Last month, I featured a story on the Wright Brothers and their aviation field located where Daniel Field Airport is today. The aviation field would prove extremely beneficial in Augusta, obtaining Camp Hancock during World War I.

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924) requested a formal declaration of war against Germany from a special joint session of Congress. Four days later, Congress granted Wilson’s request, and the United States was formally at war with Germany. Ending a policy of neutrality, the U.S. was woefully unprepared for military action in World War I. 

Thirty-two military training camps were quickly established by the War Department around the country. Sixteen camps were utilized for the national army and the other 16 camps operated for National Guard mobilization and training. Augusta was selected as the training site for members of the Pennsylvania National Guard. 

Augusta’s cantonment was named “Camp Hancock” in honor of Major General Winfield Scott Hancock (1824—1886), a native of Pennsylvania and a Union general in the Civil War. Locals had wanted the camp to be named after General Joseph Wheeler (1836—1906), who was born near Augusta, but the cantonment in Macon, GA, received the name “Camp Wheeler.”  

Construction of the camp began on July 19, 1917, under the supervision of Major Gratz B. Strickler, the construction quartermaster. Situated on 1,777 acres, Camp Hancock occupied land running from the reservoir on Highland Avenue to Daniel Field and to the western edge of Forrest Hills Golf Course. The camp was largely a tent city composed of barracks, mess halls, stables, showers, latrines, storage buildings, and administrative buildings. Roads were made of sand and clay. It was designed to accommodate approximately 50,000 troops. The former Wright Brothers aviation field was utilized as parade grounds for the men. Camp Hancock also had significant base hospital facilities that would treat injured soldiers from other camps around the southeast. 

Although construction was not completed until December of 1917, members of the Pennsylvania National Guard arrived by train from Philadelphia to Camp Hancock in September. Over 26,000 Pennsylvania guardsmen arrived at Camp Hancock under the command of Major General Charles M. Clement, a Pennsylvania native and commander of Pennsylvania’s 28th National Guard Infantry Division, also referred to as the “Keystone Division.” Augusta residents were encouraged to open their homes to family members of the soldiers stationed at Camp Hancock.

The training was difficult and hard at Camp Hancock. Training supplies were tremendously hard to obtain. According to an article in the Bucks County Herald newspaper in Pennsylvania, men were engaged in bayonet drills, bomb-throwing, trench-digging, and trained in using machine guns. Military equipment was grossly inadequate, and soldiers were often trained using wooden machine guns and had to share bayonets.

The Keystone Division was sent to Europe in May 1918 for further training and eventual fighting in World War I. It would lose over 2,000 troops, and 12,000 troops would suffer injury. Because of their tenacity, the Keystone Division would earn the name “Men of Iron.”

After the war ended, Camp Hancock served as a demobilization center and eventually salvaged in 1919. Although not many, there are still a few remnants of Camp Hancock. In 2009, a grenade believed to be from Camp Hancock was found at the Augusta Municipal Golf course.