Author: Jessica A. Bandel
Yes, this week’s Artifact of the Week is a newspaper clipping. Seems boring, right? But bear with me; the story begs to be told. What you are looking at, in fact, is the same column that informed W. H. and Margaret Pegram that their son, Corp. James W. Pegram, had been killed in action. Can you imagine learning such news from a newspaper?
If this happened today, we would be nothing short of horrified. We’ve grown accustomed to modern notification practices, in which military officials—known as casualty notification officers or casualty assistance call officers, depending upon the branch—go to the homes of a fallen soldier’s primary and secondary next-of-kin to personally deliver the sorrowful news. Present-day army policy dictates that notification is to be made within four hours of receiving official word of a soldier’s death.
Primary means of notification during the First World War, however, amounted to little more than a telegram, but in the context of death notification practices during the Civil War—in which family members learned of a death via casualty lists in newspapers or perhaps through a letter from a commanding officer or mess mate—a telegram was seen as a timely, respectful way to notify the next of kin.
Unfortunately for the Pegrams, this process broke down. Six months before their son’s death, the couple moved from Winston-Salem to High Point, and the telegram carrying the horrible news of James’s demise sat undelivered in their old hometown. It wasn’t until they opened the October 2, 1918, issue of the High Point Enterprise that they spotted James’s name on the Roll of Honor marked “Killed in Action.” The news came as a shock to the Pegrams, who believed their son was still on furlough in Ireland recovering from injuries; they had no idea that he had returned to the front lines.
Complicating their grief was the fact that it would not be until 1920 that the remains of United States soldiers buried in France could be returned to their homeland. The Pegrams waited patiently through 1919 and 1920 as war torn France rebuilt its infrastructure and pieced its communities back together. Finally, in April 1921, James made his final voyage home where he was buried with full military honors at the Oakwood Cemetery in High Point.