It was during our days in this area I was appointed Division Burial Officer--undertaker for the entire Division. The order, duly bulletined, at first shocked me--what qualifications had I for a work so unusual? However, I promptly accepted it for reasons two-fold: First, it is not the part of a soldier to question the wisdom of orders, and, second, anything and everything done for Old Glory is an honor. Jealously I raided the archives of the Personnel Department at Headquarters, my "towney" Captain Brown of Grand Haven, Michigan, helping me, and studied all Orders and Bulletins bearing on the subject, "how to identify, register and bury the dead." The responsibility was indeed weighty and the work vast--to organize, equip and drill burial details; to bury our own dead, all enemy dead and horses; to assemble personal effects and identification tags found on the persons of the deceased; to bathe, clothe and prepare bodies for burial; to furnish coffins, gravediggers, firing squads and buglers. Daily report of all burials was to be made to the Graves' Registration Service at Chaumont. It can easily be realized how important this work became as we grew nearer the fighting front. On battlefields, drenched with deadly gas, under fire and amid conditions and scenes most revolting and appalling, the burial parties worked, usually in gas masks for protection against odors and fumes.
Physical exhaustion, occasioned by exposure at Brest, the fatiguing journey across France, and the forced march of many kilometers, under full pack, from rail heads to billets, accounted for the numerous pneumonia cases that now appeared. In the unsettled, formative condition of things, we were not prepared to fully cope with the situation. Our nearest United States Base Hospital was at Dijon, sixty kilometers distant; and to this point it became necessary to send such of the seriously ill as could be safely transported. Many, however, were too weak to undertake such a journey; and, as no suitable buildings were available, the situation became truly distressing. There was not a single Army corps nurse or welfare worker of any sort within miles of us, and the critical nature of it all can be more readily imagined than described. Our doctors and corpsmen of the Sanitary Regiment did everything possible and rendered admirable service; but what could even the best intentioned do without equipment? On September 5th, I took mess with two of our best physicians, Captain O'Malley of Mercy Hospital, Chicago, and Lieutenant Poole of South Carolina. One week later I buried the Lieutenant at Longre, a victim of pneumonia, following an illness of but four days.