Thursday, September 6, 2012

Frank Brewer at Camp Gordon


Because of it's proportions, you'll really need to click on the image and bring it up in a bigger window to see it well.

The stamp box on the back is in the middle of the card, so I'm fairly certain that it was designed to be folded in half.  But, while there is a message on the back, there is no post mark and no indication that the card was ever stamped.  I'd bet that Frank Brewer, the author, folded the card in half and put it in an envelope for mailing.

"Dear Mother & Dad,  Yesterday there was 6 of us transfered frome the 24 Co to the 157 Depot Brigade.  Here we get good grub and all we want of it.  The rest of are 24 Co. has gone on a hike with rifel and full pack on.

I had to turn in my rifel and pack.  At this camp we have a snap.

I will write what we half to dew latter.  But I am liber to be transfered in any time in site of 3 months.  Cannot tell.

Tell Atkins my new adress.  I was at the rifel range and done some shuting and they put me down as a good shot. Ther are sending some Co to France in 4 weeks time.

If you write to B.B., C.B. or T.B. tell them my new adress.

Your Sun, Frank.

P.S. Did you get my inshurance papers yet."

In a separate section, Frank wrote his address.

"Mr Frank A. Brewer
31st Co. 8 Training Battalion
157 Depot Brigade
Camp Gordon, Ga."

I always love it when I find someone who spells worse than I do.  Interesting card.  Being sent to France?  But World War 1 or World War 2?  It's almost certain that this card was from the first World War.  Being sent to France was how soldiers described being sent to the trenches of World War 1.  Too, I've also found a web site about a young soldier,  serving at Camp Gordon, in the 157 Depot Brigade, in 1918.

Camp Gordon was opened in July 1917, at Chamblee, Georgia, near Atlanta.  It closed after World War 1, and was reopened in 1940.  It became Fort Gordon in 1957 and now trains more soldiers than any other military facility in the United States.

Stone Mountain may not be the largest rock in the world, as noted on the front of the card, but it is pretty big.  The mile from base to summit notation refers to a trail, not the elevation.  Today, Stone Mountain is the site of the world's largest bas relief, depicting  Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.  The Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan worked for years to establish the  confederate monument at Stone Mountain, but it wasn't until the 1960s, in reaction to the civil rights movement, after Stone Mountain had become state property,  that the project got off the ground.  In 1915, the Klan was reestablished, and an  easement form the owner was granted that allowed Stone Mountain to be used, in perpetuity, as a Klan rallying point.

And the caption on the back: "STONE MOUNTAIN, 16 MILES FROM ATLANTA, GA.  The steep side of Stone Mountain has been dedicated to the Confederacy by the U.D.C., and thereon will be carved in relief a stupendous monument of Lee and Jackson at the head of the Confederate Hosts.  Each figure will be approximately 30 feet in height: the horses, cannon, etc. as true to life as possible to be made.  Stone Mountain will stand through the ages an everlasting monument to the Boys of the Confederacy.  (Atlanta Convention Bureau.)"

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