100 years ago in The Saratogian
Sunday, Dec. 23, 1917
A last-minute arrival of Christmas spirit in the War Department slightly increases the number of Saratoga County soldiers who’ve come home for the holiday this weekend, The Saratogian reports.
Citing strained transportation resources, the government had previously ruled that only five percent of any unit could get holiday furloughs. Late last week the number was increased to 15%, which allowed 27 men from Company H of the 303rd U.S. Infantry, stationed at Camp Devens in Ayer MA, to go home for Christmas.
One of those who’ve come home to Saratoga Springs is Corporal Francis J. Sullivan, a Saratogian reporter drafted last summer. He was selected by the company captain because he’d remained in camp on Thanksgiving, when most other troops had been allowed to go home. Writing for tomorrow’s paper, Sullivan describes the process by which the other lucky men were chosen.
Before the order allowing extra men to leave, Captain Benjamin decided that the only fair way to select seven soldiers was by lot. John M. Gorman of Saratoga Springs was one of the lucky men to get a ticket home, while three others shocked the Captain by announcing that they’d made deals to sell their holiday passes for sums ranging from $35 to $50. That’s like paying up to $900 for a ticket in 2017.
“So you’ve sold your Christmas passes,” Sullivan recalls the captain telling the men, “Well, a man that would sell a pass to go home Christmas would hock his other’s wedding ring. Give back that money and get out of here quick, before I lose my temper and take the passes away from you entirely.”
The next day, Benjamin got the order allowing him to pick fourteen more men. He chose Sullivan and two others who’d stayed in camp on Thanksgiving, then invited anyone who wanted to go home to make his case for one of the eleven remaining passes to a committee of himself and two lieutenants.
“The boys who thought they had a good claim on a pass then lined up and one by one entered the sanctum sanctorum and stated their case before the three officers,” Sullivan writes, “No sitting of the Court of Appeals ever had more of solemnity or weightiness about it.”
Most of the men had good arguments for going home. “This Solomon job doesn’t appeal to me,” Benjamin said. After two hours of deliberations, he tells the men, “We’ve done the best we could. We may have made a few mistakes, but if so, they were not intentional.” Benjamin himself will spend the holiday in Ayer.