After two and a half years of effort by President Woodrow Wilson to keep the United States neutral during World War I it happened on April 6, 1917. President Wilson asked congress for “a war to end all wars” that would make the world safe for democracy. Congress voted yes to declare war on Germany in retaliation for their sinking of American ships in the North Atlantic.

By the end of World War I on November 11, 1918 over 53,000 Americans had been killed in combat and another astonishing 63,000 troops had died while in the service of their country of non-combat deaths. These deaths included accidents, suicides, childhood diseases, scarlet fever, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis to name a few. The influenza epidemic of 1918 killed almost 30,000 trainees before they even got to the war.

On February 15th, 1996 Christine McSwain Mahan wrote about her Uncle Noah Henry Warr and graciously allowed me to use it. Noah came from a large family of 11 brothers and sisters. He was the third oldest of Robert Lee Warr and Martha Ann “Mattie” Fountain Warr.

Noah registered for the World W I Draft on June 5th, 1917 and evidently Christine’s mother and father got wind that Noah was thinking of volunteering for the army and they went to talk him out of it. She remembers that her Daddy and Uncle Noah went off down to the river and stayed until after dark. Not long after they heard that Noah had enlisted and her Daddy said “I thought I had talked him out of it”.

He had enlisted on August 8, 1917 from San Augustine County and went with the Jasper, Texas company to Camp Bowie in Fort Worth, Texas. Camp Bowie had been established there just a few weeks before on July 18, 1917 and the 36th Infantry Division was the first to use it as a training facility. The camp had a capacity for about 42,000 troops and was completed in November, 1917 so Noah may have had a hand in building the camp.

Sometime in November or December, 1917 Noah became ill with pneumonia and Christine remembers that her Grandpa Robert Lee took a train to Fort Worth see his son. Noah died at the Camp Hospital a week after his father’s visit on December 15th, 1917 due to the complications of pneumonia. His body was returned by train to Neuville and burial was at the Old Salem Church on Monday, December 24th, 1917.

Noah Warr and Valley Perry were supposed to be married when he was discharged from the Army. Christine noted that there were many letters from Camp Bowie to Valley and a New Testament Bible found in his belongings was also sent to Valley.

(Sources: Wikipedia.org, 8/4/2014; Ancestry.com, 12/2016; International Encyclopedia of the First World War.net, 2/2016; Christine McSwain Mahan, 2/15/1996)