| ____________________________________________________________________________________ The Official Home Page of JAMES RADA, JR. ____________________________________________________________________________________ "History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions." - Voltaire ____________________________________________________________________________________ |
Check back regularly for new articles about the
stories of America or ask to be added to our mailing
list to be notified when the site is updated by
contacting the webmaster.
stories of America or ask to be added to our mailing
list to be notified when the site is updated by
contacting the webmaster.
 |
January 15, 2012
Watch for a new e-book to be released next
month. The Race was a limited-edition chapbook
released in 2003 set in the world of the Canawlers.
You'll be able to download it from Amazon, Barnes
& Noble, Smashwords and more.
November 20, 2011
The first book signing for Battlefield Angels in
Cumberland went well. At this point there are two
more lined up:
book for a Christmas gift.
Watch for a new e-book to be released next
month. The Race was a limited-edition chapbook
released in 2003 set in the world of the Canawlers.
You'll be able to download it from Amazon, Barnes
& Noble, Smashwords and more.
November 20, 2011
The first book signing for Battlefield Angels in
Cumberland went well. At this point there are two
more lined up:
- Dec. 10, Main Street Books in Frostburg,
MD from noon to 2 p.m. - Dec. 17, Constellation Books in
Reisterstown, MD from 3 to 6 p.m.
book for a Christmas gift.
| Visit James Rada's blog on historical topics called Time Will Tell. |
More than 8,700 Confederate Army veterans lived to attend the 50th anniversary
reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913. They camped on the field where General
George Pickett and his men had made their brave charge more than mile across an open
field into the cannons on the Union Army in July 1863.
Veterans of that charge would have been among the old men attending the reunion.
They would have looked at the field covered with tents where the veterans camped
during the reunion and remembered that the ground had been covered with bodies 50
years earlier. In that desperate charge, many of the unprotected soldiers had been felled
by bullets.
Had the veterans returned five years later, they still would have seen tents on the field
where so much Confederate blood had been shed. They would have also seen
something that would have given them pause, for had Pickett’s men had it in 1863
rumbling across that open field as it was in 1918, Pickett’s Charge would have
succeeded.
Tanks in War
Though the idea of a tank had been around since Leonardo da Vinci conceived of an
armored wagon, the idea of using a tank in war didn’t come about until 1903, and then,
it still took until 1915 to develop a practical model. With the start of World War I and
the United States’ entry into the conflict, the U.S. Army began to look for a way to
integrate tanks into the service.
The Camp with No Name
An unnamed U.S. Army camp was first established on the Gettysburg battlefield in
May 1917. The reason it had no name, according to the 1918 Report of the National
Military Park Commission, was because “we believe it is the practice when the
location is at a conspicuous place on United States land, notably battle fields, such as
Gettysburg.” The initial location was part of the Codori farm and land where the
Round Top branch of the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad was located. The
railroad was one of the reasons the army chose the location. It made it easy to move
men and equipment directly into and out of the camp.
The camp soon grew as more and more soldiers and supplies were shipped to the
camp. Each regiment had 15 or 16 wooden barracks that needed to be constructed.
These were not insulated barracks or even fully completed. This temporariness of the
construction showed that the camp would not be suitable as a winter quarters for men.
Even though the land where General Pickett had charged would soon be trampled by
soldiers once again, the U.S. Army was not ignorant of the historical significance of the
park land. In a letter to the Gettysburg Battlefield Commission, the commander of the
61st U.S. Infantry wrote, “…every effort will be made by myself to see that the
enlisted men of the 61st infantry do not molest in any way, the monuments, trees,
shrubbery, woods, etc. of the Gettysburg National Park.’”
As the soldiers were shipped into the camp, three regiments of infantry were housed
on the east side of Emmitsburg Road and one regiment was on the west side. An
additional regiment was housed on the west side of the road along with a bakery,
hospital and motor ambulance pool. Two more regiments were housed near where the
Gettysburg Recreation Park is located.
Water and sewer lines were constructed to deal with the sanitary issues thousands of
men would cause. The number of men at the camp grew to 8,000 at its peak, which
was roughly the same population as Gettysburg at the time. The men trained through
the summer, but by the end of November only a small detachment of men remained
because the camp was not suitable to house soldiers through the cold Pennsylvania
winters.
Camp Colt
The army camp didn’t stay deserted for too long. It was re-established on March 6,
1918, with Capt. Dwight Eisenhower commanding. However, this wasn’t going to be
the same camp that had been run in 1917. It was going to be a training site for America’
s newest weapon, the tank.
“The Tank Corps was new. There were no precedents except in basic training and I
was the only officer in the command. Now I really began to learn about responsibility,”
Eisenhower wrote in At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends.
Running the camp was Eisenhower’s first independent command. He was given the job
of training soldiers to run a piece of equipment that hadn’t been tested in battle yet and
to make matters worse, he had to conduct this training without any tanks.
The new camp was named for Samuel Colt, the inventor of the Colt Peacemaker, and
the camp was called Camp Colt. Equipment for tank training was moved from Camp
Meade in Maryland to Gettysburg where Camp Colt occupied 176 acres of the Codori
farm, 10 acres of the Smith farm and 6 acres of Bryan House place. Much of the
current Colt Park housing development was also part of the camp.
The training program Eisenhower developed had soldiers practicing with machine guns
mounted on flatbed trucks instead of tanks. They learned to repair engines and to use
Morse Code. “At times, HQ entertained English officers who had early war experience
with the first English constructed tanks on French battle fields. They came to advise on
training. Then again, a few members of Congress would arrive to get a peep at the one
and only tin can of a tank which was used for partial training of tankers, especially
those small men, who could easily climb into its interior. A 200-pound man just
couldn't,” recalled George Goshaw in a 1954 Gettysburg Times article. He had served
at the camp under Eisenhower.
Each time a call for tankers to join the fighting in Europe came, battalions of men were
moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they boarded transports to Europe. There,
they joined the fighting climbing inside of real tanks and facing real bullets and mortars.
The camp did manage to get two Renault tanks to use by the time that summer arrived.
Over the nine months the camp existed more than 9,000 men were trained to fight in
the war.
By October, many of the men had been transferred elsewhere because there were no
suitable winter quarters. However, worse than winter happened in the fall of 1918.
Spanish Flu swept across the world killing an estimated 50 million people, including
160 at Camp Colt, according to the Gettysburg Star and Sentinel. At one point during
the month, the bodies literally began to pile up. The dead soldiers were taken to the
Grand Army of the Republic Hall in town until arrangements could be made to ship
their bodies home. As each body was taken to the depot, it was given a military escort
through Gettysburg.
Closing the Camp
As the flu abated, so did the war. The armistice ending World War I was signed on
November 11, 1918. “When November 11th came upon us, Ike and his entire staff
were saddened, knowing full well that they were cheated out of actual battle service,”
Goshaw recalled. “From then on, there was a let down on training and the necessary
daily duties.”
The orders to close Camp Colt came on November 17. Then remaining men were sent
to Camp Dix in New Jersey for their final discharge.
Veterans of the camp soon began organizing reunions in Gettysburg, although there
was no longer a camp to visit. The first reunion in the 1940’s was marked with the
planting of the large pine tree on the east side of Emmitsburg Road south of the
entrance to the old visitor’s center. The tree was planted in remembrance of the
tankers’ fallen comrades. You can still see it today along with a commemorative plaque
summarizing the history of Camp Colt.
reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913. They camped on the field where General
George Pickett and his men had made their brave charge more than mile across an open
field into the cannons on the Union Army in July 1863.
Veterans of that charge would have been among the old men attending the reunion.
They would have looked at the field covered with tents where the veterans camped
during the reunion and remembered that the ground had been covered with bodies 50
years earlier. In that desperate charge, many of the unprotected soldiers had been felled
by bullets.
Had the veterans returned five years later, they still would have seen tents on the field
where so much Confederate blood had been shed. They would have also seen
something that would have given them pause, for had Pickett’s men had it in 1863
rumbling across that open field as it was in 1918, Pickett’s Charge would have
succeeded.
Tanks in War
Though the idea of a tank had been around since Leonardo da Vinci conceived of an
armored wagon, the idea of using a tank in war didn’t come about until 1903, and then,
it still took until 1915 to develop a practical model. With the start of World War I and
the United States’ entry into the conflict, the U.S. Army began to look for a way to
integrate tanks into the service.
The Camp with No Name
An unnamed U.S. Army camp was first established on the Gettysburg battlefield in
May 1917. The reason it had no name, according to the 1918 Report of the National
Military Park Commission, was because “we believe it is the practice when the
location is at a conspicuous place on United States land, notably battle fields, such as
Gettysburg.” The initial location was part of the Codori farm and land where the
Round Top branch of the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad was located. The
railroad was one of the reasons the army chose the location. It made it easy to move
men and equipment directly into and out of the camp.
The camp soon grew as more and more soldiers and supplies were shipped to the
camp. Each regiment had 15 or 16 wooden barracks that needed to be constructed.
These were not insulated barracks or even fully completed. This temporariness of the
construction showed that the camp would not be suitable as a winter quarters for men.
Even though the land where General Pickett had charged would soon be trampled by
soldiers once again, the U.S. Army was not ignorant of the historical significance of the
park land. In a letter to the Gettysburg Battlefield Commission, the commander of the
61st U.S. Infantry wrote, “…every effort will be made by myself to see that the
enlisted men of the 61st infantry do not molest in any way, the monuments, trees,
shrubbery, woods, etc. of the Gettysburg National Park.’”
As the soldiers were shipped into the camp, three regiments of infantry were housed
on the east side of Emmitsburg Road and one regiment was on the west side. An
additional regiment was housed on the west side of the road along with a bakery,
hospital and motor ambulance pool. Two more regiments were housed near where the
Gettysburg Recreation Park is located.
Water and sewer lines were constructed to deal with the sanitary issues thousands of
men would cause. The number of men at the camp grew to 8,000 at its peak, which
was roughly the same population as Gettysburg at the time. The men trained through
the summer, but by the end of November only a small detachment of men remained
because the camp was not suitable to house soldiers through the cold Pennsylvania
winters.
Camp Colt
The army camp didn’t stay deserted for too long. It was re-established on March 6,
1918, with Capt. Dwight Eisenhower commanding. However, this wasn’t going to be
the same camp that had been run in 1917. It was going to be a training site for America’
s newest weapon, the tank.
“The Tank Corps was new. There were no precedents except in basic training and I
was the only officer in the command. Now I really began to learn about responsibility,”
Eisenhower wrote in At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends.
Running the camp was Eisenhower’s first independent command. He was given the job
of training soldiers to run a piece of equipment that hadn’t been tested in battle yet and
to make matters worse, he had to conduct this training without any tanks.
The new camp was named for Samuel Colt, the inventor of the Colt Peacemaker, and
the camp was called Camp Colt. Equipment for tank training was moved from Camp
Meade in Maryland to Gettysburg where Camp Colt occupied 176 acres of the Codori
farm, 10 acres of the Smith farm and 6 acres of Bryan House place. Much of the
current Colt Park housing development was also part of the camp.
The training program Eisenhower developed had soldiers practicing with machine guns
mounted on flatbed trucks instead of tanks. They learned to repair engines and to use
Morse Code. “At times, HQ entertained English officers who had early war experience
with the first English constructed tanks on French battle fields. They came to advise on
training. Then again, a few members of Congress would arrive to get a peep at the one
and only tin can of a tank which was used for partial training of tankers, especially
those small men, who could easily climb into its interior. A 200-pound man just
couldn't,” recalled George Goshaw in a 1954 Gettysburg Times article. He had served
at the camp under Eisenhower.
Each time a call for tankers to join the fighting in Europe came, battalions of men were
moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they boarded transports to Europe. There,
they joined the fighting climbing inside of real tanks and facing real bullets and mortars.
The camp did manage to get two Renault tanks to use by the time that summer arrived.
Over the nine months the camp existed more than 9,000 men were trained to fight in
the war.
By October, many of the men had been transferred elsewhere because there were no
suitable winter quarters. However, worse than winter happened in the fall of 1918.
Spanish Flu swept across the world killing an estimated 50 million people, including
160 at Camp Colt, according to the Gettysburg Star and Sentinel. At one point during
the month, the bodies literally began to pile up. The dead soldiers were taken to the
Grand Army of the Republic Hall in town until arrangements could be made to ship
their bodies home. As each body was taken to the depot, it was given a military escort
through Gettysburg.
Closing the Camp
As the flu abated, so did the war. The armistice ending World War I was signed on
November 11, 1918. “When November 11th came upon us, Ike and his entire staff
were saddened, knowing full well that they were cheated out of actual battle service,”
Goshaw recalled. “From then on, there was a let down on training and the necessary
daily duties.”
The orders to close Camp Colt came on November 17. Then remaining men were sent
to Camp Dix in New Jersey for their final discharge.
Veterans of the camp soon began organizing reunions in Gettysburg, although there
was no longer a camp to visit. The first reunion in the 1940’s was marked with the
planting of the large pine tree on the east side of Emmitsburg Road south of the
entrance to the old visitor’s center. The tree was planted in remembrance of the
tankers’ fallen comrades. You can still see it today along with a commemorative plaque
summarizing the history of Camp Colt.
| Featured Article for January |
This page was last updated January 2012.
All rights reserved.
Contact the webmaster.
All rights reserved.
Contact the webmaster.
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
| Download a FREE ebook |
Kuskurza is a free ebook that contains two
novellas set in the world of the Hopi Indian
creation myths that will also be the setting
for an upcoming full-length novel called
Kachina. Check it out on the catalog page.
novellas set in the world of the Hopi Indian
creation myths that will also be the setting
for an upcoming full-length novel called
Kachina. Check it out on the catalog page.
| Tanks for the Memories: Camp Command Brought Eisenhower to Gettysburg for the First Time |
