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Grover Carter
Grover Carter was born February 8, 1893 to Viola and James S. Carter, M.D. in Selmer, Tennessee. He was the youngest of seven children. Following a family tradition Grover became a physician, first graduating from Union University, Jackson, Tennessee
in 1912. He then entered Tennessee College of Medicine (1913), graduating with his M.D. in June of 1917. He then served and internship at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. -
Franz Ferdinand
In June 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were both assassinated. As they headed toward their destination, they narrowly escaped death when Serbian terrorists threw a bomb at their open-topped car. Their luck ran out later that day. However, when their driver inadvertently drove them past 19-year-old Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip who shot and killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife at point-blank range. -
Grover Carter
War: World War, 1914-1918
Branch: Army
Unit: 104th Field Ambulance, Medical Corps, British Expeditionary Force
Service Location: Dartford, England; Le Cateau, France; Belgium
Rank: First Lieutenant -
WWI Draft
President Woodrow Wilson signed the Selective Services Act on May 18, 1917, in preparation for U.S. involvement in WWI. The United States had a standing army of just over 100,000 at the time. The initial act required all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register with the newly created Selective Service System. By the end of World War I in November 1918, roughly 24 million men had registered and 2.8 million were drafted into the armed forces. The draft was dissolved after WWI. -
Espionage act
After America’s formal entrance into World War I against Germany, the United States Congress passes the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act essentially made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. Anyone found guilty of such acts would be subject to a fine of $10,000 and a prison sentence of 20 years. -
Grover Carter
Grover volunteered for service in World War One. In his diary he notes his enlistment as August 1, 1917 and his commissioning as a Ist Lieutenant on August 4, 1917. On September 11, 1917 he was assigned to Foreign Duty with the British Expeditionary Forces. By this time Great Britain has been in the war for over three years and was sorely in need of medical officers. -
John J. Pershing
U.S. Army general John J. Pershing commanded the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during WWI. He served in the Spanish- and Philippine-American Wars and was tasked to lead a punitive raid against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson selected Pershing to command the American troops being sent to Europe. After the war, Pershing served as army chief of staff from 1921 to 1924. -
sedition act WWI
On 05/16/1918, the United States Congress passes the Sedition Act, to protect America’s participation in WWI. Along with the Espionage Act, the Sedition Act was orchestrated largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson. The Espionage Act, passed shortly after the U.S. entrance into the war in early April 1917, made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. -
Grover Carter
A small pocket notebook he kept covers the period from leaving Memphis through service at Dartford War Hospital. The diary
begins with his arrival in France and continues through October 14, 1918. His death is listed as October 16, 1918. The only details that were found were from a newspaper article which stated “[Grover] was killed by the explosion of shrapnel while he was dressing a wound for one of his officers. A piece of metal four inches long severed his spinal cord.” -
U-Boats
Germany announces the renewal of torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers. When WWI erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America’s closest trading partners. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines and, Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships. -
Versailles, Treaty of WWI
WWI officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany, its 15 parts and 440 articles reassigned German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. The French assented to the modification of important provisions. Germany agreed to pay reparations under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, but Hitler’s rise to power and subsequent actions rendered. -
Grover Carter
Grover was buried in Flanders Field, an American Cemetery in Waregem, Belgium. His body remained there until 1923. When he was returned to Selmer. And buried at Oak Hill Cemetery on February 7. -
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson the 28th U.S. president, served in office from 1913 to 1921 and led America through WWI. Wilson is often ranked by historians as one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Wilson was a college professor, university president and Democratic governor of New Jersey before winning the White House in 1912. Once in office, he pursued an ambitious agenda of progressive reform that included the establishment of the Federal Reserve and Federal Trade Commission. -
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. is among the most famous of the U.S. Supreme Court justices. Born to a prominent Boston family, Holmes was wounded at the Civil War battles of Ball’s Bluff, Antietam and Chancellorsville. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1866, he prepared a series of lectures that were published as “The Common Law” in 1881. Holmes then served on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts from 1882 until his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1902. -
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Wilhelm II, the German kaiser and king of Prussia was one of the most recognizable public figures of WWI. He gained a reputation as a swaggering militarist through his speeches and ill-advised newspaper interviews. While Wilhelm did not actively seek war, and tried to hold back his generals from mobilizing the German army in the summer of 1914. His verbal outbursts and his open enjoyment of the title of Supreme War Lord helped bolster the case of those who blamed him for the conflict.
