Conductors (Music) -- United States -- Biography; Damrosch, Walter, 1862-1950
recognized me even through the alcoholic vapors which surrounded him so
thickly that one could have cut them with a knife.
One of the other visitors at the guest-house was General Omar Bundy, who
commanded the first division and had come to Chaumont to receive the
congratulations of the commander-in-chief on the splendid work of his
division. He proved a delightful gentleman, and we chatted together very
amicably as a motor-car took us that evening about five miles beyond
Chaumont through most lovely country to the château surrounded by
exquisite gardens and woods which General Pershing had taken for his
personal residence. A scene of greater peace and tranquillity could not
be imagined, and literally the only sign and symbol of war was the
solitary sentry pacing up and down before the entrance, with bayonet
fixed.
As this happened to be the first day of General Foch’s great attack in
which he pushed the Germans back six miles, General Pershing, who had
been at the front all day, had not yet returned, and General Bundy and I
walked through the grounds in the lovely evening twilight for perhaps
half an hour, when a motor-car drove up and our great
commander-in-chief, accompanied by his aide, immediately came over to us
and made us welcome in hearty and simple fashion. He reminded me that we
had met at the Presidio in San Francisco during the great exhibition of
1915, and indeed I remembered it well, for shortly afterward he had been
sent to the Mexican border in command of the troops, and while there had
been overwhelmed by the terrible tragedy of the death of his wife and
children, who were suffocated in a fire at night which destroyed their
home at the Presidio.
So much has been written regarding the wonderful impression which
General Pershing made in Europe on all who came in contact with him that
it is not necessary for me to more than echo the general chorus of
praise—soldierly, dignified, courteous, and simple in his bearing,
wearing a uniform as only a man can who has been a soldier all his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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