Pvt. James Stewart
James Stewart, born on August 17th, 1891 in Bryan County, Georgia, was an African American soldier who served in the United States military during the First World War in 1918. He was the son of Allen and Jennie Stewart and lived in Register in Bulloch County with his two brothers, Andrew and William, and his sister, Georgia, at the time of the 1900 census. He married Sarah Kitchings on November 6, 1908 in Bulloch, although his marriage ended at some point between his registration with the military in 1917 and his death in 1918. James Stewart was a railroad laborer for the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railway company before being inducted into the military. On August 5th, 1918 he was inducted into the military in Ocilla in Irwin Country, Georgia and was sent to Camp Wheeler outside Macon, GA.
On September 1st, 1918 Stewart died of lobar pneumonia while training in Camp Wheeler and was buried the following day in Register, GA. Stewart was in the military for less than a month before his death and thus received no high honors nor was promoted to rank above private. Because he died while still in training at Camp Wheeler, he would never see overseas combat. He is still honored as a soldier in uniform during the conflict as he demonstrated a willingness to serve and his death was directly related to his military service.
The disease that Stewart died from, lobar pneumonia, most likely came as a secondary disease after contracting influenza. While influenza did infect many of the soldiers, which conservative military estimates put it at a 26% infection rate which equaled over one million men, it was usually secondary cases of pneumonia that developed as a consequence of influenza that would deal the fatal blow to many soldiers. This was especially true in the crowded military training camps in the country itself, like Camp Wheeler where James Stewart trained. The conditions of the camps generally made diseases like influenza and secondary cases pneumonia more possible. In total at least 30,000 American army forces died of influenza and pneumonia cases over the course of the war, James Stewart being one among them.
Works Cited
Brundage, John F, and G Dennis Shanks. “Deaths from Bacterial Pneumonia during 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic.” Emerging infectious diseases, August 2008. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600384/.
Byerly, Carol R. “The U.S. Military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919.” Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974), April 2010. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862337/#:~:text=Influenza%20and%20pneumonia%20killed%20more,the%20story%20was%20not%20new.
James Stewart. Death Card. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
James Stewart. Death Records. September 2nd, 1918. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
Lists of Men Ordered to Report to Local Board for Military Duty. August 5th, 1917. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
James Stewart. Marriage Records. November 6th, 1908. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
James Stewart. Registration Card. June 5th, 1917. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
James Stewart. United States Federal Census. June 9th, 1900. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
Womack, Todd. “World War I in Georgia.” New Georgia Encyclopedia, July 28, 2005. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/world-war-i-in-georgia/.
Shapiro, L. Panoramic view of Camp Wheeler - Macon, Georgia. 20th century. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/133276>, accessed 2 April 2024.