his executor. The letter goes on to deal with practical matters — bank balances, outstanding bills, life insurance policies in the safe and the General Electric stock that his father had purchased for him.



"Medals etc. in safe deposit box," he wrote.



Only near the end of a practical letter does Whittlesey address what he's about to do, and even then it left one of his closest friends to fill in blanks.



"I won't try to say anything personal, Bayard, because you and I understand each other," he wrote. "Give my love to Edith. As ever, Charles Whittlesey."

He died at age 37 and never married.



ATTEMPTS TO UNDERSTAND



Inside the cavernous armory in Pittsfield, people gathered for Whittlesey's memorial service heard flowery oratory from clergy and politicians. A choir sang "The Laborer's Task is O'er," and a bugler sounded taps.



In his eulogy, Judge Charles L. Hibbard said that when Whittlesey returned, he could not simply be "Charlie."



"None of us can even imagine the horror of those days of ceaseless fighting," he said.



Since surviving the ordeal, Whittlesey had been in great demand as a speaker. Families sought him out, their grief replenishing his own. Hibbard ventured that these public demands were too much for Whittlesey.



"Try as he may, he cannot get away from it. Wherever he turns, he is Col. Whittlesey, not the Charlie Whittlesey of old days," Hibbard said, as a flag-draped caisson stood nearby — a mute symbol of the loss, since Whittlesey's body was not recovered.



"Then begins that never ceasing and most exhausting drain upon his sympathy. From every hand come appeals for help. There are funerals and hospital visits and the impact of all such experiences upon his sensitive nature are terrific," Hibbard said. "The mainspring of his life is wound ever tighter and tighter and then comes the burial of the unknown soldier."



On Armistice Day in 1921, Whittlesey had gone to Arlington National Cemetery to serve as a pallbearer at the burial of the unknown soldier. Friends recalled he was even more reserved and seemed drawn and ill at ease. Around him were dozens of war veterans, many missing arms and legs.



"This draws the last measure of reserve and with it the realization that life had little now to offer," Hibbard said of Whittlesey's attendance at Arlington. "He had plumbed the depth of tragic suffering; he had heard the world's applause; he had seen and touched the great realities of life; and what remained was of little consequence. He craved rest, peace and sweet forgetfulness."



Frederick H. Cook, the Massachusetts secretary of state, told the crowd that Whittlesey's trip to Arlington — to honor the "unknown" dead — must have been too much to bear.



"He saw in him the face of all those boys of his command who had gone to death and that burden was rolled back on him with crushing weight," he said.



Rumors about whether Whittlesey had erred in the field, other friends said, "darkened his last days."



For years after, articles probed what happened. A 1938 book by Thomas M. Johnson, based on interviews with military leaders and survivors, cleared Whittlesey of blame.



Johnson, a former war correspondent, believed Whittlesey's heart was forever with his men that were lost. "Perhaps that was why, three years later, he decided to go the full measure with them — to join these men whom he, as a simple military duty, had led to their death."



Whittlesey's own commander, Major Gen. Robert Alexander, cited Whittlesey's "extraordinary heroism" and took responsibility for all that happened, saying Whittlesey "conducted his command to the objective designated for him by the division commander he held that position with indomitable determination."



His obituary in a Williams College publication noted that in the last two years of his life, the "grief and horror" of war had pressed down upon him.



THE ADVANCE



On Oct. 2, 1918, an enormous force had assembled in the Meuse-Argonne region to break Germany's four-year grip on this territory. Other American and French units were supposed to move alongside Whittlesey's troops on this 25-mile front.



But they'd failed to advance, enabling German forces to flank and surround Whittlesey's battalion.



For five days, Germans occupying higher and better ground pounded the Army units with mortars and grenades. Despite being swept by machine gun fire and flame throwers, Whittlesey and his men held their position, as ordered, in a narrow gully that came to be called "The Pocket."



But at great cost.



The Americans scratched into the flinty ground for shelter and to bury their dead, until too exhausted to dig. Hard tack and corned beef ran out the first noon. The men knew deprivation, many having come from poor neighborhoods of New York City as members of the 77th "Metropolitan" Infantry Division, sometimes called the "Times Square Division." They wore shoulder patches displaying the Statue of Liberty, repatriating the great lady's likeness to France.



They'd already slogged through a month of hard action.



On the day they advanced, Whittlesey had asked his superiors for permission to let the men rest. But the drive began as planned, the troops moving before a promised hot breakfast and before supplies such as overcoats, blankets and food could reach them.



Whittlesey, breaking military tradition, advanced at the head of his troops, a pistol in one hand and a pair of wire cutters in the other. At 6 feet 3 inches, he stood above them all.



By 10 a.m. that first day, Whittlesey saw there was no way out. Patrols probed for options and got into firefights. Runners kept the battalion in contact with the rear for a time, but once the troops were surrounded, Whittlesey had to use carrier pigeons to send out updates and to appeal for relief.



Whittlesey's orders were to advance "regardless of losses."



He scribbled a note in the field to his company commanders. "Our mission is to hold this position at all costs. No falling back. Have this understood by every man in your command," he wrote.



With his gear, the former college literary society member carried handwritten notes on the mission. They survived and sit now in the college archives. "Go into bivouac and await orders," one passage reads. On the back of one thin sheet he'd jotted a reading list on military tactics and leadership. He stowed it all near a photo of his mother, Annie.



By the first day, one third of the men had been killed or seriously wounded.



After a route used by messengers was cut, Whittlesey used the pigeons. He wrote on rice paper and tucked messages into metal capsules affixed to the birds' legs.



"Men are suffering from hunger and exposure; the wounded are in very bad condition," read the message sent by the sixth pigeon, the next to last one available. "Cannot support be sent at once?"



Baskets of food dropped from American planes fell into German territory. Cold rain fell for several nights.



After American artillery accidentally began falling on their own forces, killing as many as 30, Whittlesey dispatched his last pigeon with this message: "Our artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake, stop it."



Survivors pulled bandages from the dead to aid the wounded. Falling mortars interrupted burial parties. By Oct. 6 they were too weak to bury the dead.



On the last day, an American captive was sent blindfolded from the German line with an offer to accept surrender.



Whittlesey became famous for lines he never uttered. A higher-up in the Army told a war correspondent, after the ordeal, that Whittlesey had told the Germans to "go to hell."



Actually, he looked around a circle of officers, later accounts concluded, and said nothing. Thirty minutes later, the Germans renewed a grenade attack. The Americans were down to two of nine machine gun units and nearly out of ammunition.



Around 7 p.m. on that fifth day, a runner broke through with news that relief forces were close. The troops had gone 104 hours without food and had little energy left to repel attacks.



Whittlesey was soon furloughed by special order and given an honorable discharge. The armistice was signed before he reached New York City less than two months later. Within days, on Dec. 6, 1918, Whittlesey was in Boston being pinned with the Medal of Honor.



France awarded him its Croix de Guerre. Other European nations lauded him as well.



`WHAT I CAN'T WRITE'



In a letter written Oct. 13, 1918, a week after the battalion's ordeal, Whittlesey told a friend named Max that he wasn't yet able to talk about what he'd experienced. The letter, on onionskin paper, sits today in a folder in a protective box in the Williams College archives.



"I appreciated your last letter. If I said it any other way I'd be trying to put into words what I can't write," Whittlesey noted.



But he had something to say about what happened in "The Pocket."



"Because out here in the woods, Max, where the hidden things of life begin to show, one learns new things. Friendships that can reach across five thousand miles and jog your elbow become pretty real and fine. And believe me I felt you right at my side with your cheery voice when that letter reached me at the end of a day that had seen — oh hell, `some digging.' "



Three years later, he was finding that cheer hard to conjure.



None of his friends knew he was leaving New York. According to The New York Times account, he'd told his housekeeper, "I'm going away to be alone for a few days. I am tired."



Whittlesey's sister-in-law, married to his brother Melzar, told The Times he never spoke of his wartime experience and hadn't mentioned his trip that month to Arlington. But when pressed by Melzar, Whittlesey admitted "that it had made a profoundly deep impression upon him."



A few days before leaving, he'd visited Pruyn, his former partner, bringing a gift of pins for his year-old baby. Marguerite Babcock, Pruyn's sister-in-law, told The Times that Whittlesey seemed in good spirits. That puzzled her, because he was typically solemn.



"That is what we cannot understand, unless he had made up his mind to take his life, and felt better that he had decided it," she told the newspaper.



Whittlesey's war, it seemed, had no end.



He had told a friend this: "Not a day goes by but I hear from some of my old outfit about some sorrow or misfortune. I cannot bear much more. I want to be left in peace."



Reach staff writer Larry Parnass at 413-496-6214 or @larryparnass.

This story has been updated to correct a gender reference to Whittlesey's brother, Melzar.