HISTORY
OF THE SEVENTY SEVENTH DIVISION
Major - General
FRANKLIN BELL
JAMES FRANKLIN BELL
was a major-general in the Regular Army of the United
States, commanding the Department of the East, with
headquarters at Governors Island, New York at the time of
his death, January, 1919. He entered West Point in 1874
and graduated in 1878, with a commission as lieutenant of
cavalry.
General Bell's
venerable figure, as he addressed the officers and the
men of the newly formed 77th Division at Camp Upton in
September and the ensuing months of training, will be
remembered among the first impressions of a life strange
and full of new conditions.
General Bell
commanded the Division when the first newly appointed
officers climbed the hill and reported to their first
assignment, through that formative stage when barracks
were thrown together at a miraculous speed and being
filled at the same rate. Then, in December, he sailed for
France under orders to make a tour of the front and
observe first hand actual fighting conditions. He did not
return until the latter part of March, 1918.
On his return, when
he was given that physical examination which active
service overseas required, it was found that he was not
equal to the severe test.
It was on the
western prairies that be first saw active service, with
the 7th Cavalry, "Custer's Crack Regiment."
With this regiment he participated in the battle of
Wounded Knee, North Dakota, and against the Sioux
Indians. For a decade he led the active life of the
plains. Later he became an instructor and Chief of the
Army War Colleges located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
At the outbreak of
the Spanish-American War, he was acting as adjutant, to
General Forsyth, then commanding the Department of the
West, with headquarters at San Francisco. He was
immediately commissioned Colonel of Volunteers, and
authorized to organize a regiment. This he successfully
and quickly did and it was ordered to the Philippines.
Under his command the regiment rendered valuable services
against the insurgents.
His service in the
Philippines won General Bell high distinction, and after
a lapse of but a few months he was promoted from his
commission of captain in the Regular Army to
brigadier-general in the Regular Army, outranking many
officers previously his senior. Most notable of his
numerous engagements with the insurgents was that near
Porac in the Island of Luzon, in which he was wounded
while leading a charge. For his action here he was
awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, for gallantry
in action.
When, in 1905, he returned to the United States he was
commissioned major-general, and in the spring of 1907 was
appointed Chief of the Army General Staff. As such he
served for four years, under Presidents Roosevelt and
Taft.
When the United
States military forces concentrated in the Philippines he
returned to Manila and remained there as
Commander-in-Chief until war with Mexico seemed imminent.
He was then ordered home to take command of the 4th
Division. The 4th Division remained in Texas City as
reserve, and although at several times seemed about to
cross the Rio Grande, was never a part of the
expeditionary force.
After the Mexican
situation quieted, General Bell was relieved of the 4th
Division and placed in command of the Department of the
West. Here at San Francisco, where he had been acting
adjutant, he remained the commander until America entered
the Great War.
In the early spring
of 1917 he was transferred to the Department of the East,
and as commander of that department, became responsible
for the First Officers' Training Camps, at Plattsburg,
Madison Barracks and Fort Niagara. These camps, in
August, 1917, graduated the great quota of new officers
who were to be a part of the new National Army, and to a
large extent to officer the new divisions of the east and
northeast.
In the same month he was
offered and promptly accepted the command of the National Army Division
to be organized at Camp Upton. When the doctors decreed that General
Bell would not take his division to France, he was again given command
of the Department of the East, and returned to his old headquarters,
Governors Island, which command he held until his death, January, 1919.