The owner of this Norcross Rifle Range postcard wrote down the names of his comrades from the 325th, but his name is a mystery.
Three of the eight soldiers identified
I recently came across this postcard of a group of soldiers at Norcross Rifle Range and have been researching their names to learn who they were. They are from Company B, 325th Infantry, 82nd Division. I’ll return to this postcard later as more information is discovered, but for now I want to share what I’ve found about three of the men.
Edward Schofield Bugbee is seated, second from the right. He was born October 13, 1893 in Massachusetts. When I’m trying to find World War I soldiers on a site such as ancestry.com, I always guess a birth date of 1895. I wasn’t too far off for Bugbee. He was single when he registered for the draft.
The 325th went overseas on April 25, 1918, boarding the Khyber and Kokakola. Edward Bugbee was on the Khyber. He survived the war, returning to the U. S. in 1919 and surviving until the 1960’s. He is buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in West Brookfield, Massachusetts.
Arthur Woodcock is seated, second from left. He was from Vinalhaven, Maine and married a woman named Busis before the war. Woodcock must have been injured or ill, because he later ends up on a hospital ship. Unfortunately, it was the S S Warrilda, which was torpedoed in the English Channel and sunk. Some survived the tragedy, but Arthur Woodcock was not one of them. He is recognized in the “Tablet of the Missing Section” of the Suresnes American Cemetery in Paris.
Fred Stotz, born September 4, 1891 is second from the left, standing in the photo. He was from Turner Falls, Massachusetts. On the back of the postcard, the owner writes “home” next to Stotz and another soldier named Bessette, so perhaps they are all from Turner Falls. Stotz was working as an iceman before the war.
He returned from World War I and married in 1920. He died 13 years later and is buried in Montague, Massachusetts.
The beginnings of the 325th
The June 22, 1919 edition of The Atlanta Constitution features a full page article titled, The Story of the 325th Infantry. According to the article, the 325th was organized September 2, 1917 at Camp Gordon as the 163rd army brigade of the 82nd division. The first men to arrive were officers and came from Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Later, many of these men were reassigned to other camps and the 325th consisted of men from all over the country. They were part of the 82nd All American.
Before they went overseas, the 325th went on a march which began Wednesday, March 25, 1918. The soldiers marched with their field packs filled with sixty pounds of supplies. They marched from Camp Gordon to Piedmont Park the first day. The second day they marched through downtown Atlanta by way of Peachtree Street. Fifty-thousand people lined the streets to cheer the soldiers. Then, the 325th continued to Emory University, where they camped the evening of Thursday March 26. From Emory University they returned to Camp Gordon on Friday.
The Atlanta papers on March 25, 1918 describe, “The 325th regiment will leave Camp Gordon at 7 o’clock this morning on its hike to Atlanta. The regiment will take the Briarcliff Road as far as the Sage home at Wallace station (Briarcliff Road and Clifton Road) where it will turn to the right, go around the hill and then come into Piedmont Park by way of Virginia and Highland Avenue. The organization should reach the park by 12 o’clock or a little after and the tents should be up by 1 ‘clock or at least by 1:30 o’clock.”