Wabanaki Timeline

A Letter Home

May 10, 1918

To the Tribal settlement came this letter from the company chaplain:

"Dear Governor Neptune: Your son gave his young life for freedom on the day the Armistice was signed. He was in the last great drive, at the so-called second battle of Verdun. Tenderly we carried the bodies to a beautiful spot on the hillside and laid your boy with ten of his companions to rest. The entire battalion gathered around them. The American flag was spread over them, while touchingly and fitting the band played 'Nearer, my god to thee.' After the Christian service, the army guns salute was fired and the bugler blew Taps, the call in the army which summons soldiers to rest. Just as the service was finished we noticed 3 German officers coming, flying the white flag of surrender. It was a most fitting close; the very thing for which your son and his comrades had given their lives had come to pass. I am sure that from Heaven they looked and saw that they had not lived in vain. We marked their graves with crosses, and the cemetery with a large white cross that could be easily seen from a distance, and sent the exact location to Washington. "That is a good letter", was the quiet comment of Governor Neptune and turned back to re-read another paragraph of Moses' last letter. "I am glad the service flag is raised and that our people went to Holy Communion for soldiers in the army. I am proud of my people; school children and all who help."

From "Passamaquoddy at the Turn of the Century 1890-1920 Tribal Life and Times in Maine and New Brunswick," Donald Soctomah, 2002.