HOW THE AMERICAN ARMY GOT ITS WOOD 



1147 



sions on their faces ; they 

 were evidently delighted to 

 see the first American 

 troops to arrive in Scotland, 

 and we were at least equal- 

 ly glad to see the Scotch. 

 It was especially interesting 

 to note the great number of 

 buxom Scotch girls in 

 smocks, breeches and put- 

 tees working on ship con- 

 struction. 



"After a few hours of 

 well-ordered hustle in get- 

 ting off the troops and bag- 

 gage, the regiment entrain- 

 ed for a destination to us 

 unknown. Fifteen hours 

 on the train brought us to 

 Southampton, England, 

 where a few days were 

 spent in a so-called "rest 

 camp" awaiting transporta- 

 tion across the channel. 

 No one seemed to know 

 just why the word "rest" 

 was used in connection with 

 such a camp, for it was any- 

 thing but restful. The line 

 of march from the city 

 out to this camp was 

 along a splendid ave- 

 nue beneath an arch of magnificent elms. The avenue, 

 strange to say, had been constructed in other days by 

 other soldiers waiting to take ship from Southampton 

 British soldiers waiting to embark for the Atlantic voy- 

 age in the days of the American Revolution. Few of us 

 had ever been in Europe before, so that there was 

 keen interest in investigating the old parts of the city 

 the remains of the old walls, the old inns like pages from 

 Thackeray, the monument on the waterfront to com- 

 memorate the sailing of the Mayflower in 1620. A brief 

 glance at beautiful England, and we crowded aboard a 

 shallow draught side-wheel boat to be whisked across the 

 English Channel to La Havre during the night." 



While the various battalions and even some of the 

 companies were broken up when they reached France 

 and scattered in widely different parts of the country, 

 from the rich maritime pine section of the southwest up 

 through the central part and on to the Vosges and Ar- 

 gonne regions, their experiences in many respects were 

 similar. Some of the incidents which befell the 10th 

 Regiment along the way are picturesquely described by 

 Major Mason, who says: 



"France was reached on October 7, but there were still 

 days of travel and waiting ahead before timber opera- 

 tions could begin. Fortunately, only a day was spent 

 in the rest camp at La Havre, sheltered from the pelting 

 rain in sheds paved with cobbles. Once more the regi- 



CAPT. JOHN D GUTHRIE 



ment entrained with the 

 destination unknown to 

 us. The French troop 

 train, now so well known to- 

 millions of Americans, was 

 a curiosity to us. There 

 were the usual "eight- 

 forty" cars little box cars 

 plainly marked "eight 

 horses lengthwise or forty 

 men." It was hard to see 

 how forty husky Ameri- 

 cans, each carrying his full 

 equipment, could crowd 

 into one of the little cars, 

 but it was done. There 

 were rough benches in the 

 cars, but no toilet facilities 

 whatever. Thirty-six hours 

 of slow running, which car- 

 ried us around the out- 

 skirts of Paris and gave a 

 glimpse of the palace at 

 Versailles, finally brought 

 us to Nevers, a small city in 

 almost the exact center of 

 France. 



A tent camp was pitched 

 in a well turfed field in 

 the outskirts of Nevers. 

 A few days of rain and 

 the tramping of twelve 

 hundred odd pairs of feet soon stirred up a large 

 mud pie bearing little resemblance to the original 

 field. Here the regiment waited for two weeks for the 

 arrival of motor and other equipment brought on the 

 Carpathia. Looking back it now seems remarkable that 

 so much of the equipment succeeded in crossing England, 

 the Channel and half of France so quickly. In Nevers, 

 we had our first experience in the French lumber busi- 

 ness ; about two thousand feet of lumber was needed for 

 crating material, so a motor truck and a detail of men 

 went out to find it ; after the biggest local stock of lum- 

 ber had been found, there was a long parley through an 

 interpreter with the woman who managed the place ; 

 finally some green, rough white fir, grading about num- 

 ber two common, was found in three-fourths inch and 

 one inch thicknesses ; we paid at the rate of one hundred 

 dollars per thousand feet board measure for the thinner 

 stock and one hundred twenty dollars for the thicker. 



"To meet the most pressing timber needs of the Ameri- 

 can Army, the regiment was split into five parts for 

 work in different parts of France. Two and one-half 

 companies were ordered to the pine forests along the 

 coast in the southwest; two companies were to go into 

 the fir forests of the Vosges Mountains in Eastern 

 France; and a half company was to cut pine in Brittany 

 near the coast in the northwest; and two other com- 

 panies were to work in different parts of Central France. 



