Folder 1a-18, Hermann Moyse, Sr. Letters, 1919 Apr. 5-May 18 - Folder 1a-18, Hermann Moyse, Sr. Letters, 1919 Apr. 5-May 18

This folder contains sixteen letters from April 5 through May 18, 1919, nine of which were written by Hermann Moyse to Rosalie Gottlieb. The other letters in the folder include a letter from Moyse to his parents Simon and Flora Moyse in which he gives them news about French family members he visited in Lorraine (April 13), a postcard from a Frenchman who writes to congratulate Moyse on the medals he received (April 14), and a handwritten copy that Moyse made of Special Order No. 111 that states that he is "relieved from further duty" at the Services of Supply Headquarters and is to "report to Headquarters, 32nd Division" (April 21), indicating that Moyse was to rejoin the 32nd Division, from which he had been separated since being wounded on July 31, 1918. The folder also contains a letter from April 23 signed, 'By command of General Pershing, F. L. Whitley, Adjutant General,' in which Whitley writes the "Commander-in-Chief desires me to express his pleasure at this recognition [Moyse's being awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm] by the French Army" and Special Orders No. 49 from the 125th Infantry headquarters stating that Moyse is now assigned to Company F (April 25). The final items in the folder are two letters dated May 18 to Moyse from a fellow soldier named Benson [first name unknown] in which he thanks Moyse for his kindness and support and recounts his visit to Verdun and the utter devastation he saw there. In his letters to Gottlieb, Moyse writes with the "big news" that his request to join the 125th Infantry has been granted (April 5). He also mentions visiting Strasbourg and his mother's childhood home in Grosbliederstroff, Lorraine (April 14). After visiting Verdun, Moyse writes that although it was "a city of 60,000 when the war started," it "cannot offer a single building which the Huns did not at least partially demolish," and, in the same letter, mentions going to the cemetery in which his friend Bill Weine is buried (April 17). Moyse writes from Brest, France, that he is on the first leg of his trip home, signing the letter 'Homeward Bound H' (April 23). On May 1, Moyse writes his 'last letter from France' for he is to set sail for the United States the following day. Upon arriving at Camp Mills, New York, Moyse describes his emotions upon seeing the Statue of Liberty from the ship. Although the soldiers "had been greeted by loud cheering from the land," Moyse writes, "there was something we wanted to see before we would really feel that we had arrived, and it was SHE, that piece of bronze which has spelt America to us for the past several months," seeming to Moyse like the "personification of America calling down a blessing upon the returning men who had faithfully accomplished their mission across the sea" (May 9). In his final letter in the folder, he writes that he is leaving the following morning for Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg, Mississippi (May 17).