Today's Tidbits... Who's Playing in a 1909 Post Card?
Among my favorite subsets of football history is the game as played by active-duty military personnel. There is a well-documented trail of football played by the Naval Academy since 1879 and West Point since 1890, but the games played by active duty personnel are largely forgotten. Only the WWI and WWII military teams receive any attention nowadays. Unlike colleges, military bases did not have yearbooks back then, and the folks in charge got transferred every few years, so there was little effort to preserve the history of their football or other athletic teams.
Strange as it seems today, active duty military football might have competed with the colleges for the nation's football attention, but their leadership did not see football as core to their mission, so they kept it low-key, other than during the world wars. Still, active duty personnel regularly played college teams through the 1920s, especially on the West Coast and in the South, which had more military facilities and fewer colleges.
In trying to document some of their history, I've collected my share of military football RPPCs from WWI or earlier. Some are team photos, and others are action shots. Still, determining the location and teams on the postcard is often difficult if the photographer did not label the image when printing it on postcard stock.
Also, many unlabeled RPPCs were never posted and did not have a message on the back, so you have to dig for clues in the image. The recent acquisition shown below has two teams scrimmaging in c. 1910 uniforms. There's a dog on the field to the left, a horse and buggy to the right, and two similar frame buildings in the background, suggesting the game occurred on a college campus or a military base. Identifying the location based on the image alone would require finding an image with those buildings in the background.
Thankfully, this high-quality image was posted and has a message on the back, providing the opportunity to identify the teams, the place, and the time. When listed on eBay, the seller described the RPPC as:
Postcard RPPC Football Game 1909 Dodge California Cancel Unknown Teams
It was postmarked on November 24, 1909, and has some handwriting that is hard to decipher. However, it mentions the First and Third squadrons playing one another, suggesting the RPPC shows a game between cavalry personnel. But who were they, and where were they playing?
Since the eBay seller described the postmark as being from Dodge, California, I searched for military installations in or near there but could not find one. In fact, I couldn't find a location named Dodge in California besides a ski resort, so I took a closer look at the postmark. I realized it might be from Dodge, Georgia, not California. Another look at the message revealed the first word, "Oglethorpe," which quickly led to information and images confirming the location as Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, which sat a few miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The postcard below was among the Fort Oglethorpe images. The buildings in the background of the football game image correspond to those near the flagpole below.
Knowing the game occurred on the parade grounds at Fort Oglethorpe, the message further described the image as the First and Third squadrons playing a scoreless game on Saturday. In fact, the game occurred on Sunday, November 20, 1909, as shown by the preview from the Chattanooga News. The game was part of the three-team league, with each squadron playing the other squadrons three times.
The scoreless tie is mentioned in an article nine days later when the Chattanooga News reported that the Third Squadron defeated the Second Squadron 5-0. A crowd of Chattanoogagans took a special train to the fort to attend the game, and they likely did the same when the First and Third Squadrons met again the next Sunday.
At the time, Fort Oglethorpe was home to the Eleventh Cavalry, which also fielded a football team. Soldiers commonly played for their squadron teams, and an all-star or regimental squad played outside competition. The Eleventh Cavalry had a tradition of playing and beating the Mooney School for Boys and the University of Chattanooga, then a private school and now the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Fort Oglethorpe fielded an all-star team during WWI, during which Capt. Dwight Eisenhower served there, but it appears to have focused on baseball during WWII and their military duties. As a cavalry post that took on medical and WAC training in WWII, it helped develop the Mobile Army's Surgical Hospital or MASH units. The fort also figured in the field testing of the Bantam Reconnaissance Car, soon to become known as the Jeep. The Army decommissioned the fort at the end of 1946, and its grounds formed the basis of a new city under the same name.
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Great research, Tim
Another case is cracked! Excellent research and discovery in preserving this game to football history.