The Rain Day Boys
The Greene That Lay Near Grimpettes Woods
Story by Glenn R. Toothman III
Research assistance from Candice Buchanan
In great deeds something abides
On great fields something stays
Forms change and pass, bodies disappear but spirits linger,
To consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls
And reverent men and women from afar
And generations that know us not and those we know not of
Shall come… to ponder… and dream…
And the power of the vision (shall) pass into their souls
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
These are the words of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who was the Union hero at the Battle of Little Round Top during the Gettysburg fighting in July of 1863. He spoke these words at the dedication ceremonies of the Maine Monuments at Gettysburg Battle Field on October 3, 1889 as hundreds of people visited these hallowed grounds for this event. Thousands of people have continued to visit this location just as Chamberlain so many years ago understood they would. His understanding of why people would visit is evidence that the passing of years in his life had caused him to so personally pursue the vision place of his own soul. He was speaking these words from an inspired heart and therefore they may bear an extra measure of consideration.
For many of us who run in haste from one meeting to the next, forever on the treadmill of life, we may not yet have paid much attention to the vision place of our own soul. Yet to anyone who has paused for a moment and peered curiously into fading pictures of long dead and gone persons, paying a certain amount of attention to the details of their dress and the lines on their faces, then next finding ourselves left, in some small part, wondering what of these lives, this innocent event can be the beginning to ones own quest into the vision place of the soul. Chamberlain’s words most certainly serve as the inspiration for this story, but underlying his words, and the greater inspiration, is this writer’s desire to pursue a personal quest into the vision place of the soul and hopefully inspire others to do the same for themselves.
July 29th for most of the world has no particular significance and would not deserve any special attention on the calendar. However, in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania there is a rural county named after one of the successful officers of the Revolutionary War, Nathaniel Greene. Greene County, more specifically, Waynesburg, its county seat, has traditionally celebrated July 29th in the form of Rain Day. It seems that a group of local citizens realized that it would nearly always rain on July 29th and as records were kept of such things it was noted that year after year the rain did indeed fall on this day. As time evolved, this event translated into a local day of notoriety and the people of the area would anticipate the rain to fall. Yet, on July 29, 1918 more than rain fell this day that affected the lives of those living in Greene County.
The accounts of the day and time reveal that only the best and the brightest available were wanted. The World War was to be a war won by virtues of a fighting force focused on strength in both mind and body. Many who desired to serve were turned away because they did not literally make the grade. The successful candidates were generally the star athletes and students of our local schools and they had signed on to fight for freedom in lands distant from the rolling green hills of southwestern Pennsylvania. Pause here and think to the present day of the star athletes and students of your community and envision these young people packing up to defend your freedom on distant soil. As written accounts reveal, the people of this area sent them off in proper honored fashion by accompanying the marching soldiers from the armory on the north side of Waynesburg for about a half mile down to the train station of the Washington and Waynesburg Railroad located at the very southern part of town. School students and towns folk full of tears and cheers saw their best boys board the train and head toward their destiny.
First, they were sent for months of training required to make these few qualified men all that much more fit and ready for the purpose of war. Their training took them to Camp Hancock, Georgia where they were put through physical conditioning and schooled in the latest methods of modern warfare and weapons technology. The latest in weapons technology for an infantry unit such as theirs centered on the machine gun. Many members became first class machine gunners in a unit that was formally know as Company K, 110th Infantry, 28th Division, American Expeditionary Forces.
Their training ended in late April of 1918 and the men boarded an English transport ship, the Ausonia, in New York and spent the next thirteen days crossing the Atlantic. The men arrived in Liverpool, England and were immediately moved by train to Dover where they crossed the English Channel into France. It was May 17th and they were in Calais, France at Rest Camp No. 6 East where they were issued necessary frontline equipment featuring a recent addition to trench warfare, the gas mask.
By June 14th they had been transferred to the French sector near Juilly south of Chateau Thierry. Here they experienced their first taste of the ugly reality of war. A large American military hospital was located here and beside it lay to rest the first of the American soldiers killed in action against the soldiers of the Kaiser. Ten days later they were positioned even farther north being sent to Artonges, south of the Marne River to aid the French in repelling an expected massive German offensive bent on taking Paris. Early July they were ordered into the second line of trenches to stand ready for the anticipated attack. On the night of July 27th they were called to the frontline trenches near Grimpettes Woods to relieve the 156th French regiment along the Ourcq tributary of the Marne River.
It was the Marne that separated the Germans from the Allied forces. The Germans were concentrated in fortified positions on the upper slopes of the hills of Grimpettes Woods only 1,500 yards from Company K.
Very early in the morning of July 28th Company K, along with other companies of the 110th crossed the Ourcq River into German territory engaged in a mission to route the Germans from their nests. Specifically their mission was to charge up a 700-yard slope to secure away from the Germans the tactical advantage of this elevated position. The slope consisted of a bare portion surrounded by extremely dense woods wherein the enemy positions had been carefully fortified with trenches, mortars, light artillery and machine guns.
The attack progressed very slowly in that they were confronted with extreme enemy fire and by nightfall the men had only moved forward slightly. It was then in the very early morning of July 29th that Company K proceeded forward initiating another assault on the enemy positions. This attack was met with all the fury of hell and within the next two hours 17 Greene County men would fall dead or wounded to eventually die from their wounds as the result of this assault. It would require six separate attacks before this hill was taken. By July 30th, with help from French artillery, Company K mounted its sixth and final attack and overcame the strength of the German positions but at great cost.
Out of a battalion of 1000 men only 400 would be left after this one-day’s assault. This one fortified hill had cost Pennsylvania and the 110th Infantry 1,100 casualties out of its total 3,200 men. July 29, 1918 stands as Greene County’s greatest single loss of men during war. Fifteen out of seventeen of these fallen men were returned home to be laid to rest among the familiar rolling hills of their childhood. Seven of them are buried in the Green Mount Cemetery, Waynesburg -- Bert Buchanan, Harold T. Carey, Floyd T. Hickman, Benjamin A. Manning, Francis B. Moore, Russell K. Yoders, Norman M. Zahniser; three in the Oakmont Cemetery -- Hallie J. Closser, John Duvall, William W. Throckmorton; and the others -- Harry Dunn, Frederick W. Marshall, Charles E. Murphy, Walter B. Riggle and Lawrence L. Staggers – are buried individually throughout this area. There were two Greene County men from this day’s fate that never made it home. John M. Paden is buried in Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in Fere-en-Tardenois, France; Plot A, Row 8, Grave 12. Unfortunately, Private George T. McNeely was never found and his death is commemorated, along with 1059 others, on the Walls of Missing at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau, France.
Now, thanks to the efforts of the Remembrance Division of Memory Medallion Inc. (MMI), the individual profiles, pictures and personal bios of these men have been preserved on its feature product, the Memory Medallion, for placement at each site of interment. Members of the public may now have a chance to find out who these men were, what they looked like and understand their true place in our history. Reading the Medallion by use of the free software developed by this company, loaded on any Windows-based portable computer, coupled with an inexpensive Touch wand (software and wand obtained through MMI via memorymedallion.com) now offers a unique ability to experience events in history by relating its participants each as to their individual contribution to the greater cause. Hand held computers will be available for renting from Memory Medallion offices in Waynesburg to provide non-computer owners also with an opportunity to experience this one on one pursuit of history. May “the power of the vision pass into your soul,” so that such people of history may not have died in vain and their individual sacrifices may continue to inspire us to hold our freedoms dear. Under this application of technology cemeteries shall become libraries displaying the real people and stories of life to be offered up for generations to come.