Compiled Individual Military Service Records, WWI 14

Scope and Content:

Series I is comprised of award citations, War Department General Orders, newspaper clippings, photographs, and correspondence, received by North Carolinians during World War I. The North Carolina Historical Commission gathered this evidence by examining various materials. Series I has been broken into the following two subseries: Subseries IA: Citations Awarded to North Carolinians, and Subseries IB: General Orders.

The majority of the documents in Subseries IA are typed excerpts from the General Orders of the War Department (see Subseries IB). These excerpts highlight the acts of North Carolina's military service personnel during World War I. The format of the sketches is consistent throughout subseries IA, containing the following information: title of award; personnel's rank and company; explanatory note of the event; and the reference to the General Order the excerpt is pulled from. For example, the following reference from one of the sketches reads: (G.O. 20, W.D., 1919), which means this particular award was mentioned in General Order (G.O.) 20, from the War Department, published in 1919. Other formats represented in Subseries IA are photocopied news clippings, photographs, and correspondence.
The citations and awards are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the individual. Each service individual's name has been entered in the finding aid as first name, middle initial, last name-in keeping with the manner in which the U.S. military lists service personnel in official records.

Subseries IB is composed of the published booklets that the General Orders of the War Department produced during World War I. These booklets were the originals used by the North Carolina Historical Commission during their war records collection program. Individuals related to North Carolina were excerpted from these orders, then transcribed to separate documents to allow for organization of the information by service individuals' last names (see subseries IA). Subseries IB was organized chronologically, based on the War Department's publication of General Orders. While the numbers of the General Orders vary between each year, the publications were consistently produced in chronological order.

Scope and Content:

Series II contains sets of materials for servicemen born in North Carolina, trained for an extended amount of time in North Carolina, or lived in North Carolina at some point during their lives. The series is alphabetically arranged by last name of the individual, with each folder containing only the materials for one service individual. Some soldiers have extensive materials related to their service history which were collected, such as correspondence to and from family and friends; photographs; news clippings; and brief sketches of a soldier's wartime contributions.

Series II represents the compilation of individual service documentation donated to or obtained by the North Carolina Historical Commission during and after World War I. As a result, some families simply did not participate in the collection project, or provided little documentation about their relatives. This left many North Carolina service individuals' service history out of the compilation of their records by the state during this time. In addition, many items-such as photographs-remain difficult to identify, due to the manner in which names were abbreviated on photographs or documents when written by the donors. Such unidentifiable materials were kept in a miscellaneous folder in this series (see Box 5, Folder 58).

Series II should also be understood as a series that overlaps with Series I and Series IV. The documentation in Series II contains information related to soldiers' awards that returned home after the war, and those who died during their service. In addition, a separate miscellaneous folder houses photocopied news clippings related to various service personnel. There is also a sole service record for a North Carolina African American serviceman's service in the war, that does not fit within Series V (see Box 4 Folder 96).

The folders are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the individual. Each service individual's name has been entered in the finding aid as first name, middle initial, last name-in keeping with the manner in which the U.S. military lists service personnel in official records.

Scope and Content:

Series III consists of a compilation of service records obtained by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), which the DAR bound in two separate volumes. The volumes are separated alphabetically by the title of the DAR local chapter, and the soldiers are listed alphabetically by last name (as they relate to their individual chapters, based on the home towns of the service individuals). 46 Volume 1 contains the records of the DAR chapters "Alexander Martin" to "General Joseph Winston," while Volume 2 contains the records of the DAR chapters "General William Davidson" to "Yadkin River Patriots." By examining the "List of Chapters" in each volume, ten North Carolina DAR chapters are not represented in Series III. A photocopy of the index with notations-created in the mid-twentieth century by a staff member of the State Archives of North Carolina-shows additional information for service individuals, such as their branch of service and town of residence. There are also photographs bound in with the documents themselves. It is unclear whether the document with the information on a service individual corresponds with the photograph of the individual that follows the document, or precedes the document. Also, the old collection description on the adhesive labels adhered to both volumes' spines are no longer valid.

Scope and Content:

Series IV contains documentation on white North Carolinians who died or were killed in action during World War I. In the summer of 1918, the North Carolina Historical Commission determined to compile a Roll of Honor of soldiers from the state who died in service. Series IV includes the Historical Commission forms which were sent to soldiers' next of kin. These forms solicited information regarding the soldiers' date and place of birth; parents' names; education; ancestors who fought in the Civil War (in some cases); and date, place, and circumstances of death. The individual files also contain other documents, such as photographs, original correspondence, and news clippings, detailing other aspects of the service individuals' military life. The folders are arranged in this series alphabetically, based on the last names of the individuals.

Scope and Content:

Series V contains records related to North Carolina African Americans that served from the state and were killed during World War I. In the summer of 1918, the North Carolina Historical Commission determined to compile a Roll of Honor of soldiers from the state who died in service. They decided to create a separate Roll of Honor for black North Carolinians. As part of this, the Historical Commission made efforts to collect war records from black communities throughout the state, where they attempted to work with local community leaders to develop a community collection effort.

The series consists of correspondence related to the collection of Roll or Honor records and news clippings documenting the impact of African Americans in the war. Because of the historical context of the time of collection, this series is relatively small in proportion to the series of materials for white North Carolina service individuals. However, there is valuable information regarding the communities, education, and family life for the communities in which the black soldiers resided at the times of their military service. In addition, there is some correspondence related to the North Carolina Historical Commission's efforts to collect war records from black communities throughout the state.

The series also includes a folder of photocopied news clippings related to African American soldiers, and the events surrounding the men being drafted into service from 1918 to 1920. One of the most important sets of materials in this series is the photograph of Thomas J. Bullock, who had served as the principal of the Williston Industrial School in Wilmington, N.C., prior to the war. This portrait of Bullock in his military uniform is one of the most used portraits of an African American WWI serviceman in the state of North Carolina (see Box 7, Folder 80).

Scope and Content:

Series VI contains miscellaneous items related to a variety of topics collected by the North Carolina Historical Commission as part of its Roll of Honor collection project. For example, there is a folder of correspondence between R. B. House, North Carolina War Records Collector, and Peter Charles Harris, the Adjutant General of the U.S. War Department, related to the collection by North Carolina of service award records for North Carolinians (see Box 7, Folder 96). There are also materials which document those who received the Medal of Honor; North Carolina men who received the Medal of Honor and Merit from the Aero Club of America; and North Carolinians awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

There are two folders documenting those North Carolinians who received the Distinguished Service Cross. One folder is organized alphabetically by soldier's last name (see Box 8 Folder 2), and the other folder is organized alphabetically by the soldier's county of residence (see Box 8 Folder 3). There is also information related to citations earned from foreign governments, miscellaneous notes regarding various military citations, and North Carolina men who served in the First Division of the U.S. Army.

Scope and Content:

Series VII contains notecards kept as a card catalog by the North Carolina Historical Commission between 1918 and 1926. These cards, referred to at the time as the "Dead and Wounded Cards"; with the names and home addresses for wounded North Carolina soldiers; those missing in action; those who died in the continental United States; those who died in overseas service; and notations on incorrect addresses for soldiers and their families. The cards were used to keep and update information on soldiers killed in action, as part of the Historical Commission's efforts to create a Roll of Honor.

However, a large amount of the information on the cards is incorrect, incomplete, or was never updated during the period when the cards were used. Due to the nature in which news traveled during and immediately after WWI, some service individuals were reported as dead or missing, who were in fact in foreign hospitals or on occupation duty deep in Germany or Belgium. Because of this, many of the notecards have information marked out and replaced. It is unknown how much of the information is reliable. The cards are a relic of a records collection attempt by the state of North Carolina, one of the first efforts of the state to chronicle its dead and wounded.

Scope and Content:

Series VIII consists of oversized materials which were originally folded and stored in regular file folders within the collection. The oversized items have been arranged by size within the corresponding size of archival storage boxes and acid-free folders. All of these oversized items are oversized citations for North Carolina service individuals, sent in by the service members or their families after the war.