Company K at the border — Widow of a previous war
This is the latest in a series of posts about the deployment of National Guard Company K of Glens Falls during the Mexican border conflict of 1916.
When the train transporting 134 Glens Falls National Guard Company K men to deployment passed through the Gansevoort station on June 25, 1916, a Civil War widow in black satin dress and black bonnet, waving a United States flag in one hand and a red handkerchief in the other, stood next to the track.
“God bless you boys!,” said the woman, according to a Post-Star reporter that traveled with Company K as far as Troy. “I hope you all come back. My man left me just the same way over fifty years ago and I never saw him again. I don’t even know where they buried his body.”
About 25 members of Company K reached out the train window to console her, and one reached almost far enough to shake her hand, The Post-Star reported on June 26.
Company I of Whitehall had boarded the train at Hudson Falls, where about 200 area residents gathered at the station for the send off.
Company L boarded the train at Saratoga Springs.
At Troy, 504 guardsmen boarded, the largest contingent from any community in the Albany area.
As The Post-Star reporter was leaving the train, Company K Captain Robert Hall had a few departing words.
“Tell them back home they will never be ashamed of us. We have got the kind of men we want — men with hearts where they ought to be, men who know how to handle a gun and will do so, men who will fight.”
From that point on, coverage switched from live reporting to reports via telegraph.
“The company was scheduled to walk three miles after reaching Poughkeepsie before camping for the night. Telegraph reports last night announced that the plans were carried our without a hitch,” The Post-Star reported on June 26.
“Some of the boys expressed a ‘hunch’ that they would never get to Camp Whitman, being sent (straight) to the border instead. Telegraph reports received early morning indicated that there is a strong possibility they had the ‘right dope.’”
Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.
