Looking Ahead from A Very Muddy Place

By • • A Very Muddy Place • News
Butte of Vauquois, summit, August 2009. Trenches (foreground), mine craters (middle), and a monument to the combatants and the dead of Vauquois (background). Photo by the author.

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’s journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

As the climactic battle draws near, we’re picking up the pace this month in A Very Muddy Place. Private Potts has no idea that this is his itinerary for the rest of September—a hundred years ago:

  • September
    • 12—In Reserve at Saint-Mihiel
    • 16—Special Job for Private Potts
    • 19—A Potts Family Day of Thanks
    • 24—Planning the Meuse-Argonne Offensive
    • 25—Prelude to Battle
    • 26—Taking Vauquois
    • 26—The Fog of War
    • 27—Night Attack
    • 28—Montrebeau Wood
    • 29—Charge to Exermont
    • 29—Clyde Brake Boards the Leviathan
    • 30—The Engineers’ Line
  • October
    • 8—Roy Albert Buried Alive!
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