by Theo Emery
His first wife: “Divorce for Mrs. Levering,” New York Times, Feb. 24, 1915, 18.
An investigation: Report on Richmond Levering from William Offley to A. Bruce Bielaski, 4, Sept. 13, 1917, NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
He explained: Report from Agent W. B. Matthews for Apr. 25, 1918, In re: Richmond Levering (Confidential), NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
Levering summoned him: Letter from William Offley to A Bruce Bielaski, Sept. 13, 1917; Report on Richmond Levering, 7, Investigative Reports of the BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
One of them: Affidavit of Mr. Arthur J. Ronhagan, in case of Prentiss vs. Metropolitan Petroleum Corp and Island Oil and Transport Co., Aug. 4, 1917, NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
“By the operation”: Letter from Richmond Levering to Omar D. Conger, Navy Department, Washington, DC, Mar. 19, 1918, NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
On March 16, 1917: Letter from William Offley to A. Bruce Bielaski, Mar. 16, 1917, Investigative Reports of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case 97452, roll 473, NACP.
“He states that”: Ibid.
Levering offered his own company: Letter to Mssrs. Jose Marimon y Juliach, Sept. 26, 1916, NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
“Mr. Levering is displaying”: Letter from William Offley to A. Bruce Bielaski, May 21, 1917, Investigative Reports of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case 2910, roll 302, NACP.
And in July: Bill of Complaint, Franklin D. L. Prentiss v. Metropolitan Petroleum Co. & Island Oil and Transport Corp., U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
“I enclose herewith”: Letter from A. Bruce Bielaski to William Offley, June 20, 1917. NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case 97452, roll 473, NACP.
His chauffeur had been: Letter from Charles Offley to A. Bruce Bielaski, Aug. 23, 1917, NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
“I desire to call”: Letter from Richmond Levering to William Offley, Aug. 28, 1917. NARA M1085, Investigative Reports of the BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case 12490, roll 335, NACP.
His letter to Briggs: Letter from Richmond Levering to A Briggs, Aug. 29, 1917, NARA M1085, Investigative Case Files of the BOI, 1908–1922, OGF, 1909–21, case number 12490, roll 335; NACP.
“any further connection”: Letter from E. S. Underhill to A. Bruce Bielaski, Sept. 14, 1917, BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case number 12490, roll 335, NACP.
“Any information we wanted”: Letter from Richmond Levering to A. Bruce Bielaski, Oct. 19, 1917. BOI, OGF, 1909–21, case number 12490, roll 335; NACP.
He didn’t have: Letter from Amos Fries to Bessie Fries, Aug. 31, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
“Since July 18”: War Expenditures, 3422.
The car sped: Letter from Amos Fries letter to Bessie Fries, Sept. 1, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
“vast and elegant”: Ibid., Sept. 25, 1917.
He was assigned: Ibid., Sept. 8, 1917.
Fries wrote home: Ibid., Sept. 1, 1917.
“There is established”: General Order 31, Sept. 3, 1917; Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, 76.
“Well, if swearing”: Ibid., Sept. 9, 1917.
“looks to have”: Ibid., Sept. 6, 1917.
Unlike Fries: Donald Smythe, Pershing: General of the Armies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 46.
The whole spectacle: Vandiver, Black Jack, 796.
Pershing, already irate: Papers of General John J. Pershing, 1916–24, 1931–39, index and case files relating to Reclassification & Reassignment of Officers—Regular Army Officers: Major Generals, Brigadier Generals, RG 200, finding aid NM-10, entry 22, box 8, NACP.
In a confidential memo: “Comment on General Officers,” Baker Letters: Confidential Correspondence Between Secretary of War Baker and General Pershing, 1917–20, John J. Pershing Papers, 1882–1971, General Correspondence, 1904–48, box 20, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
“Capt. Crawford”: Letter from Amos Fries to Bessie Fries, Sept. 11, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
A second officer: Fries memoir, 14.
“Send at once”: Cablegram no. 181-S from John Pershing to Adjutant General, Sept. 25, 1917, War Expenditures, 3423–24.
“This material”: Ibid.
“Perhaps they don’t”: Letter from Amos Fries to Bessie Fries, Sept. 21, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
As September turned: Ibid., Oct. 2, 1917.
“I have a man-sized job”: Ibid., Sept. 29, 1917.
On September 29: Cablegram from Amos Fries to Bessie Fries, Sept. 29, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
It was a paradox: Letter from Amos Fries to Bessie Fries, Sept. 25, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
“They certainly have”: Ibid., Sept. 21, 1917.
Then the rain: Hart, Great War, 365.
On September 1: Ibid., 301.
The fire waltz did: Ibid.
It was the last battle: Falls, Great War, 185.
As antiwar fever: Haber, Poisonous Cloud, 186.
His discomforts were: Letter from Amos Fries to Bessie Fries, Oct. 7, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
“Things don’t look”: Ibid., Nov. 11, 1917.
Chapter Seven: “A Hotter Fire”
“There’s a place somewhere”: Olson Family Collection.
The September 4 parade: “Soap Box Sedition to Feel Heavy Hand,” New York Times, Aug. 16, 1917, 7.
Days before the parade: “30 Germans Are Arrested in South Dakota for Opposing the War and the Draft Law, New York Times, Aug. 28, 1917.
In a Labor Day letter: “President Tells Labor of Country’s War Aims,” Washington Herald, Sept. 3, 1917.
Gompers himself was suspect: Unsigned report, In re: Dr. W. T. Scheele et al. (Samuel Gompers), July 16, 1915, Investigative Case Files of the BOI, 1908–1922, NARA M1085, OGF, 1909–21, case no. 8000-925, roll 279, NACP.
As the Marine Band: “President Wilson Leads District’s New National Army,” Washington Herald, Sept. 5, 1917.
On September 21: “U.S. Prepared for Barbarity,” Washington Herald, Sept. 21, 1917.
Newspapers across the country: “Uncle Sam to ‘Fight Devil with Fire,’” South Bend News-Times, Sept. 20, 1917.
The announcement served: “Gas and Flame,” Ottawa (IL) Free Trader-Journal, Sept. 27, 1917, 4.
From the attic: National Park Service, Department of the Interior, American University, Ohio Hall of Government (McKinley-Ohio Hall of Government), Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS DC-458.
At the behest: George A. Burrell, “Organization of Work,” Sept. 1, 1917. War gas investigations, semi-monthly project reports pertaining to gas warfare, Aug. to Sept. 1917, BOM, Record Group 70, finding aid A-1, entry 47, box 115, NACP.
In New Haven, Yandell Henderson: Leo P. Brophy, Wyndham D. Miles, and Rexmond C. Cochrane, The Chemical Warfare Service: From Laboratory to Field (Washington, DC: Center of Military History,1959), 8.
The improvisation among chaos: Reid, “Reminiscences of World War I.”
“These lists are now”: Letter from Van Manning to George Hale, Oct. 2, 1917, NAS-NRC, Executive Committee: Committee on Noxious Gases, National Academy of Sciences Archives.
In the school magazine: Roxbury Latin School, Tripod (June, 1910), call no. UAI 15.898, box 1, Papers of James Bryant Conant, 1862–1987, Harvard University Archives.
When unrestricted submarine warfare: James B. Conant, My Several Lives (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 48.
He visited chemical companies: Ibid., 26.
He lived in an apartment: District of Columbia Directory (Washington, DC: R. L. Polk and Co., 1918).
He had begun: Conant didn’t specify what this unit was. Perhaps it was the Thirtieth Engineers (Gas and Flame), but he could have been angling to work in the planned gas laboratory in France.
He told Conant: James F. Pringle, “Mr. President—I,” Profiles, New Yorker, Sept. 12, 1936, 24.
There were just three men: James B. Conant, Progress Report of the Organic Division, Oct. 15, 1917, War Gas Investigations, Semi-monthly Project Reports, BOM, RG 70, finding aid A-1, entry 47, box 116, NACP.
Conant must have found: “American University, the Chemical Warfare Service’s First Training Ground and Research Center,” USACE.
The chemists constantly skated: “Lewis Tells of Perils of Gas Research Work,” Evanston (IL) News-Index, Oct. 27, 1919.
One day, a bumbling young chemist: Robert S. Mulliken, Life of a Scientist (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1968), 23.
“Full investigation”: War Expenditures, 3424.
A week later: Report on G-34, Dec. 1, 1917, call no. UAI 15.898, box 141, Papers of James Bryant Conant, 1862–1987, Harvard University Archives.
Mustard was a vexing problem: W. D. Bancroft, Bancroft’s History of the Chemical Warfare Service in the United States (Washington, DC: Research Division, CWS, American University Experiment Station, 1919), 14 (70).
despite a cloud of suspicion: Letter from Frank P. Underhill to BOI, 1908–1922, Nov. 6, 1917, Frank P. Underhill Papers, Correspondence File B-Z, group no. 514, box 11, Yale University Library Manuscript Collections.
Reid rated each: E. Emmet Reid, Compounds Tested for Toxicity, Report of Division of Chemical Research—Offense, Feb. 1, 1918, War Gas Investigation, Semi-monthly Reports, Dec. 1917–Feb. 1918, BOM, RG 70, finding aid A-1, entry 47, box 117, NACP.
After he wrote: Letter from director of Edward Hill’s Son & Co. to William McPherson, Nov. 14, 1917, Technical Document Files, 1917–1920, “Cotton Seed Hulls, Fillings etc,” CWS, RG 175, finding aid PI-8, entry 7, box 6, NACP.
The difficulty in obtaining: Bancroft, History of the Chemical Warfare Service, 229.
Toward the end of 1917: General Electric, Story of the Development Division, 209.
Another cooperative chemical maker: Lieutenant Colonel William McPherson, “An Historical Sketch of the Development of Edgewood Arsenal,” An Historical Sketch of Edgewood Arsenal, DTIC Technical Report AD 498494 (Washington, DC: Army CWS, Mar. 1919), 9.
An experimental lab: Bancroft, History of the Chemical Warfare Service, 241; McPherson, “Historical Sketch,” 17.
They found what seemed: “War Comes Home to Kent Island,” Washington, DC, Evening Star, Sept. 16, 1917, 16.
Secretary of War Baker: “Bitter Clashes Mark Kent Island Hearing,” Baltimore Sun, Sept. 16, 1917, 1.
Tempers flared during the hearing: Ibid., 2.
Two days later: “Kent Island Plan Killed,” Baltimore Sun, Sept. 18, 1917, 1.
Across the Chesapeake Bay: “Neck Losing Its Glory,” Baltimore Sun, Dec. 11, 1917, 8.
On the evening: “Takes Over 35,000 Acres,” (Baltimore) Sun, Oct 17, 1917, 1.
In late October: McPherson, “Historical Sketch,” 14.
Earlier in 1917: Memorandum from P. D. Lochridge to Chief of Staff, Sept. 26, 1917, Correspondence of War College Division and Related General Staff Offices, 1903–19, WDG, RG 165, microfilm publication M1024, reel 306, NACP.
Fries had advocated: Cablegram to General Pershing, Nov. 8, 1917, Correspondence of War College Division and Related General Staff Offices, 1903–19, WDG, RG 165, microfilm publication M1024, reel 306, NACP.
“I have been urging them”: Letter from Amos Fries to Bessie Fries, Nov. 11, 1917, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
“The gas game”: Ibid., Nov. 15, 1917.
Fries finally wrote to Manning: Letter from Amos Fries to Van Manning, Nov. 1, 1917, Technical Document Files, 1917–1920, Correspondence, RG 175, finding aid PI-8, entry 8, box 5, NACP.
Manning’s reply came: Letter from Van H. Manning to Amos A. Fries, Dec. 10, 1917, Technical Document Files, 1917–1920, Correspondence, RG 175, finding aid PI-8, entry 8, box 5, NACP.
“I will certainly be glad”: Ibid., Dec. 11, 1917.
“The men specially needed”: “Need Gas and Flame Men,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 1917, 18.
“The time has gone by”: James Thayer Addison, The Story of the First Gas Regiment (Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1919), 7.
In Lawrence, Massachusetts: Author phone interview with Betty Higginbottom, daughter-in-law of Harold Higginbottom, Nov. 13, 2015.
the daughter: “Wedding Bells; Higginbottom-Macreadie,” Lawrence Evening Tribune, Dec. 27, 1920, 13.
When he registered: Harold Higginbottom draft registration card, Ancestry .com.
Arthur went to work: Arthur Higginbottom draft registration card, Ancestry.com.
Lawrence had been a cauldron: Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, vol. 4, The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905–1917 (New York: International Publishers, 1965), 307.
almost ten thousand young men: “Nearly 12,000 Young Men Registered for Draft Here,” Lawrence Telegram, June 6, 1917, 2.
During his lunch break: Harold Higginbottom diary entry, Tues., Oct. 23, 1917, CCM.
On Wednesday: Ibid., Oct. 24, 1917.
On Friday morning: Ibid., Oct. 26, 1917.
Atkisson had turned thirty-one: Gas Attack, spring 1984, CCM.
Though Fries had no idea: Fries memoir, Amos A. Fries Papers, 1896–1953.
In the 1912 yearbook: Columbia University, The Columbian (yearbook), 1912, 363.
How Jabine learned: Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Industrial Directory of New Jersey (Trenton, NJ: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, 1918).
where he was foreman: Thomas Jabine draft registration card, Ancestry.com.
He took it all: Letter from Thomas Jabine to mother, undated letter no. 1, American University WWI file, University Archives and Special Collections, American University Library.
A stove warmed: “Activities at Camp American University,” American University Courier 24, no. 1 (Oct. 1917).
“I have been working”: Letter from Jabine to mother, Oct. 27, 1917.
Jabine became fast friends: Addison, Story of the First Gas Regiment, 4.
Single and twenty-five: Devlin draft registration card, Ancestry.com.
Leonidas M. Shappell: “Father and Three Sons Are Fighting in Uncle Sam’s Army—Formerly Lived Here,” Keokuk (IA) Daily Gate City, Nov. 2, 1917, 7.
On Thursday, November 8: Higginbottom diary entry, Nov. 7, 1917. In Higginbottom’s diary, the dates and days of the week do not always correspond to the calendar. In this case, it appears that the entry should have been labeled Nov. 8.
Reveille woke the new recruits: Ibid.
One Sunday: Ibid., Nov. 7, 1917.
Jabine felt the same: Jabine diary entry, Nov. 2, 1917.
In the second week: Ibid., Nov. 15, 1917.
Manning took up: Manning, “War Gas Investigations,” 7.
Bishop John William Hamilton: Letter from American University chancellor to Van Manning, Oct. 13, 1917, Purchase of American University Property, USACE.
To top it off: Memorandum from Chief of Engineers Major General William Black to Adjutant General, regarding use of American University grounds, Oct. 13, 1917, USACE.
With the crowd: “Camouflage at Meade,” Washington Post, Nov. 21, 1917.
“If his satanic majesty”: “U.S. Red Blooded Challenge Satan with ‘Hellfirers,’” Washington Times, Nov. 15, 1917, 8.
As winter approached: Van H. Manning, Research Work of the Bureau of Mines on Gases Used in Warfare for the Year 1917, Frank P. Underhill Papers, “Poison Gas Experiments,” group no. 514, box 4, Yale University Library Manuscript Collections.
Another factor made it difficult: “Dogs an
d Cats Do War Service at American University Camp; Prove Gas and Flame Tests There,” Washington Post, Nov. 4, 1917, 2.
Though the article: “Society Protests ‘Gassing’ of Dogs: Experiments by the Army No Longer Necessary,” Washington Post, Dec. 1, 1918, 24.
The 125 offensive war gases: Report of the Toxicology Division of the Physiological Section, Oct. 24, 1917, Frank P. Underhill Papers, “Poison Gas Experiments,” group no. 514, box 4, Yale University Library Manuscript Collections.
In mid-October: Henderson, History of Research at Yale University, 3.
Burrell issued rules: Order from George Burrell to Research Division employees, no date, American University WWI file, University Archives and Special Collections, American University Library.
Manning brought up the issue: 4-SV Letter Regarding Posting of Sentries at Buildings at American University—Nov. 3, 1917, located in Army Corps Documents, subfolder “AUES Admin Info–Purchase of Land.”
Abbot promised to beef up: Letter from Frederic V. Abbot to Van H. Manning, Nov. 3, 1918, USACE.
He continued to fret: Letter from Van H. Manning to Brigadier General Frederic V. Abbot regarding fence around experiment station, Dec. 13, 1917, “Correspondence Regarding Repairing Road on American University Campus—1917,” USACE.
Early in the month: History of Chemical Warfare Service, AEF, 17, History of the CWS 1918, First Gas Regiment Collection, Carlisle Attic Collection, box 96, folder H-12, CCM.
“It is not the idea”: Letter from Amos Fries to Director of Gas Service, U.S. Army, Confidential Investigations, Nov. 29, 1917, General Fries’ Files, 1918–1920, O–S, Edgewood Arsenal, 1917–43. RG 175, CWS, finding aid PI-8, entry 7, box 19, NACP.
The commander of the army’s aviation: Memorandum from Major Carol Spatz to Adjutant General, AEF, Nov. 25, 1917, Technical Document Files, 1917–1920, CWS, RG 175, finding aid PI-8, entry 8, box 7, NACP.
Asked to comment: Memorandum from Amos Fries to Adjutant General, AEF, Dec. 14, 1917, Technical Document Files, 1917–1920, CWS, RG 175, finding aid PI-8, entry 8, box 7, NACP.
Three days before Christmas: Letter from Wilder D. Bancroft and John Johnson to Van H. Manning, Dec. 22, 1917, War Gas Investigation Reports, RG 70, BOM, finding aid A-1, entry 46, box 110, NACP.