100 years ago in The Saratogian

Saturday, Sept. 28, 1918. “Dope it out who he is, for they will not let us write names,” wrote Daniel A. Moriarty of Saratoga County’s Company L, 105th U.S. Infantry, in telling a friend that one of his comrades was killed in action.

Writing on September 6, Moriarty gave one clue: “His father drives an express wagon, and he lives north of the Textile.” From that, a Saratogian reporter deduces that the fallen soldier is George H. Whitney, whose parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick A. Whitney, live on Covel Avenue. The Whitneys have not yet received any notification from the federal government.

Whitney would be the first soldier of Company L known to have been killed in action in Europe. Despite that, Moriarty tells Saratoga Springs police superintendent James H. King that “We have been extremely lucky on our tricks in [the trenches] and have lost very few men, whereas the Huns [the Germans] have paid very dearly for the few of us that they got.

“Our last trick was very disagreeable. It rained for four days and nights, and the water and mud was up to your knees, but all of the boys took it in good part, and what spite they had they took out on Jerry (as we call the Hun), and I guess we had some stored up.

“I hear that there is a rumor that we were wiped out, and I wish that you would deny it, for we are far from it – having only twenty-three casualties killed, wounded and gassed, so you can see that we are not so bad off.”

While Moriarty isn’t allowed to name the dead, he informs King that “Jim Lockwood is in the finest of health” and that “Walter Lindsay is feeling great.” Optimistically, he writes that he “Would not be surprised to hear of this thing coming to an end very shortly now, as all nations have got the Boche on the run and it looks like they are going to keep him going until he gets to Berlin.”

However, Moriarty reminds King, “You no doubt have read what Sherman said about war. Well, my opinion is that he was very, very mild in his statement.”

Mayor Pettee First Liberty Bond Buyer

Today is the start of the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign to raise money for the U.S. war effort through the sale of Liberty Bonds. Saratoga Springs mayor Harry E. Pettee is out of town on vacation, but left instructions to make sure he was the first Saratogian to subscribe to the Loan by purchasijng $10,000 worth of bonds in his name this morning.

— Kevin Gilbert