100 years ago in The Saratogian

Thursday, Nov. 21, 1918. A Schenectady girl is recuperating at Saratoga Hospital tonight after the second shooting involving juvenile hunters in as many days in Saratoga County.

Edith Rogers is the daughter of the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in the Electric City. She and her mother have been staying in the Schuylerville home of surrogate court judge William S. Ostrander while Edith recovers from “a recent attack of rheumatism of the heart.”

After entertaining some friends early this evening Edith walks them part of the way home before being felled by “a shot from a small rifle in the hands of one of the village boys.” She’s rushed to the hospital, where Dr. Thomas J. Goodfellow removes “the piece of lead which had badly lacerated the eye ball.”

A 16 year old boy was wounded in the leg last night by shotgun pellets, presumably fired by hunters, on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs.

Wounded Once, Goes Back to Fight

Saratoga County’s Company L, 105th U.S. Infantry regiment, saw heavy fighting at the end of September and in mid-October. Corporal Anthony Etes was wounded on both occasions but lived to tell the tale.

Writing from a military hospital on October 29, Etes explains that he was first hit by shrapnel on September 27, when the 105th stormed the German Hindenburg Line. “A piece of shell splinter about the thickness of a pencil, and about three inches long entered my left leg about half way between my knee and hip,” he recalls.

Etes ended up at a convalescent camp where patients are expected to stay a minimum of ten days. Learning that Company L was “sorely in need of men” he asked to be sent back at once. After appealing directly to the camp commander he rejoined the company on October 19 – “and at 10 o’clock the next morning I was again on the casualty list.

“This time it was a bullet in the right thigh about four inches above the knee….I didn’t know at the time what it was that hit me and never dreamed it was a bullet as the hole was quite large.”

Before surgery, Etes was reluctant to be put under, “but before I knew it one of the nurses had a bag over my face. I took one deep breath and after seeing about $90 worth of fireworks and hearing a few hundred motors going all together, I knew no more. This was my first experience with the dope and I hope it’s the last because I sure was sick when I came to.”

Luckily for Etes, the war ended on November 11.

— Kevin Gilbert