By Mary K. Hamner
Journal Correspondent

Jesse Radcliff shot for desertion? Not so, say nephews Tom and Jim Radcliff of California and Oregon. The benefit of the story of this World War One soldier in the November 2007 Piney Woods Journal was that contact with his family was made through a cousin living in the Castor area. Tom and Jim Radcliff say their Uncle Jesse died of influenza in the flu epidemic while he was stationed in Camp Cody, Deming, New Mexico. In the latter part of October 1918, flu cases at Camp Cody had surged to 2,737 with 556 pneumonia patients and 128 total deaths. To read about the devastation of the Flu Epidemic of 1918 access www.zianet.com/kromeke/campcody/hst12.htm

Shot at Dawn, a book written about military executions in World War One, by Julian Putkowski & Julian Syker says that "of 24 United States deserters sentenced to death between April 1917 and November 1918, none were actually shot." For more information access Shot at Dawn WebPages, or read the galvanizing story of World War One executions and the names of the 306 soldiers executed by firing squads. Radcliff's name is not on the list.

Jesse Radcliff Jr. was born October 5, 1898 in Zwolle, Sabine Parish, Louisiana and had seven brothers and sisters. He enlisted on August 28, 1917 in the U. S. Army, 1st Minnesota, which was changed to the 135th U. S. Infantry at Fort Snelling, Minnesota on December 19, 1917.

He was later transferred to Camp Cody at Deming, New Mexico where he died. In The Silent Enemy: The Flu Epidemic of 1918, C.A. Gustafson quotes Patty Israel, who as a girl lived with her parents on Pine Street in Deming. "I remember so well," Israel says. "The soldiers and the band would come down Pine with caisson and casket in their funeral march to the railroad station." Gustafson goes on to say that that the Spanish Influenza epidemic killed more than 10 times as many Americans as those who died on the battlefields of World War One.

In 1918, the body of the twenty-year-old World War One soldier was given to the custody of his family and traveled the distance from his military encampment to the Bienville Parish Cemetery where he is buried. Radcliff had many relatives in the Castor and Ebenezer area at that time. The names of Murphy, Rigdon, Koonce, and others wind in and out of his family genealogy. Coincidentally, nephews Jim and Tom Radcliff's great-great grandmother is the great-great aunt of this writer. Tom Radcliff has photographs of the funeral at Ebenezer Cemetery.

Attempts to nail down Radcliff's military records had been unsuccessful after several attempts. A 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO, 1973 destroyed millions of records. Among them were records of Army veterans discharged, deceased, or retired between November 1, 1912, and December 31, 1959.

Who can know how the local story got so distorted, but for over 89 years a shadow has hung over the young soldier's grave. Folklorists sharing the sad story passed down to them had no malicious intent. Most were not even born when young Radcliff died.

The message on Jesse Radcliff's grave monument clutches at my heart. Perhaps the story of November 2007 served a purpose in that it allowed us to find truths. It is my sincere desire that these truths will cast away any dishonor and remove forever the shadow hanging over his grave. All evidence tells me that Jesse R. Radcliff died honorably as a soldier in the service of his country. He was not a deserter!

Back