Camp Greenleaf and the CTCA

Officer candidates conduct weapons training at Camp Warden McLean (part of Camp Greenleaf) in 1917 near the present day Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center

“CAMP GREENLEAF” AND THE CTCA 

                Once the United States was committed to ‘the Great War,’ training camps were opened to provide personnel involved with the appropriate skills necessary for the war effort. Since 1896, North Georgia’s Chickamauga Battlefield and Fort Oglethorpe were approved for training military personnel for wartime action. Initially, the battlefield was used as preparation for the Spanish-American War.¹ To streamline military use of battlefield national parks such as Chickamauga, in 1912 the federal government began to combine the various locally run commissions that had been given authority over significant Civil War battlefields to the War Department. As early as 1916, these battlefields (Chickamauga, along with Gettysburg, Shiloh, and Vicksburg), were put on alert they could be reconfigured as military training camps.² In May, 1917 army engineer units arrived to drain portions of the Chickamauga Battlefield for use and to build temporary housing for the trainees. In June, wartime personnel began to arrive to train for action in Europe. Chickamauga was in full use by seven infantry units, a signal corps, a medical staff³ and a veterinary company by November.⁴ 

                Strict rules governed the use of the park as it was to be (hopefully) left undamaged. However, in the spring of 1918 infantrymen were trained in trench warfare in wooded areas of the battlefield; unfortunately, the army damaged the area. To prevent further destruction of the forested areas, trenches were built on the slopes of Snodgrass Hill (southwest side of the battlefield) with the understanding that any damage would be repaired after the war was over.⁵ In September and October more than 3200 personnel were infected by the influenza epidemic bringing training to what was thought to be a temporary halt. However, in November, with the Armistice, training concluded and after training more than 60,000 men and women the Chickamauga Battlefield and Fort Oglethorpe began to transition back to being part of a national park. By 1926, park superintendent Richard B. Randolph “reported substantial progress and noted that ‘nature is healing many of the scars left by the troops.’”⁶ During the war, the local population embraced the trainees, especially on the days around payday when the local economy experienced a mini-boom.⁷ The surrounding areas benefitted from the training camp as the Department of War created a new policy to encourage positive behavior by the trainees.

Commission on Training Camp Activities (CTCA)

 “I am determined that our new training camps, as well as the surrounding zones within an effective radius, shall not be places of temptation and peril.” – Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, May 26, 1917⁸ 

                 A new policy regarding the American military was initiated during the Great War. In 1916, because of relatively desolate area along the U.S.-Mexico border, “… the fellows went to the devil down there because there was absolutely nothing to do. The temperature was 100 or 120 sometimes, and there was no place where they could read and there was nothing for them to read... There were no homes into which they could be received… and out of sheer boredom they went to the only places where they were welcomed... the saloon and the house of prostitution."⁹ When America declared war against Germany in 1917 millions of men would need to be trained around the nation. A solution to the ‘sheer boredom’ was needed. The Department of War created the Commission on Training Camp Activities. Although the area surrounding Chickamauga did provide some relief from tough military training regimen, in regard to Camp Greenleaf located in Catoosa County GA, a ‘dry’ county – no alcohol available, positive activities were still needed.

                The CTCA set out to “attack” the problems created by life in military training camps by using established organizations to provide activities within training camps (e.g., the YMCA, Knights of Columbus, and the Jewish Board for Welfare Work). These organizations built theaters for movies, places to eat and created places for soldiers to be entertained. Also, The American Library Association was asked to build libraries and provide books in each of the training camps around the nation.¹⁰  Seemingly part of the ‘progressive era’s’ philosophy of paren patriae, the CTCA’s goal was to create “strong” soldiers by definition were “hygienic, moral, ‘clean,’ and proper.” The prevailing belief was that these measures would give soldiers an “invisible armor” of new social habits that would protect them from immorality in training camps and overseas. The responsibility to maintain appropriate behavior was continued once the soldiers left training camp. The American Expeditionary Force leadership and personnel on the naval transports took over at that point.¹¹