Mount Savage In The Great War

After the United States declared war against Germany on April 6, 1917, and joined Britain, France, and Russia in World War I, many Mount Savage men left the mines and railroad to enlist as infantrymen, or doughboys, in Company G of the Maryland National Guard. They went to Alabama for training in September 1917 and were deployed to the Meuse-Argonne sector of eastern France the following June. The term doughboy grew from the 1916 service of American foot soldiers on the Mexican border, where white adobe dust from unpaved roads led mounted troops to call them adobes or dobies, a name that became doughboys before many were sent to Europe. Of sixteen doughboys pictured in 1917, seven have been identified, including Lloyd J. Hartman, Colen Graham, William Bill Rice, Frank Crowe, David Crump, George Witt, and Edward Gears, and all served in France and returned to Mount Savage. The 1918 flu pandemic caused deaths among American troops from Mount Savage, including Hartman, James H. Shaller, and Walter H. Green in France, while J. Edward Carney, Joseph B. Hammers, and Lawrence B. Miller died in stateside training camps in fall 1918. Private Henry Earl Snyder was killed in action on September 26, 1918, in Meuse Argonne, France. On Sunday, August 18, 1917, families and friends dedicated an Honor Roll board listing the names of 147 men and two Army nurses, Martha L. Mont and Mary Angela Boyle, who served in World War I. By 1923, a concrete Memorial Pedestrian Bridge had been built to honor Mount Savage's men and women who served in the war, and a bronze plaque listing the names of the dead was added in 1929.

Mount Savage, Maryland · United States