Heroes and Vacationers:
Published Soldiers' Letters in Lowndes County Mississippi, World War I
Realist
The third thematic group is the one that came after the war was officially over, and these letters focus more on the reality of trench warfare. This group is a remarkably small number of letters compared to the first two groups, which can be attributed to the Espionage Act of 1917.[1] . In James C. Green’s letter to his mother, he describes the destruction of the lands he has gone through, and writes about the death of his best friend, killed just two days before the end of the First World War.[2] Despite his loss, he writes with remarkable detachment and very little detail other than the facts of what he experienced.[3] Another mention of death is also just as detached and factual, written by Lieutenant Johnston about a bombing that claimed eight lives.[4]
The significance of the letters is not in solely what is written in the letter, but also the ‘when’ it was published and the fact that it was even published in the first place. One letter was written during the war and was remarkably without any details of their deaths other than the fact that it was a bombshell. While the other was written after the end of the war, and the censorship of the Espionage Act now over along with the war, yet the writer still refrained from including any details or any bits of information that could be used to shine a different light on the victorious Allied Forces. The later could be due to two years of habit of compliance with the Espionage Act, while the former seems to tread the line by not including details of the event.
[1] Lowndes County in the World War, page 5.
[2] ibid
[3] ibid
[4] Lowndes County in the World War, page 21