On November 10, 1918, one of the last men to be killed in the final hours of World War I, just before the guns fell silent, was Moses Neptune, son of the Passamaquoddy chief at Pleasant Point. On November 11, 2018, the tribal community will join in marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the "war to end all wars" at Veterans Day and Remembrance Day observances -- at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
     With a tribal population of only around 1,000, more than 30 Passamaquoddys volunteered during the Great War, even though they were not considered American citizens at the time and could not vote. And six of the soldiers from the tribe who were either killed or wounded during the war did not receive official recognition of their service until 2016.
     Some of the Passamaquoddys had joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, since Canada entered the war before the U.S. did in 1917, and some went into the Navy. Of the nine who were in the American Expeditionary Forces' Yankee Division, two died fighting the Imperial German Army and one lost a leg, but the U.S. government "would make no mention of them for 99 years," according to The Veterans Site blog.
     "I think they wanted to defend the homeland," says Tribal Historian Donald Soctomah, who will be speaking about the Passamaquoddys who served during a seminar at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine in Augusta on November 16. "It was something not just patriotic. They wanted to protect their home."
     The Yankee Division Passamaquoddys were in Company I, which also included soldiers from Eastport and Calais and was part of the 103rd U.S. Infantry. Charles Lola was the first Passamaquoddy killed. He was 22 and was later awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government for remarkable courage and tenacity in defending an advance post until he was killed in action at Xivray on June 26. Soctomah notes that Lola's father Sabattis wore the medal "at every opportunity." Along with Moses Neptune, two Passamaquoddys who joined the Canadian forces, Frank Polis and George Moore, also were killed. Polis died of his wounds in a hospital in France. Soctomah notes that Canadian officials recently contacted him about possibly finding George Moore's remains. He has been missing in action since he was killed in France.
     Samuel Dana was hit by a high-explosive shell and lost his leg in the war but came home and later served as the tribe's representative to the state legislature. Also wounded during the war were George Stevens Sr., Henry Sockbeson and David Sopiel. Stevens had noticed that the mustard gas used by the Germans smelled like the diamond dyes used in basket-making back home, and he would alert the other soldiers when a gas attack was made so they would put on their masks. He thus saved the lives of several Maine men. Stevens was seriously wounded in the leg on the last day of the war, having carried a corporal from Princeton back across to friendly lines. He was later elected tribal representative to the legislature.
Under fire for 200 days
     Soctomah notes that the troops in Company I were among the first Americans on the front lines in France. According to the Maine Army National Guard history, the 103rd Infantry Regiment arrived in France on October 16-21, 1917, and moved to the front lines on February 6. The 103rd and 104th Infantry Regiments made up the 52nd Infantry Brigade, which captured 1,500 prisoners, never lost any ground but rather took 30 kilometers of German-held territory and suffered 5,000 casualties. It was said that the brigade "turned No Man's Land into 'Yankee Land' because its patrols successfully penetrated the enemy lines wherever it was deployed," according to Soldiers' Mail blog. According to First Lt. Jonathan Bratten, command historian for the Maine National Guard, the Passamaquoddy soldiers were under fire for almost 200 days in 1918.
     At the Soisoons Front the regiment experienced its first combat, coming under artillery and gas attacks. The 103rd continued to be on the front lines until the end of the war in November. At the Toul Front from April through June, the regiment experienced heavy fighting. A few of the experiences are related in the Maine Army National Guard history: "A German machine-gun squad had just entered an American trench and were spotted by Verne Boutlier of Houlton, who assaulted them with his automatic rifle, which was soon broken by enemy fire. He then attacked them with just his bayonet, taking the machine gun, and using it against the enemy. At another point, a German flamethrower team of three men got close to the lines and Captain Williams shot the man with the flamethrower, detonating the tank and killing all three. During the assault, the Germans took one prisoner, a boy from Eastport. Hearing of this, Lt. Irvin E. Doane from Houlton led a rescue party of seven men who recaptured the boy as well as some Germans."
     In July the regiment replaced the Marines in Belleau Wood, where 3,000 of them were killed or wounded to take just a piece of ground. The regiment's motto, "To the Last Man," which is continued by the 133rd Engineer Battalion to this day, originated from a message sent by the regiment's commander back to headquarters: "Tell the colonel we have taken and are consolidating the position but have had tremendous losses, have less than 200 men in the line available for duty but will hold the position to the last man."
     In August the 103rd took part in the offensive on the St. Mihiel Front and later was heavily bombarded by gas at Saulx. They then went to Verdun, which was the site of the largest and longest battle of the war between the French and German armies, and on the nights of October 22 and 23 the regiment moved into the front lines north of Cote de Poivre, occupying old German trenches and subjected to severe artillery fire. The Soldiers' Mail blog relates, "Facing them, the German 1st and 32nd Landwehr Divisions had constructed layered defenses over months which proved highly resistant to attack including artillery, machine guns and intricate trenchworks embedded in a muddy moonscape with observation points on the heights above. The weather was dismal with a continual rain and cold river mists saturating everything including clothing and blankets. Dugouts and trenches were flooded and knee‑deep in mud, hillsides were mud piles torn by constant artillery and sniper fire, the roads were impassable, and toxic gas permeated everything. Exhausted and clad in worn, filthy clothing, the men also had insufficient hot food and were forced by necessity to use untreated water from any source including puddles and shell holes which caused many cases of diarrhea. What further added to the misery was an outbreak of dreaded influenza that took its own share of casualties across all ranks."
     The 103rd then was part of the great Allied offensive of the Meuse-Argonne, which was the deadliest campaign in U.S. history, with over 125,000 men lost to combat or disease. After taking Haumont on November 9 and Bois de Ville on November 10, on the morning of November 11 the regiment was poised to begin another assault and began advancing at 10:35. Twenty-five minutes later they were ordered to halt as the armistice began and the guns finally fell silent. The silence was followed, according to the Soldiers' Mail blog, "by frantic cheering from the men on both sides who had already counted themselves dead and now realized they had been given the gift of survival." But any joy was tempered in remembering those who had died, as during the past 10 days of November 400 of the 103rd's soldiers were killed and wounded and 500 more were gassed. Since entering the war, the regiment had been reduced to only 2530% of its original strength.
     Among those killed was Moses Neptune, age 19, who died on November 10. Just before dusk on November 12, he and 10 other soldiers of the 103rd Infantry who had fallen during the last two days were buried in one large common grave on a hillside at the edge of Bois de Ville. The site was the most forward position of the 103rd Infantry's final advance during the war.
     The company's chaplain later wrote the following letter to Moses Neptune's father William, who was the tribe's chief. "Dear Governor Neptune: Your son gave his young life for freedom on the day the armistice was signed. He was in the last great drive, at the so‑called second battle of Verdun. Tenderly we carried the bodies to a beautiful spot on the hillside and laid your boy with ten of his companions to rest. The entire battalion gathered around them. The American flag was spread over them, while touchingly and fitting the band played 'Nearer, My God to Thee.' After the Christian service, the army guns' salute was fired and the bugler blew Taps, the call in the army which summons soldiers to rest. Just as the service was finished we noticed three German officers coming, flying the white flag of surrender. It was a most fitting close; the very thing for which your son and his comrades had given their lives had come to pass. I am sure that from heaven they looked and saw that they had not lived in vain. We marked their graves with crosses, and the cemetery with a large white cross that could be easily seen from a distance, and sent the exact location to Washington."
     "That is a good letter," was the quiet comment of Governor Neptune, and he turned back to re‑read another paragraph of his son's last letter. "I am glad the service flag is raised and that our people went to Holy Communion for soldiers in the army. I am proud of my people -- school children and all who help." Two weeks after they were notified he had been killed, his family received another letter from Moses, telling how he was sending money to them.
     Because the Passamaquoddy were not considered U.S. citizens at the time, the six Passamaquoddys in Company I who were wounded or died in action during the war did not receive recognition until recently. At a ceremony in July 2016 at Indian Township, family members of the soldiers finally were presented with military service medals and decorated eagle feathers to honor their service -- and their sacrifices.