A Flag Unfurled: The War Letters of John L. Hobson II

A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, John L. Hobson II could have chosen a life of comfort and followed his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps into the family business. Instead, he left his studies at Bryant and Stratton College in Boston and joined the portentous American war effort in 1916. This collection of letters from Hobson to his family in Haverhill, Massachusetts, collected and edited by Hobson’s son, Stephen Gale Hobson, chronicles a young American man’s foray into the European battlefields of World War I. Eloquently written and intensely felt, these letters poignantly express the horrors of wartime combat and the love a son has for his family and his country. The letters begin at the National Guard training camp in Plattsburgh, New York, and chronicle his trials and travails as a new soldier at Camp Curtis Guild, Jr. in Boxford, Massachusetts. From there, the young enlistee heads to the front in France at Chemin des Dames, Toul, and Chateau Thierry. He learns advanced strategy and field tactics at the Saumur Artillery School in France. For his battlefield valor, he receives citations for bravery and earns a Purple Heart. A real portrait of a place in history now only known in books and film, A Flag Unfurled: The War Letters of John L. Hobson II breathes new life into the war and America of nearly a century ago.