Three weeks after President Woodrow Wilson's 1917 declaration of war on Germany, eighteen year-old McCabe Cooley journeyed from the tiny hamlet of Lucerne, Missouri, the family's home for four generations, and enlisted into the 3rd Infantry of the Missouri National Guard at St. Louis. Five months later, the Guard's two regiments were reorganized as the 140th Infantry, an arm of the 35th Division of the United States Army. Just days after that, Cabe, as he was known to his family, was joined by his older brother, William Allison Cooley. They trained together in Wyoming and fought shoulder-to-shoulder during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Other than a short letter William wrote to a cousin in August 1918 and letters written to the family by their regimental chaplain, there is no extant family record of the months the brothers were at war with the world. However, by interweaving the narratives of other warriors, we can begin to know something of their experiences as ordinary foot soldiers in one of the deadliest military campaigns known to history.

Evan Alexander Edwards, the chaplain of the 140th, was taken prisoner by the Germans just before the armistice and released two days later.² His history of the regiment was published in 1920. William S. Triplet, a sergeant in D Company, kept a detailed diary during his time with the same outfit. From this, he wrote A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne, one of three memoirs he would publish. Embedded journalist and war correspondent, Clair Kenamore, published a detailed chronicle of the 35th Division in 1919. And Charles B. Hoyt, a private in the 139th Field Hospital, provided yet another history of the division that same year. These works form the basis for the following.

The 35th Division was comprised of soldiers from Missouri and Kansas. Chaplain Edwards wrote that these men "showed the finest physical and mental standard" and displayed "a strength, a purpose, a power, coming from the disciplined combination of a large number of strong men."³ Clair Kenamore describes the Midwesterners as having "the vim and enthusiasm of restless youth, and the brain and brawn of midland Americans. They were the pushing, boisterous products of a smiling, sunny land."⁴ This image of heroic young men at arms would be sorely tested during and after the bloodiest war the world had yet seen.

When McCabe joined in April 1917, his unit, then the 3rd Infantry of the Missouri Guard, was deployed at Kansas City to guard bridges and train terminals. The 3rd Battalion, to which the Cooley boys were eventually assigned, spent that summer at Fort Riley, Kansas protecting the construction of Camp Funston. On October 13, the regiment departed by train to Camp Doniphan in Wyoming where they met up with the Missouri 6th Infantry, the other half of the future 140th.⁵ Sergeant Triplet, himself attached to the 6th, had trained at Nevada, Missouri. He describes his journey to Doniphan:

The principal diversion of our warriors en route was engaging in sprightly conversations with the teenage females who were swarming on the station platforms at every whistle-stop. When we paused at length to let eastbound traffic by, names and addresses of future pen pals were exchanged. Some of the more daring and gymnastic lads even achieved a few kisses with the taller girls by having a couple friends clamp onto their legs while they overbalanced through the car windows. Corporal Manning, our Don Juan, finished the trip a clear winner with a list of nineteen lovelies whom he had sworn to love, cherish, and write to daily.⁶

The scene is reminiscent of any number of Hollywood movies. These "warriors," as Triplet calls them, who might have paraded the streets to the tune of "Over There" — which had already been recorded at least twice that year — were about to embark on a grand overseas adventure to fight the much-hated and maligned "Hun." Never mind that the war had already inflicted hundreds of thousands of casualties at Verdun, the Somme, and Gallipoli. That some of these men would not return was certainly taken for granted, but it likely never occurred to anyone that a huge percentage of them would come home horribly maimed.

Eventually assigned to the Machine Gun Company, the brothers trained with the nearly thirty thousand men of the 35th Division at Doniphan, which Kenamore describes as being "in a dry valley surrounded by mountains."⁷ The entire division was initially sheltered in tents without stoves. "Cold weather came," wrote Kenamore, "with a fiendish wind which swept down out of the hills, and there was considerable sickness in camp. The base hospital was not completed, and facilities for caring for the sick were poor."⁸ Hoyt provides a more detailed description:

Hospital conditions of the camp were inadequate during the first months. Men suspected of diphtheria were placed in the same wards with certified cases. Refuse and decay matter was thrown down the slope of the hill at the Old Post Hospital, allowed to rot there, and be carried back by the winds into the wards where patients lay. At the Isolation Camp mumps cases were compelled to stand guard duty at all hours of night and to work as kitchen police while their faces were still swollen.⁹

The camp, Hoyt explains, "lacked everything but dust." Soldiers were "sent to drill or hike under a scorching sun with equally scorching sands underfoot."¹⁰ Instruction in the use of grenades and bayonets were provided by English and French veterans.¹¹ Seventy-five men were taught to read and write at a camp school. One soldier from Company G regularly cut class: "Hell Chaplain," he told Edwards, "I'm going over there to shoot Germans, not to write letters to 'em."¹²

In April 1918, after seven months of training at Camp Doniphan, the division boarded trains to Camp Mills on Long Island where they spent a a week in mud and cold then ferried across the river to Hoboken. The very next day the 140th boarded the Australian freighter Shropshire, one of a flotilla that carried the whole of the 35th Division, and set sail for England.¹³ As a testament to the nature of their experience, the land-loving Midwesterners dubbed the ship the Slopjar. One Missourian hated the voyage so much that he pledged that on his return from France he would purchase a farm and a team of mules, drain any large pond he found on his property, and would never again venture farther than the "cross roads store."¹⁴ "The convoy," Hoyt writes,

...passed down the submarine-infested waters of the Irish Sea, with Scotland's hills to be seen on the left and Ireland on the right. The voyage had been rough. The submarine had been a thing of constant peril. Land and the Spratt's Dog Food signs of Liverpool, when they loomed up May 7, were welcomed with cheers.¹⁵

After disembarking at Liverpool, the division was immediately marched to the railroad station where they "secretly poured into a secret toy train that secretly scuttled across the green landscape like scared rabbits."¹⁶ The English countryside, Hoyt writes, appeared as if "laid out by ruler and mathematics."¹⁷ By the following evening, they crossed the English Channel accompanied by an airplane, disembarking at the wharves of La Havre, France the next morning. Over the next two days the troops were given gas masks and their antiquated Springfield rifles were replaced by British Enfields.

The Americans struggled to get along with their British counterparts. "It is almost impossible to make Missourians and Kansans drink tea for breakfast," wrote Kenamore.¹⁸ But Hoyt confides that although the two camps would curse to one another's back, "they would meet, as individuals, curse the Huns and exchange cigarettes."¹⁹ The British may not have been the boys' cup of tea but, explains Edwards, they did like the Australians who "are not unlike Western Americans in appearance, and have that same free and offensive manner of which we are so proud."²⁰

Triplet sums up the stay at La Havre as simply "two bad days," and on May 11 the troops were again loaded onto trains. That they were packed in at the ratio of forty troops to eight horses was advertised on the sides of the boxcars:²¹

Hommes – 40       Chevaux – 8

Although there were no lights, they quickly discovered "evidence of previous service."²² After two days of decidedly unhygienic travel, the 140th spent a couple of days at Eu ("whichever way you pronounce it is wrong," says Edwards) and then marched ten miles to Gamaches where they spent the next several weeks training in the trenches with the British.²³

The soldiers received their first pay since Camp Doniphan on June 5. "With a quarter-year of pent-up deviltry and pockets full of francs," Triplet writes, "the Thirty-fifth Division promptly got drunk."²⁴ But the whole lot of them were called to arms at two a.m., and by 7:45 on the 6th, with packs weighing 70 to 75 pounds, Triplet's company gathered in the middle of Eu.²⁵ "Our march through Clais to Critot," writes Edwards, "was a strenuous one."²⁶ Triplet calls it "the most grueling march" of his life.²⁷ Yet being "neither fit nor sober," they marched through the hot day, broke for lunch at noon, and at ten p.m. "fell out for supper and a nap."²⁸ Back on the road at two in the morning, the regiment reached its destination by about ten that night. But they weren't done. After a single day of rest they were again ushered onto trains that were "smaller, dirtier and slower" than those that had taken them to Eu. The frantic pace continued.²⁹ Hoyt explains that from the train the soldiers could see "women in the fields, who stopped in their work as the soldiers passed. Old men, bent on carrying out at home the work of the young men who were now at the front, leaned on their scythes and looked with tired eyes at the passing train."³⁰

Passing through Rouen, the outskirts of Paris, and the Champagne district, the regiment reached Pouxeux on the 12th of June. There they were issued steel helmets and "overseas caps," which, Edwards suggests, were designed by a drunken "pro-German sympathizer."³¹ On the 23rd, the 140th was transported via lorry to the picturesque town of Thann. "We're in Alsace now," the mess skipper reportedly told Triplet.³² Chaplain Edwards liked the storks of Thann that "in spite of the shelling, at eventide, perched on a chimney [and were] outlined against the sky."³³ Triplet enjoyed the people who "behaved as though war was the normal state of affairs."³⁴

The Machine Gun Company (presumably along with the Cooley brothers) was "among the first of the Division to go into the front line trenches" and departed for Bitschweiler.³⁵ The remainder of the regiment stayed at Thann for a week before being "withdrawn to prevent further shelling of the historic old town."³⁶ The division, explains Edwards, was so well camouflaged during their subsequent march that no one knew where they were — except the Germans who left behind a sign at one location that read "Welcome 35th Division. Let's be friends."³⁷ By July 20, they had completed their march over the mountains and were finally positioned in trenches, which were welcomed by the exhausted troops. It is while hunkered down in one of these entrenchments that William Cooley wrote the only known, first-hand account of the brothers' ordeal. On August 21, 1918, while sitting "Some where in France," he penned a letter to his cousin Fern:

Cabe & I are just fine & haveing [sic] a good time. We are in the trenches now. oh, oh, (wait a minute) a big shell just burst above our dugout & the schrapnel [sic] falling on the tin roof sure is making some noise. This is our third time in the trenches. Like it fine up here. In fact we have a lovely summer home up here & if we could only convince Jerry that his shells are very annoying at times perhaps he would ease up once in a while. … ³⁸

William tells Fern that since coming to France, he has seen "all the boys" that were at Camp Doniphan and even ran into "Lee J." three weeks earlier.³⁹ He describes the letter he received from his sister Vernal, and tells Fern the news that "a Chautauqua at Lucerne" was planned with proceeds going to the Red Cross. The "red cross & ymca workers," William says, "are sure doing their bit over here."⁴¹ He finishes by writing "there is not much more to tell you," and signs his name Allison C.⁴²

William tells Fern that during his time in France, he has seen "all the boys" that were at Camp Doniphan; he had even run into "Lee J." three weeks earlier.³⁹ He describes the letter he received that very day from his sister Vernal, and tells Fern the news that "a Chautauqua at Lucerne" was planned with proceeds going to the Red Cross.⁴⁰ The "red cross & ymca workers," William says, "are sure doing their bit over here."⁴¹ He finishes the letter by writing "there is not much more to tell you," and signs his name Allison C.⁴²

On September 2, the 140th was marched back over the mountains toward the pleasant village of Saulxures, which they had earlier visited. But two days into their trip, just after midnight, they were awakened and put aboard trains headed toward Nancy, detraining thirty kilometers from headquarters at Chaligny.⁴³ From here began a series of night marches Hoyt describes as "a fitting introduction to the hardships of the month to follow."⁴⁴

There are no lights, for smoking is forbidden where there is danger of enemy planes swooping down at any minute. There are no noises, save for the jangling of accoutrement and the crunch of the hobnailed soldier. On such marches the soldiers do not talk much among themselves. They have rifles and seventy-pound packs to think about. … The road is jammed with moving troops. The advance is made by paces. The men take the distance of a few yardsticks ahead; then stop, and stand in inactivity while a cold drizzle washes their faces and adds pounds to their packs. [They] wear out as the night wears on. Their clothing is saturated; their packs weigh over the seventy pounds now; and shoulders are numbed. When the column halts, they halt in their tracks and slump into the mud.⁴⁵

While the regiment marched into the Forêt-le-Haye on September 11, "the flashes … of thousands of guns" filled the night sky. They stayed in the woods a week, during which time an unnamed lieutenant "dashed from place to place" searching for much needed clothing and supplies for the soldiers. "Finally, in desperation," Edwards writes, "this young lieutenant forged the august signature of 'G-1'. The requisition was honored, and the supplies obtained." After a week of "mud and misery" the division boarded an "endless" train of small French trucks, too crowded to rest in, and on the nights of September 19 and 20, the 140th scattered itself in and around the village of Eclair. They "were tired, cold, wet, hungry and rations were very short." On the 21st, they moved into the Argonne Forest where they were crowded into wooden shacks. In this way, Edwards writes, "poor accommodations were secured for nearly all. … There was plenty of rain and mud, but little water for drinking or bathing." During the next four days, the troops were issued "hand and rifle grenades" and by the time they left, they understood they were finally to "meet the acid test." Edwards observed men "reading over old letters from their sweethearts, mothers and wives. They wrote letters home, many being left in the Regimental Postoffice to be mailed only in case they did not return."⁴⁶ Once again, the division decamped on the 25th.

The first phase of the offensive began the next day — September 26, 1918 — and continued for five days. Using Edwards' figures, the German Fifth Army was comprised of about 190,000 men; the Allies had an estimated half million soldiers. The Germans lost about half its strength in the engagement, and the Allied forces sustained about a casualty rate of about one-third. In his 1919 letter to the boys' father, Edwards explains that they had recently joined the non-denominational Allied Church, perhaps only days after William's letter to Fern. Of the men in the church, "ninety per cent were killed or wounded."⁴⁷ The 140th, he writes, lost fifty percent.⁴⁸

The 35th Division was charged with capturing Exermont, a village about thirty miles northwest of Verdun. On the first day the offensive, the 140th had "not a casualty."⁴⁹ On the second day, Captain Compton reported from Chaudron Farm that the regiment was "being cut all to pieces by German artillery and at least half of 1st and 3rd Battalions were casualties. "Disaster will result," he continued, "unless we have assistance barrage and counter barrage."⁵⁰ On the fourth day, Sunday, September 29, 1918 — the day William was killed — the final assault on Exermont was put into motion. Edwards begins his account of the day,

All night long [the 28th] they shelled us, and plenty of gas was sent over. Sunday morning we looked on a wet and gloomy world. It was St. Michael's Day. … In my [bible] I read the Epistle "There was war in heaven" – Surely we needed succor here.⁵¹

The charge was to be spearheaded by the 140th at 5:45 in the morning but the promised artillery cover failed to commence. More than two hours later, Colonel Kirby Walker who commanded the 70th Brigade (comprised of the 139th, the 140th, and the 130th Machine Gun Battalion) wrote to command,

The 140th began the advance at 6:45 a. m. The 138th Infantry evidently did not receive the orders, for I have been unable to find them. … No tanks appeared. The advance was stopped within one-half kilometre by artillery and machine gun fire. … The elements of the Ninety-first Division are on our right, but they did not advance at 5:30 a. m. and are not advancing now. Apparently have no orders to advance. There is no evidence of an advance on the immediate left of the column.⁵²

The 140th managed to reach Exermont but a "fresh Jerry outfit," the Second Landwehr, drove it out.⁵³ A general retreat was called and "the remaining members of the battalion retraced their steps of the morning. Only thirty percent of the number who had helped capture the village were in the line of retirement. The rest had either been killed, received machine gun wounds, or were gassed."⁵⁴

Edwards details the loss of several of the men he had introduced into his narrative. Sergeant Triplet also recounts the deaths of comrades and his own brush with death. He heard someone say of him, "The sarge got it right … through the head."⁵⁵ Sergeant Kenneday, who had a leg broken from the same blast, remarked, "Funny, I can't find where the bullet came out."⁵⁶ But Triplet, Edwards continues, "couldn't have cared less" and was "quite comfortable being dead."⁵⁷ His head wound, it turned out, was superficial, and after about an hour he and Kenneday sufficiently recovered from the shock to scout for a "dressing station." The found one in nearby church ruins. Walking among the many wounded, Kenneday asked a medic, a captain, if something could be done about his leg — whether a splint could be provided. The captain, "looking beat-down and harassed by such an unreasonable request," blithely suggested amputation, then turned his attention to a more deserving patient: "You're doing fine, soldier," he said to the young man. "We'll have you on your way in half an hour. …"⁵⁸

The clay-complexioned lad with his innards all out in the open didn't seem to give a damn, just blinked and half closed his eyes. Probably had a heavy shot of morphine. But no, it was more than that. The [captain] unlimbered a stethoscope and listened, mid-chest, for half a minute. Then he straightened up and stopped a couple of corpsmen who were coming out for another load. "Take this one back and see if there're any more stretchers out there." The worn-out medics pulled the blanket over the man's head, stooped at each end of the stretcher, adjusted the straps, lifted, and moved down the steps and around the corner. [They] were apparently stacking their failures and the DOAs in back of the church out of sight.⁵⁹

This young man, who died at an unspecified time, could have been any of the thousands killed that day.

Edwards concludes his narrative of the 29th by declaring, "The line held!" — an exuberant sentiment for which McCabe was sure to have mixed feelings considering his brother's death.⁶⁰ It is not known just where and at what time William died or whether his body might have been among those piled up behind the church. Perhaps a clue is provided by Sergeant Triplet. "Our men," he wrote, "finally held [the Germans], along the camouflaged road leading along the low ridge toward Chaudron Farm ridge."⁶¹ The same location is echoed in a 1920 letter Edwards wrote to the brothers' sister, Vernal Shelton: "My records show that William - 'Bill' we called him - was killed Sept. 29th, and buried near Chaudron Farm. …

My recollection is that McCabe passed him just after he was wounded, and called to him. He said he was hurt, but not badly. McCabe was needed and hurrying forward at the time could not stop. … William was wounded in the head and shoulder, and died within an hour according to information given me. The shock of the wound produces loss of feeling for a time. Often men shot in the arm, leg, or body would find out they were wounded only by the blood. The suffering comes later. On the field some men lay wounded 48 hours before we could get them off, there was no groaning or screaming. Lots of it was grit, but part was due to the deadening of the nerves by shock. … After reading the history, you will understand better. I was gassed the third day … [but] I did my best and staid [sic] with them. I loved these men.⁶²

Near the end of the letter, Edwards confides, "I never knew a manlier, truer, finer soul than Bill. … McCabe was terribly broken up. Once he came and staid [sic] several hours with me, just crushed. I am both fond and proud of him."⁶³

William's remains were returned to Lucerne in 1921. The announcement in the local newspaper reads,

The body of William Allison Cooley who was killed in the Meuse Argonne Offensive was returned to Lucerne on August 12, 1921. … He was buried with full military honors by the American Legion Post at Lucerne which bears his name "Allison" as he was known to many of his friends. Enlisted on the 13th day of the month, was in the service 13 months, was born on the 13th day of the month and was buried on the 13th. Allison was the only Lucerne boy to lose his life in the World War.⁶⁴

McCabe remained with his outfit until the end of the war. He moved to San Francisco and in 1920 married Marie Hennequin whose father had immigrated forty years earlier from the very region of France that had killed William. He kept his small family together during the Depression doing milk delivery and other menial jobs. Known as Mac to his friends, he was gregarious, a practical joker, and, sometimes, a hard-drinking man. One evening in the early 1930s as he sat in the audience at a professional wrestling match, he grew angry over a maneuver one wrestler performed against the other. Mac jumped out of his seat, ran down the isle, hurled himself into the ring, and punched out the unsuspecting performer. Once home, he roused his two sleeping sons and showed off his broken hand.⁶⁵ Ten years later, he decked a friend for insulting his son Howard, just returned from a stint in the Navy. It is easy to imagine that McCabe might have taken part in some of the male-bonding hijinks described by Edwards and Triplet.

Early in their narratives, Edwards and Kenamore praise the thousands of men of the 35th Division — the boys of Missouri and Kansas — as being among the strongest, most energetic, healthiest and brightest in the country. These "midland Americans," these "boisterous products" of a free country, left their farms and homes and were honored in the streets as warriors and heroes by thousands of celebrants.⁶⁷ They were the scions of a determined pioneer stock of men and women who understood the hardship of toil and sacrifice, all of them well aware of the adversities of life. The truth was often harsher; and the Victorian-era farming-community William and McCabe grew up in was not atypical. Their two eldest sisters were lost to disease in the closing years of the nineteenth century.⁶⁸ Like countless young mothers unable to adapt to the never-ending demands of the repetitive monotony on the plains, their mother, had "became deranged" and committed suicide in 1902.⁶⁹ But death in these communities had long been a local affair. Although most of the men came home from the war, many returned badly disfigured or tucked into boxes. The survivors were to enjoy the fruits of their sacrifices during the 1920s, but witnessed the devastating economic collapse of 1929. As it turned out, it took the sacrifices of their own children during the next war to bring about a semblance of the American Dream that these men and their predecessors had long yearned for.

Late at night a couple of months after his 58th birthday, McCabe died of a massive heart attack while confronting a man standing in the bushes on his property. The young intruder, a drunken, twenty-eight year-old teamster who had stopped to take a leak, told police "he grabbed Cooley [as he collapsed] and helped him to the lawn then fled in panic."⁷⁰ The papers said nothing about McCabe's military service, the loss of his infant sisters, the suicide of his mother, or the killing of his brother during one of history's most storied and violent battles.

McCabe Cooley

William Allison Cooley

¹ McCabe enlisted at St. Louis on April 28, 1917.

² Evan Alexander Edwards, From Doniphan to Verdun: The Official History of the 140th Infantry (Lawrence, KS: The World Company, 1920), 99.

³ Edwards, 9.

⁴ Clair Kenamore, From Vauquois Hill to Exermont: A History of the Thirty-Fifth Division of the United States Army (St. Louis: Guard Publishing Co., 1919), 18.

⁵ Edwards, 11.

⁶ William S. Triplet, edited by Robert H. Ferrell, A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917-1918 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), 9.

⁷ Kenamore, 29.

⁸ Kenamore, 29.

⁹ Hoyt, 24.

¹⁰ Charles B. Hoyt, arranged and compiled by C. B. Lyon, Jr., Heroes of the Argonne: An Authentic History of the Thirty-fifth Division. (Kansas City: Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1919), 23.

¹¹ Edwards, 19; Hoyt, 24.

¹² Edwards, 19.

¹³ Edwards, 28; Hoyt, 24.

¹⁴ Edwards, 21-23.

¹⁵ Hoyt, 25.

¹⁶ Triplet, 36.

¹⁷ Hoyt, 26.

¹⁸ Kenamore, 32.

¹⁹ Hoyt, 31.

²⁰ Edwards, 21-31. Edwards devoted ten pages to their stay in La Havre. This is the barest summary.

²¹ Triplet, 37.

²² Edwards, 29.

²³ Edwards, 29.

²⁴ Triplet, 68.

²⁵ Triplet, 69.

²⁶ Edwards, 32-33.

²⁷ Triplet, 72.

²⁸ Triplet, 72-73.

²⁹ Edwards, 33.

³⁰ Hoyt, 32.

³¹ Edwards, 36. Overseas caps are now known as garrison caps.

³² Triplet, 83.

³³ Edwards, 37.

³⁴ Triplet, 81.

³⁵ Edwards, 37. Edwards mentions here that the Machine Company was attached to the Third Battalion, a fact that helps track the brothers' movements among the various narratives.

³⁶ Edwards, 37.

³⁷ Edwards, 40.

³⁸ William Allison Cooley to his cousin Fern, August 21, 1918, original in the possession of Joan Italiano. McCabe, who had no middle name, was called Cabe by his family.

³⁹ Could he have been referring to "the boys" of Lucerne?

⁴⁰ Named for the Chautauqua Institute, founded in Chautauqua, New York in 1874 initially as a teaching camp for Sunday school teachers. Its program evolved to include plays, concerts, and lectures on a variety of subjects. The concept caught on as local assemblies and traveling shows, remaining popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To this day, the Chautauqua Institute retains the original spirit with annual summer events on the original grounds.

⁴¹ Cooley letter.

⁴² Cooley letter.

⁴³ Edwards, 49.

⁴⁴ Hoyt, 54.

⁴⁵ Hoyt, 54.

⁴⁶ Edwards, 49-50.

⁴⁷ Evan Alexander Edwards to Joseph Cooley, February 4, 1919, in the possession of Joan Italiano. Joseph was the brothers' father.

⁴⁸ Edwards, 134.

⁴⁹ Kenamore, 131.

⁵⁰ Kenamore, 182.

⁵¹ Edwards, 79. Edwards devoted ten pages (79-89) to September 29th. Triplet's account runs to twenty pages (218-238).

⁵² Hoyt, 106.

⁵³ Triplet, 229.

⁵⁴ Hoyt, 112.

⁵⁵ Triplet, 225.

⁵⁶ Triplet, 225.

⁵⁷ Triplet, 225.

⁵⁸ Triplet, 231.

⁵⁹ Triplet, 231-232.

⁶⁰ Edwards, 89.

⁶¹ Triplet, 229.

⁶² Evan Alexander Edwards to Mrs. Vernal Shelton, May 20, 1920, in the possession of Joan Italiano.

⁶³ Evan Alexander Edwards to Mrs. Vernal Shelton, May 20, Edwards to Vernal.

⁶⁴ Unionville Missouri Republican, August 17, 1921.

⁶⁵ This story was related to the author by McCabe's son, Allison "Jack" Cooley. The next morning, Jack related, McCabe showed his sons a newspaper article titled in the vein of "Mystery Man K.O.'s Wrestler." The event is believed to have occurred in 1932 or '33, Jack being about seven years old at the time.

⁶⁶ As related to the author by McCabe's grandson, Howard Cooley.

⁶⁷ Kenamore, 18.

⁶⁸ Cooley family records. The infant girls died within days of one another in 1890.

⁶⁹ "Sad Suicide at Lucerne," Lucerne Standard, 1902.

⁷⁰ "Theater Man Dies En Route to Home," n.d., photocopy of an obituary in the possession of the author.

Edwards, Evan Alexander. From Doniphan to Verdun: The Official History of the 140th Infantry. Lawrence, KS: The World Company, 1920.

Hoyt, Charles B. Heroes of the Argonne: An Authentic History of the Thrity-fifth Division. Arranged and Compiled by C. B. Lyon, Jr. Kansas City: Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1919.

Kenamore, Clair. From Vauquois Hill to Exermont: A History of the Thirty-Fifth Division of the United States Army. St. Louis: Guard Publishing, 1919.

Triplet, William S. A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917-1918. Edited by Robert H. Ferrell. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000.