More than 100,000 men and women from Georgia served in the military and auxiliary forces during the First World War, including dozens of professional soldiers, volunteers, and draftees from Bulloch County. At least 26 Bulloch County veterans did not survive the war and counted among the United State's approximately 53,402 military deaths and 63,114 non-combat fatalities.
The process of commemorating the fallen soldiers of the First World War began soon after the end of hostilities, and many commemorative movements had close ties to Georgia. In Athens, Professor Moina Bell Michael raised millions of dollars for wounded soldiers through the sale of paper poppies intended to encourage remembrance of those who fell in the war. American sculptor E.M. Viquesney's "Spirit of the American Doughboy" became the most popular memorial sculpture in the United States, and smaller versions of Visquesney's sculpture were produced for display in American homes. Visquesney lived in Americus, GA when he completed the first sculpture, and the smaller statuettes were manufactured there until 1925.
In 1919, the Georgia Department of Archives and History began the process of collecting materials for a scrapbook that honored each Georgia casualty of the First World War. The Military Department of the State adopted another project, the The Georgia State Memorial Book, as its official record in 1921. Although both the GA Dept. of Archives' scrapbook and the Georgia State Memorial Book contained significant information about many of the state's fallen veterans, African American servicemen were virtually ignored.
Bulloch County residents never erected a monument in honor of the county's fallen WWI veterans, but small white crosses featuring their names are displayed alongside memorial crosses for the fallen of other wars on the lawn of the Bulloch County courthouse each Memorial Day. In addition, the local American Legion post is named in honor of Dexter Allen, the first Bulloch County veteran reported to have fallen in Europe.
This webpage is intended to serve as an inclusive digital memorial to the Bulloch County soldiers who died during the First World War. Using records from the National Archives Card Register of Burials of Deceased American Soldiers 1917–1922, Draft Registration Cards, Census Data, local and national press reports, and other primary sources, the page's creators have built upon earlier commemorative efforts to create biographies of each of Bulloch County's fallen soldiers. Exhaustive efforts have been made to tell the stories of veterans who were excluded from previous commemorative projects.
In addition to biographies of the fallen, the page includes a brief history of Bulloch County in the First World War, information on the October 6, 1918 sinking of the S.M.S. Otranto, and the founding of the American Legion Dexter Allen Post 90 in Statesboro. If you are interested in accessing the primary sources used in the construction of this page, you will find a wealth of material under the "Discover More" tab at the top of the page. Many thanks to Autumn Johnson, Special Collections Librarian at Georgia Southern, for her assistance with the creation of this educational resource. Biographies of the fallen are available under the "Bulloch County Fallen" tab. Information on the Otranto, the Spanish Flu of 1918, and the First World War's impact on Bulloch County may be accessed under the "Key Perspectives" tab.
If you have information or artifacts related to any of the veterans commemorated here, please contact Professor Brian K. Feltman at Bfeltman@georgiasouthern.edu.
