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Remember...Wilbur Harris
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The story of World War I casualty Sgt. Wilbur Harris is indeed an enigma. Many details of his life are documentable, but there are gaps about which we can only speculate.
According to the U.S. Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940, Wilbur Harris, who lists his residence as Great Cacapon, West Virginia, was born September 20, 1885. This date does not concur with other life details known for Wilbur. His registration in the Pennsylvania National Guard (June 11, 1917) indicates his birthplace as Hancock, Maryland, and notes he is 31 and 9/12 years of age at the time he joined the Pennsylvania Guard, indicating a birth date of late 1886. An interesting fact gleaned from this enlistment is that he names his sister, Jessie B. [Harrison] Arnold [her married name] of Great Cacapon, West Virginia, as the person to be notified in case of his death. She's also listed as a contact on the ship's manifest of the Olympic, the vessel that departed for France in May 1918, carrying Wilbur. This leaves little doubt that Jessie B. Harrison Arnold is Wilbur Harris's sister.
The plot thickens. Jessie B. Arnold's maiden name was Jessie Belle Harrison, not Harris. It's likely that Wilbur spent his youth in Hancock, Maryland. Federal Census data and Jessie's father's obituary tell us a great deal about the Harrison family. Parents Joseph Harrison and Virginia ("Jennie") Bergen [or Burgan] Harrison had five children between 1881 and 1895. Justice Joseph Harrison (1823-1911), a magistrate who had been a longtime justice of the peace, was a native of Hancock County who had lived there all his life. The 1900 Federal Census shows the following to be living in the family home with their parents: Jessie B. [Belle], James B. [Bernard], Webster, William H., and Robert M. [Malcolm]. Webster is eight years old, meaning he would have been born around 1892. Webster does not show up in the next census, 1910, when he would have been 18; Robert is the only son listed in the parents' home in Maryland, and by this time, Jessie is living in Great Cacapon, Morgan County, West Virginia, with her husband Henry and daughter Gladys, but not Webster. He has gone off the grid, so to speak.
While there's no record of Webster Harrison in the 1910 census, we do find another reference to him in a death notice for his father Joseph, which states: "He is survived by his wife and the following children: Mrs. Jessie Arnold, Cacapon, W. Va.; Webster, in the army; Bernard, McKeesport, Pa; William and Robert, at home." ("Oldest Magistrate Dead," Martinsburg Herald [WV], 8 April 1911.) What happened to Webster between 1911 and 1917? While he doesn't appear to be found in Maryland or West Virginia, a new possibility pops up, adding another twist to the plot: A Webster Harrison (b. abt. 1890 in Maryland) appears in records of the Ohio National Guard, enlisting June 24, 1916, at Youngstown, Ohio. Could that be our Webster Harrison? The Ohio Roster of Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in World War I, 1917-1918, shows that Corporal Harrison deserted on July 25, 1917, as the Guard was being federalized into the regular army.
On June 11, 1917, a person named Wilbur Harris enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard, which ironically was soon to be federalized into the regular army. He lists his sister Jessie B. Arnold of Great Cacapon as the person to be notified in case of his death. Clearly, Jessie is the sister of both Webster Harrison and Wilbur Harris, but there is no Wilbur in the Harrison household. The one discrepancy in this scenario is that the date of his Pennsylvania enlistment precedes his Ohio desertion. That could be explained by the fact that the desertion record was made sometime after the fact. Jessie Belle Harrison Arnold is the documentable link between Webster Harrison and Wilbur Harris. She's not only the oldest member of the family but also has assumed the role of matriarch.
We now have what appears to be the story of a young man who changed his name and date of birth, but not his monogram and not the name of his sister. Jessie appears again on the roster of the ship on which Wilbur sailed for Europe. [One fact that is certain is that as a member of Company D, Wilbur was on the Olympic, which sailed on May 5, 1918, from New York, as the passenger list of the Army Transport Service can be found on Ancestry.com.] Additional details concerning the remainder of his life fall into place:
Wilbur Harris, who is listed in Soldiers of the Great War as being from Great Cacapon, although he may never have lived there, entered the U.S. Army through the Pennsylvania National Guard and achieved the rank of sergeant. During World War I, this unit would be federalized into the 111th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division. The following account summarizes the movements of that division:
In April 1917, the month that the U.S. entered the war, the entire division was stationed at Camp Hancock, Georgia, until August, when it was drafted into federal service. From May to October, it was organized as a two-brigade, four-regiment scheme, together making up the division. Training at Camp Hancock was "dismal," to say the least. Clothing and weapons were in short supply. By the spring of 1918, the division was headed for Europe with replacements for losses from Camp Lee in Virginia, Camp George G. Meade in Maryland, and Camp Travis in Texas.On arrival, the division trained with the British, and July found it moving forward, ultimately involved in the Battle of Chateau-Thierry, resulting in a rout of the German forces. When General John J. Pershing visited the battlefield, he dubbed the division as "Men of Iron." Altogether, the 28th was involved in the Meuse-Argonne, Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, Oise-Aisne, and Ypres-Lys operations. Edwin Martin wrote a comprehensive history of the division in his book The Twenty-Eighth Division: Pennsylvania's Guard in the World War. ("28th Infantry Division [United States]," Wikipedia, last edited 11 December 2024, accessed 18 February 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28th_Infantry_Division_(United_States).)
It's unclear during which offensive Sgt. Harris lost his life. The U.S. Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940, lists his death date as August 12, while the American Battle Monuments Commission lists August 11. Because he is memorialized at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, it can be inferred that he died in the Oise-Aisne Campaign, but his remains have never been identified for an official burial, and he continues to be listed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Oise-Aisne Cemetery. That said, a document entitled "Information As To" regarding the 111th Infantry, 28th Division, containing death and burial details attested to by First Sergeant Martin Sullivan, states: "Sergeant Harris was killed instantly by the bursting of a trench mortar shell at Fismette, about August 10, 1918. He was buried at Fismette."
This information is consistent with accounts of the Battle of Fismes and Fismette, which took place from August 3 to September 1, 1918. Located in the Champagne-Ardennes region of northeastern France, these two small villages lie across the Vesle River from each other. The region was liberated by the 28th Infantry "Keystone" Division during the Second Battle of the Marne, the last major German attack on the Western Front. ("Battle of Fismes and Fismette," Wikipedia, last edited 7 March 2025, accessed 7 March 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fismes_and_Fismette.)
It was not unusual for World War I casualties to be buried in small local cemeteries, but most often they were later transferred to larger cemeteries overseen by the ABMC. Why this did not happen with the remains of Sgt. Harris is another perplexing detail of his life and death.
| Posthumously, Sgt. Wilbur Harris received the Purple Heart. Webster Harrison's brothers William and Robert also served in the U.S. Army in World War I. |  Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, Fere-en-Tardenois, France, where Sgt. Wilbur Harris is listed on the Tablets of the Missing. Courtesy of American Battle Monuments Commission |
Article prepared by Patricia Richards McClure, who gratefully acknowledges the research of Terry Golden, who helped piece together the details of the Webster Harrison/Wilbur Harris story
April 2025
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
