German H.H. Emory (1882–1918) was a prominent American lawyer and soldier from Baltimore. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross "for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 320th Infantry Regiment, 80th Division, American Expeditionary Forces, near Sommerance, France November 1, 1918." He was killed in action in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, in the waning days of World War I. He is commemorated with a memorial painting and two memorial sculptures in Maryland courthouses.
Birth and education
German H.H. Emory was born on September 27, 1882, in Murner's Branch, Allegany County, Maryland. His father, William Hopper Emory (1849–1908), was an insurance broker. His mother was Eleanor Louisa Hunt (1851–1927). He grew up at 1403 West Lanvale Street in Baltimore, which is now the site of Harlem Park Middle School. The Emory Family has deep roots on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Arthur Emory, Sr. (c. 1640-1699) arrived in Maryland in the 1660s. In 1667 he is reputed to have received from Lord Baltimore several land grants on the Wye, Choptank, and Chester rivers on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The Poplar Grove Plantation, near Centreville, Maryland, is the ancestral home of the Emorys. It lies on Spaniard Neck, a peninsula on the south side of the Chester River in Queen Anne's County, just above the mouth of the Corsica River. Today the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is overseeing the Poplar Grove Project, an ongoing exploration of the Emory family's papers, in conjunction with the Maryland State Archives. To date, over 28,406 documents have been recovered and scanned. The Emory family produced two celebrated military men in the 19th century: Col. Thomas Emory, (1782-1842), and one of his sons, General William H. Emory.
German was named after his maternal grandfather, German Horton Hunt (1828–1907), a leading Baltimore manufacturer of the 19th century, whose Poole and Hunt Engineering and Machine Company produced machinery and castings for a worldwide market from 1853 to 1889. Emory was educated in Baltimore, at The Hill School, near Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and at St. Luke's School in Philadelphia. He then entered the University of Maryland School of Law, the second oldest law school in the country. While there he joined the Eta chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa, a social fraternity, and became the 51st member to sign the Eta Chapter Roll. Graduating from the law school earlier than others, he was forced to wait until his twenty-first birthday to be admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1903.
Marriage and family
Emory married Lucy Imogen Stump (1883–1978) on June 15, 1907, in Baltimore. Lucy was also from Baltimore.
The Stump Family had been in Maryland since Colonial times, and were active in the Susquehanna River area, Western Maryland, and Baltimore in milling, mining, and banking. They also birthed a Confederate Brigadier General, James J. Archer.
One of Lucy's three sisters, Anna Abell Stump, married William Lee Rawls, "one of the most prominent attorneys in Baltimore", and gave birth to five sons, including philosopher John Rawls.
German and Lucy had three boys. Their oldest son, German H. H. Emory Jr., became the president of the Riegel Textile Company in New York City German and Lucy's second son, Richard Woollen Emory, followed his father into the law and practiced for many years in Maryland at Venable, Baetjer and Howard in Baltimore. The major's third son, Morris Soper Emory, was named after Judge Soper, and worked in the insurance business and lived in Philadelphia most of his life.
Lucy Emory remained a widow for 60 years until her death in 1978.
Practice of law Emory began the practice of law with the firm of Slingluff & Slingluff from 1903 to 1906, moving to private practice from 1906 to 1907. In 1908, Emory became a principal in the law firm of Johnson, Emory, Olmstead and Cator. During this period, in 1910, he also served as Assistant City Solicitor for Baltimore City, serving under Edgar Allan Poe, the second cousin of the famous American writer. In 1911, Emory formed a partnership with Morris A. Soper, who would soon become the chief judge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City. When Judge Soper ascended to the bench in 1913, Emory made the final change of his legal career, becoming a member of the firm of Frank, Emory & Beeuwkes. On January 8, 1919, The Supreme Bench of Baltimore held memorial proceedings for the six Baltimore lawyers killed in the First World War. Asked to speak about German Emory was Albert Cabell Ritchie, then the attorney general of Maryland, and soon to become the longest-serving governor in Maryland's history. Mr. Ritchie reflected in part, "Emory's knowledge of the law was broad. His advice was sound. His trial practice, at nisi prius and in the appellate courts, was very large. He was a born lawyer, broadened and developed by constant study and application and by tireless industry." In his speech about German Emory at another memorial service held in 1933 for the Six Members of the Baltimore Bar who were killed in the First World War, organized by the German H.H. Emory Post of the American Legion and held in the Baltimore City Courtroom, Chief Judge Samuel K. Dennis, of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore recollected, "Emory was an especially gifted lawyer. Ready, suave, cool, democratic and magnetic, he captured courts and juries, made converts to his cause. He loved his profession and was signally successful in it. He was considered one of the best trial lawyers in the city. Business also engaged Emory in 1914 as vice-president of Poole Engineering and Machine Company, his grandfather's old enterprise. During this period the Poole Company made, among other products, coastal defense artillery mountings and base rings for battleship turret guns in its Hampden/Woodberry facilities. They also established a rural ammunition loading works outside the city in Texas, Maryland. Emory was offered the Democratic nomination for Judge of the Supreme Court in 1917. He had entertained for several years an ambition to go on the bench, but he declined to become a candidate, saying to the lawyers who called on him offering their political support that he intended to enter the U.S. Army. He had applied for acceptance to the first Officer's Camp at Fort Myer, Virginia, in order to participate in the training that would take him to a position of leadership in the U.S. Army.
Military career
Emory was a strong advocate of America's entrance into the war. In April of 1917, Emory was present at the Capital when President Wilson went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war. Emory contended that it was his duty to fight for the principles that he upheld, and he was one of the first Marylanders to volunteer. Captain Thomas H. Westlake, of Cleveland, said, "Emory had something unusual in him because of the fact that he had volunteered at the age of almost 40, with a wife and three children dependent upon him." Emory's explanation was, "My country was my idol! To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment."
Fort Myer and Fort Lee While at Fort Myer, Virginia Emory acted as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. His series of five articles, entitled "Reports from a Rookie" and carrying his byline, appeared from time to time in the Sun, and explained many details of camp life and the rigors of military training of the day. In his first such report, published on May 20, 1917, Emory wrote, "One coming to camp is struck, instantly, by the type of men Uncle Sam has taken under his care for the next three months, and to whom he will entrust the training of the first army of 500,000. There are quite a number of men between the ages of 30 and 40, but the great majority are from 20 to 30. They are all fine, upstanding fellows, and most of them have had college educations. Many of the men are married and many were doing well in civil life before coming here. They fully appreciated what it would mean for a man to leave his family, friends and business for an indefinite period, and it makes a fellow feel proud of being an American when he glances about and thinks for a moment of the sacrifices voluntarily assumed by the 2,500 men here and the 38,000 men at the other training camps."
On May 26, in his second report, Emory wrote, "The men now know that this country will immediately begin to play a man's part in the war; that our present assistance to the Allies will be not merely money and munitions, but troops, standing shoulder to shoulder with the armies of France and England."
Major Emory was one of the few men who came out of the first officers' training camp with the rank of captain. He was subsequently ordered to Camp Lee, Virginia, where he spent nearly a year. On March 7, 1918, Captain Emory was promoted to major and placed in command of the Third Battalion, 320th Infantry Regiment, attached to the 80th Division of the American Expeditionary Forces. Two months later, on May 17, 1918, the 80th began to leave Camp Lee, heading for Newport News, Virginia, and embarkation. When troops were being rushed to France, the 23,000 soldiers of the 80th Division were sent "over there," arriving in St. Nazaire, Bordeaux and Brest on June 8, 1918.
France
The assembly point for the division was Calais, from which it departed early in June for training with the British Army in Artois and Picardy, France, and subsequently participated in the initial phases of the Somme Offensive. From there, 80th Division troops were abruptly moved to St. Mihiel for the first American Army offensive, serving under General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. General Pershing praised the actions of the 80th Division for having gained all of their battle objectives. General Cronkhite, in command of the 80th, recognized his men with the statement, "The 80th Only Moves Forward", the motto that has marked the Division since 1918.
Commencing September 14, the division moved into the Argonne region and began its preparations for the offensive in that region during the period September 26 through November 11. One day before Major Emory's birthday, in conjunction with other American divisions, the 80th attacked at Bethincourt, advancing through the hell that was trench warfare a distance of nine kilometers in two days. Major Emory received the American Expeditionary Forces Citation for Gallantry in Action, for rallying the men of the 320th Regiment under terrific machine gun fire in action in the Bois des Ogons, France on September 26, 1918.
On September 29 the 80th Division was relieved and assembled in the vicinity of Cuisy, where on October 4 it again attacked, and over difficult ground attained a distance of four kilometers in nine days. On October 12 the division was again relieved and proceeded by march and bus to the Thiaucourt area where it was re-equipped.
At Thiacourt, the U.S. Army troops began using Springfield and Browning Automatic Rifles. Prior to that, British Enfields and French Cha Chat automatics had been used. With barely three weeks training with the newer rifles, the 80th troops were thrust into the third and final phase of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The 80th Division was the only one that saw action during each phase of that offensive.
On October 29, Emory's Regiment entered the line at St. Georges-St. Juvin and began preparation for what would be its last assault on the German lines.