Charles White Whittlesey

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Charles White Whittlesey
January 20, 1884 – November 26, 1921

Charles White Whittlesey
Nickname "Galloping Charlie"
Place of birth Florence, Wisconsin
Allegiance U.S. Army
Years of service 1917-1918
Rank Lieutenant Colonel
Unit 308th Infantry, 77th Division
Battles/wars World War I
Awards Medal of Honor
Other work Attorney

Charles White Whittlesey (January 20, 1884 – November 26, 1921) was a Medal of Honor recipient who is notable for leading the "Lost Battalion" in the Argonne Forest during World War I.

Whittlesey was born in Florence, Wisconsin, but moved with his family in 1894 to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he graduated from high school. He enrolled at Williams College, graduating in 1905. He was voted the "third brightest man" in his class, and because of his aristocratic manner was nicknamed "Count." He earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1908. Soon after graduating he formed a law partnerhip with his Williams classmate J. Bayard Pruyn in New York City. Influenced by his friend and roommate at Williams, Max Eastman, Whittlesey spent several years as a member of the American Socialist Party before resigning his membership in disgust over what he viewed as the movement's increasing extremism.

A month after the United States entered World War I in 1917, Whittlesey took a leave from his partnership and enlisted in the Army. He shipped for France as a captain in the Army's 77th division, also known as the "Metropolitan Division," because it was made up largely of New York City men, principally from the polyglot Lower East side. Its members spoke 42 different languages or dialects.

By September, 1917, Whittlesey was commissioned a major. On the morning of October 2, the 77th was ordered to move forward against a heavily fortified German line as part of a massive American attack in the Meuse-Argonne region. Whittlesey commanded a mixed battalion of 554 soldiers, who advanced forward through a ravine. Because the units on their flanks failed to make headway, Whittlesey's troops were cut off from their supply lines the next day, pinned down by German fire from the surrounding 200-foot high bluffs. The following days were a living hell to Whittlesey and his men, as they were without food or water. Some of the men had never thrown a live grenade, but for four days, they resisted snipers and attacks by waves of German troops armed with hand grenades, and in one incident, flame throwers. During this period war correspondents seized on the incident and dubbed the unit the "Lost Battalion."

On October 7, the Germans sent forward a blindfolded American POW carrying a white flag, with a message in perfect English: "The suffering of your wounded men can be heard over here in the German lines, and we are appealing to your humane sentiments to stop. A white flag shown by one of your men will tell us that you agree with these conditions. Please treat Private Lowell R. Hollingshead [the bearer] as an honorable man. He is quite a soldier. We envy you. The German commanding officer." Whittlesey's alleged reply was "You go to hell!", although he later denied saying it, saying a response wasn't necessary. He ordered white sheets that had been placed as signals for Allied aircraft to drop supplies to be pulled in so they would not be mistaken for surrender signals. That night, a relief force arrived and the Germans retreated. Of the original 554 troops involved in the advance, 107 had been killed, 63 were missing and 190 were wounded. Only 194 were able to walk out of the ravine.

Whittlesey received a battlefield promotion to lieutenant-colonel and returned to the United States as a war hero, receiving on December 6, 1918, one of the first three Medals of Honor awarded for valor in the war. (One of the other two went to his second-in-command , George McMurtry.) He tried to return to his career, working as an attorney at the Wall Street firm of White and Case, but found himself in constant demand for speeches, parades, and honorary degrees. The pressure wore on him; he complained to a friend: "Not a day goes by but I hear from some of my old outfit, usually about some sorrow or misfortune. I cannot bear it much more."

In November 1921, he booked passage to Havana aboard the Toloa, a United Fruit Company ship. On the first night out of New York,November 26, 1921, after dining with the captain and leaving the smoking room in good spirits, he disappeared. He is presumed to have jumped overboard, committing suicide. Before leaving New York, he prepared a will leaving his property to his mother. He also left a series of letters in his cabin addressed to relatives and friends. He left the famous German letter asking for surrender to McMurtry.

In 2001, U.S. television channel A&E made a television movie called The Lost Battalion based on accounts of the battle. In that portrayal Major Whittlesey was played by Rick Schroder.[1]

[edit] Further reading

Slotkin, Richard. Lost Battalions; The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality (2005)

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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