October 3, 2018 • 33 mins
We’re coming up on the centennial of the act of heroism that earned Alvin York the Medal of Honor. His name is known thanks to the 1941 film “Sergeant York,” but it takes a lot of liberties, and omits what he believed was his greatest accomplishment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly fry back In
we did a podcast about Desmond T. Doss and that
(00:21):
was the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal
of Honor, and from time to time when we share
that episode on our social media, someone comments something along
the lines of, what about Alvin York. So we're coming
up on the centennial of the act of heroism that
earned Alvin York the Medal of Honor that happened on
October nine, eighteen, so it seemed like a good time
(00:44):
to talk about him and to answer that frequently asked
question from our social media. Also, Alvin York's name is
pretty well known thanks to the nineteen forty one film
Sergeant York starring Gary Cooper, and the real life Alvin
York was an eyes are on the film. But it
really takes a whole lot of liberties, and it also
stops before the part of York's life that he thought
(01:07):
of as a much greater achievement than the actions that
earned him the Medal of Honor. So that is what
we were going to talk about today. Alvin Cullum York
was born on his family's small farm near Palmell, Tennessee,
in the Wolf River Valley, on December thirteenth of eight seven.
His parents were William Muriah York and Mary Elizabeth York,
(01:27):
and he was the third of eleven children. They all
lived in a dog trot cabin of the sort that
we actually talked about in our recent episode on air conditioning.
The Yorks were mostly subsistence farmers, although William also earned
some money as a blacksmith. As Alvin got a little older,
he joined his father in that work, and Alvin also
supplemented the famili's food supply through his growing skill as
(01:49):
a marksman, both from hunting and from winning turkey shoots.
The Wolf River Valley area was extremely isolated when Alvin
York was growing up. There were no paved roads or
railroads Infantris County, where Palmell is located. The Wolf River
itself also wasn't navigable by steamboat, and most of the
families living there were also subsistence farmers like the Yorks,
(02:12):
and this meant that Alvin, his siblings, and their friends
had very little formal education, their labor was needed on
the farm in order for the family to survive. York
described himself as having a third grade education, and that
amounted to about three months of school per year, spread
across three years. William York died in nineteen eleven after
(02:33):
being injured by a mule. Twenty four year old Alvin
was the oldest of the York children still living at home,
and his older brothers had families of their own, so
Alvin essentially became the head of the family. He was
expected to run the farm and to look after his mother,
and to help raise his youngest siblings. He had real
trouble coping with all of these new responsibilities and with
(02:54):
the grief over his father's death. He and his father
had bonded while hunting together, and Alvin deep respected his father.
After William Yorke died, Alvin and some of his friends
became increasingly rowdy. They headed across the border into Kentucky
to gamble and drink, and soon Alvin had several arrests
on his record, mainly for intoxication or trouble that he
(03:16):
got into while he was intoxicated. One night, Alvin and
his best friend Everett Delk got into a fight at
a bar. Circumstances aren't completely clear, but Delk was killed.
York was the one who had to take his friend's
body him, and at that point he started seriously reconsidering
his choices. The Yorks, like virtually all of their neighbors,
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were churchgoers, and Alvin had been raised in a devout
Christian household, but in the years after his father's death,
Alvin was no longer actively attending. He returned to church
in part because he had met a young woman that
he was quite fond of. Her name was Gracie Williams.
Gracie's father thought Alvin was too old for her, and
on top of that, an unbeliever, and he would not
(03:59):
allow them to and the last week of nineteen fourteen,
York attended a revival held by an itinerant preacher, the
Reverend Melvin Herbert Russell. Alvin went to this revival in
part because he knew Gracie was going to be there,
But on the last day of the revival, which was
on New Year's Day nineteen fifteen, something really shifted for him.
(04:20):
On that particular day, he described the gospel quote as
if lightning had struck my soul. When the preacher put
out the invitation for people to come forward and to
publicly repent of their sins, Alvin did. This was a
night and day change for the way that he was living.
He gave up alcohol and he started trying to live
his life in a Christian way when that was rooted
(04:41):
in honesty, decency, mercy, and kindness. Soon Alvin and Gracie
were seriously courting. In his words quote Ms. Gracey said
that she wouldn't let me come according until I'd quit
my mean drinking, fighting and card flipping. So you see,
I was struck down by the power of love and
the Great God Almighty all together. One of the York's
(05:02):
neighbors was also a pastor, Rosier Pile. Pile became a
mentor to York after his conversion and then after another
revival in the area, Pile and York established a congregation
of the Church of Christ and Christian Union, also called
the Three c U. York became a singer and an
elder in their newly established church. After the Selective Service
(05:24):
Act was passed in nineteen seventeen, York was required to
register for the draft. He did, but in the space
that asked, do you claim exemption from draft? Specify grounds?
He wrote, yes, don't want to fight. He had come
to believe that fighting and killing were sinful under any circumstances,
and this belief contradicted his desire to serve his country.
(05:47):
His ancestors had also fought for the Union during the
Civil War, and part of him felt like he should
follow in their footsteps. He was really troubled over all
of these conflicting impulses about what was the right thing
to do. York had filled out his draft registration card
in June of nineteen seventeen, and that same month he
got engaged to Gracie Williams. Then on August he reported
(06:09):
for his physical He was found fit to serve, and
he started formally applying for conscientious object or status. This
is not something that you could just say, I'm a
conscientious objector. There were rules that you had to document
what we were talking about and why you had an
objection to serving in a military capacity. But his application
(06:30):
was turned down. The board ruled that the Church of
Christ and Christian Union was not a quote well recognized
religious sect since at the time it existed in only
three states. The board also noted that the three CU
quote has no special creed except the Bible, which it's
members more or less interpret for themselves. Some members of
(06:51):
the church interpreted the Bible to mean that fighting in
the war was sinful, but others did not. York filed
several applications for conscientious objectors attis, but once he reported
for duty, he stopped doing this. At least one request
was filed on his behalf in nineteen eighteen, though that
was done without his knowledge or consent, And that's probably
(07:12):
where some confusion comes from about the idea that somebody
else applied for him. Sometimes you'll see it described that
he never filed um an application on his own. That's
definitely not correct. There are multiple applications on record, but
he did write about how he had never done it
in terms of this one that was done after he
(07:33):
was already surveying, that was done without his consent. We
are going to talk about York's time in the army
after we first paused for a little sponsor break. Once
he got into the army, in some ways, Alvin York
seemed to really enjoy basic training, finding it easier than
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being at home. His family had been living in poverty
for all of his life, and the food was in
very short supply. I But in the army he was
getting three meals a day and a cot to himself
that he didn't have to share, plus a new uniform
that was provided for him. And it also helped that
some of the things he was supposed to be learning
were things he already really excelled at, particularly marksmanship. But
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in another way, it was quite difficult. York had never
been more than fifty miles away from Powell Mall. Nearly
everyone living in Fentriss County was white and had been
living there for generations. But many of the men in
training with him were immigrants to the United States who
had been living in northern cities, and they couldn't understand
one another, and they had very little in common. His
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religious devotion also really set him apart from most of
the other men, and he had to keep his still
troubled conscience to himself. Men who objected to the war
were seen as cowards and idlers, and often they faced
extensive harassment from their fellow soldiers. So even though he
was having three square meals a day and a bed
(08:59):
just leap and that he didn't have to share with
anybody and that sort of thing. Socially, he was very isolated.
Once he was finished with basic training, York continued to
have doubts about what he was doing. These doubts escalated
while he was stationed in Camp Gordon, Georgia, with Company G,
Infantry Regiment, eighty second U. S. Army Infantry Division. Some
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of their exercises at this point weren't just about marksmanship.
They were about killing with both firearms and bayonets, and
that whole idea continued to really trouble him. He talked
to two officers about his doubts. They were Captain E. C. B.
Dan Fourth Jr. And George Edward Buxton, and these three
men had lengthy discussions about what was weighing on York's conscience.
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Dan Forth and Buxton were both really familiar with the Bible,
and they and York thoughtfully talked through what the scriptures
had to say about things like war and fighting and duty.
When these conversations didn't totally resolve York's doubts, he was
given leave to go back calm and consider what he
should do. So we went back to Tennessee, and while
(10:05):
he was there he ultimately decided that it was God's
will for him to fight in the army. He described
it as having received assurance from God himself that this
was the right thing to do, and that assurance came
after about thirty six hours of fasting and prayer. And
that's why Alvin York isn't considered to be the first
conscientious objector to earn the Medal of Honor. He did
(10:27):
earn the Medal of Honor, which we're going to talk about,
but he ultimately reconciled his questions of conscience and he
served in a combat role rather than serving in a
non combat role as a conscientious objector or going to
prison rather than serving. Shortly after York returned to duty
on March thirty one, nineteen eighteen, his division was sent overseas.
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They spent several months rotating in and out of trenches
along the front, and then the muse are Gun Offensive
began on September twenty nine, and that continued until the
armistice was signed at the end of the war. It
was part of the one d Days Offensive, which we
talked about in our recent episode on the Battle of Amiens.
York earned his Medal of honor during the music On Offensive.
(11:12):
By that point he had been promoted to corporal. The
eighty second Infantry Division was deployed to capture the Deco
Villa Railroad, which was being used to resupply German troops,
but on the way there they encountered heavy machine gun
fire that kept them from reaching their target. On October eight,
York's platoon was ordered to cross a valley to capture
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the machine gun nest that was preventing their advance. This
meant that they had to cross a stretch of open
territory to get to their target. An artillery barrage that
was supposed to protect them never arrived, and they faced
huge casualties as they tried to cross the valley. Only
seventeen men were still able to fight. Once they found
an unused trench to take cover in. This was not
(11:54):
an actual combat trench. It was like it had built
from some other agricultural pers maybe so it was a
temporary shelter, not something that was actually meant for military use.
And from there they carefully made their way back behind
the German line, where they surprised two German soldiers wearing
red Cross arm bands. When these soldiers disappeared into the brush.
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The American force pursued them, but on the other side
of the brush was Lieutenant Paul Jurgen Vollmer's headquarters, which
was full of German soldiers eating breakfast. These soldiers had
hiked through the night. They were exhausted, and they were hungry,
and they seemed to believe that these American soldiers who
had just come in on them were an advanced unit
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connected to a much larger force. A lot of the
German soldiers immediately surrendered. At this point, the German machine
gun crew on a hill above the headquarters noticed what
was happening, and they yelled in German for the soldiers
to drop, and then they opened fire on the American force.
Six Americans were killed, including Corporal Murray Savage, who had
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become close friends with York. The wounded included their commanding officer,
Sergeant Bernard Early, and another officer, Corporal William Cutting. Of
the seventeen men who had taken cover in the trench,
only eight men, including York, were still able to fight.
York took command, and he and the other seven men
found cover on the side of the hill and started
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returning fire against these machine gunners. Because of the way
that York and the surviving men were tucked in at
the bottom of the hill, the German force up at
the top of the hill had to stand up and
lean forward to aim down at them. York and the
other Americans shot at them when they did this, with
York calling out for them to surrender so that they
wouldn't be killed. Then a German lieutenant and about six
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soldiers tried to charge down the hill with bayonets, trying
to take down whoever was killing the machine gunners that
was mostly York, and York shot each of them with
his pistol, working from the back of the charge to
the front, using the same technique he had used when
hunting turkeys or other birds at home and when hunting.
The idea was to take down the birds at the
back without alarming the ones at the front and causing
(14:06):
them to scatter, and when York was being charged, he
was starting with the men at the back so that
they couldn't take cover behind the bodies of the men
in front. One of the men also threw a small
grenade at York, but that missed. At this point, Valmer,
who had lived in the United States for a while
called out to York in English English. York answered, no,
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not English. Valmer said what, and York answered American. Volmer replied,
good lord, if you won't shoot anymore, I will make
them give up, and then he ordered the rest of
the German force to surrender. Four German officers and a
hundred and twenty eight men were captured. The other Americans
who were there credited York with doing the vast majority
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of the work. They escorted the German prisoners back to
a command post, and that command post had no facilities
to hold them, so they marched about ten miles to
the brigade headquarters. By the time time they arrived there,
they had picked up other German POWs as well, for
a total of about two hundred. After this, with those
machine guns out of commission, the Allies were able to
(15:10):
capture the deck of the railroad as planned. From there,
York and the rest of his units saw combat repeatedly
between that October eighth engagement and the end of the war.
On November one of nineteen eighteen, York was promoted to sergeant,
and then the war ended. On November eleven, Sergeant Alvin
York was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Quada Gair
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with palms and the Middle of Honor for his actions
on October eighth of nineteen eighteen. The Medal of Honor
was awarded on April eighteenth of nineteen nineteen, and the
citation reads quote After his platoon had suffered heavy casualties
and three other non commissioned officers had become casualties, Corporal
York assumed command fearlessly, Leading seven men. He charged with
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great during a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly
and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat,
the machine gun nest was taken, together with four officers
and one eight men and several guns. Later on, Sergeant
early In Corporal Cutting, who had enlisted under a false
name and was really Otis B. Matthew, where each awarded
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the Distinguished Service Cross as well. There are a couple
of misconceptions about York's heroism on October eight and one
is that he captured thirty five machine guns. This is
repeated in a lot of places, including on the plank
of a statue of him, and that thirty five number
is a huge exaggeration. It's something neither York nor his
military record ever claimed, Yes, sometimes plaques on statues and
(16:39):
historical marker signs are just not right for for a
variety of reasons, for a number of reasons. So yeah,
this this is an exaggeration. That's not something he ever
said he did. And the other misconception is that he
did it single handedly. This is something that also appears
and a lot of places. It seems to have originated
with a Saturday Evening Post article by or Petulo that
(17:00):
was published on April nine, and then that was picked
up by other news sources. Patulo had interviewed several survivors
of the day, including Sergeant Early, and in his words
in this article quote there were seven other Americans present
at the fight, but it was York's battle and only York's.
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But that is simply not true. The seven other men
were Private Percy Beardsley, Private Joe Konotski, Private Feodore Sock,
Private Thomas C. Johnson, Private Michael Sacina, Private Patrick Donohue,
and Private George Wills, and all of those men were
active participants in the fight against the machine gunners and
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the capture of the German prisoners. The fact that York
got all of the credit led to ongoing animosity from
some of the other men, including in the case of
Otis B. Marrithew, a massive campaign making the claim that he,
and not York, had been the one to take command
and save the day. So the fact that these other
men were left completely out of the discussion was a
(18:02):
huge disservice to them, and it gave York a lot
of notoriety that he never asked for and didn't particularly want.
And we will talk about York's life after the war
and how that played into it. After another quick sponsor
break in February of nineteen nineteen, Alvin York went back
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to the site of the events of October eighth of
the prior year as part of an inquiry to determine
whether he should be awarded the Medal of Honor. He
was asked, York, how did you do it? And he answered, sir,
it is not manpower. A higher power than manpower guided
and watched over me and told me what to do,
and that idea underpinned his entire life from this point.
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He didn't want to really take credit for what had
happened or focus on the war, but by the time
York returned to the US on May twenty He was famous,
largely thanks to that Saturday Evening Post article. He was
welcomed as a national hero and greeted with ticker tape parades,
and the press was eager to report on what he
(19:10):
had done. He had rooms at the Waldorf Astoria thanks
to the Tennessee Society of New York, and he saw
plays on Broadway. Almost immediately, film producers began contacting him
about making a movie and trying to convince him to
sell the rights to his story. He got offers for
book deals and vaudeville tours as well, but he really
(19:31):
was not comfortable with this. Although he had reconciled himself
to his military service, he still didn't think what he
had done should be glorified. He thought he had done
what needed to be done and that he should not
become famous for it. And then once he realized that
he was famous for it, whether he wanted to be
or not, he didn't think he should exploit that fame
(19:52):
for his own personal gain. Even his letters home during
this time don't talk about things like earning the Medal
of Honor. They really focus on whatever was happening in
pal Maw, York. Was discharged from the army on May nine, nineteen,
and he married Gracie Williams on June seven. Even the
wedding was affected by his newfound fame, Tennessee Governor Albert H.
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Roberts traveled to pal mall to act as efficient alongside
pastor Pile. There were about five thousand onlookers at this
wedding as well, and the couple decided to get married
outside on a rock ledge in the mountains so that
everybody who wanted to could see it. York got a
lot of offers of money and endorsement deals, and he
(20:35):
turned them all down. The only gift that he accepted
was a farm, which the Rotary Club had told him
would be his free and clear, but they didn't actually
get the donations they were hoping for to be able
to do that, and York wound up on the hook
for roughly twenty five thousand dollars, about ten thousand dollars
for the land itself, which the Rotary Club had bought
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but still owed all that money on, and about five
teen thousand dollars to build a house on it. This
was a serious financial problem that was more money than
York would be able to earn. From the farm in
a lifetime, and his words spread about it, and efforts
started in Congress to have York designated a retired army officer,
which would entitle him to pay and benefits. That effort
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dragged on for decades, but the debt on the farm
was actually paid off in nine after additional fundraising. Almost
immediately after his return home, Alvin York focused extensively on
one goal, providing educational opportunities for the people of pal
Mall and Fentress County. As we said earlier, this part
of the state was extremely impoverished. It was very isolated.
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Most of the rural counties in this part of Tennessee
were so poor that there just weren't enough tax revenues
to fund a school. Fentress County had no high school
at all when York got out of the service. But
York's time in the Army had significantly broadened his horizons
and his view of the world, and he realized that
his lack of education was a huge detriment. He wanted
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the children living in Fentriss County to have quote liberating
influences and educational advantages which were denied me. In his words,
I was called to lead my people toward a sensible
modern education. Soon after returning home, he founded the nonprofit
Alvin C. York Foundation. York personally raised about fifteen thousand dollars,
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and the state of Tennessee and Fentriss County each contributed
about fifty thousand dollars towards starting a school. Along with
other fundraising efforts. The result was a vocational school called
the Alvin C. York Agricultural Institute. They broke ground on
the school on May eighth, ninety six, and they started
holding classes in nineteen nine. The school was built in
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the county seat of Jamestown in Fentriss County, not far
away from pal Mall running concurrently with the creation of
the school. Was another obstacle. There were no paved roads
in Fentriss County, which would make it difficult too impossible
for some students to even reach the school. So York
went to the state capital of Nashville to convince the
Highway Commissioner to build a highway, and the result of
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that effort was a thirty two mile it's about fifty
two kilometers highway across the county that's now known as
the Alvincy York Memorial Highway, then again using his own
money and money he personally raised, York bought school buses
and hired bus drivers to drive them. And throughout all
of this, York was actually teaching himself. He was teaching
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himself to be an educator, an administrator, and a public speaker.
Arthur S. Bushing, who was from New York but had
married a woman from Fentriss County, acted as York's tutor
and speech writer and traveled with him as he tried
to raise funds. York was also encountering heavy resistance to
what he was doing. This was happening basically at the
(23:53):
same time as the Scopes trial that we've talked about before,
and there was an ongoing standardization of education that was
causing a lot of concern and resistance in a lot
of places. And then everyone, specifically in Fentress County was
making a subsistence level of of living through farming. This
was only possible if their children worked on the farm
(24:14):
for much of the year instead of attending school. So,
in York's own words, quote, I begun to work almost
as soon as I could walk. And that was really
just the reality of life in Fentriss County. Children had
to work from the minute they were able to, or
else their families simply could not survive. York also encountered
heavy resistance from the county's elite residents for having no
(24:36):
formal education and no training and no experience with any
of this. They thought the idea that an uneducated man
from rural Tennessee could figure out how to plan, open,
and run a school was completely ridiculous, no matter what
heroism he had evidenced in the war. This resistance even
involved a legal action, with an attorney claiming that York
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was trespassing and the county Board of Education serve in
the school an eviction notice. But York persevered, and twice
during the Great Depression, when funding ran short on the institute,
he mortgaged his home to personally pay the salaries of
the bus drivers and the teachers at the school. He
ran the school himself until nine seven, at which point
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all the infighting and hostility from the Fentress County elite
made it basically impossible for him to continue. York knew
that turning the school over to the county would be
a disaster. The county had been trying to stop him
from doing it for a decade, so he arranged for
the state to take it over, and the Tennessee legislature
became responsible for its funding and operation. Because York focused
(25:40):
on this institute with such single minded determination, doing so
much of it himself and educating himself in order to
get it done, and did it in the face of
so much opposition, both he and some of his descendants
have described it as a bigger accomplishment than the one
that earned him the Medal of Honor. Even though he
wasn't running the school anymore after nineteen thirty seven, York
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continued to be involved and continued to raise funds for education. Then,
as World War Two began in Europe, York finally agreed
to sell the rights to his story to a film producer.
He made the deal with Jesse Laski, who had started
talking to him about it way back in nineteen nineteen,
and Harry Warner, president of Warner Brothers. They finalized that
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deal in nineteen forty. York had really wanted this film
to be about his quest to open a school, but
as the war in Europe got worse, the producers persuaded
him to instead focus on his wartime service and to
make a really patriotic film that would serve as a
message that the United States should intervene and as an
inspiration to young men to serve. This might seem like
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a very strange focus for a film about a man
who had felt so conflicted about his own service. Aside
from his service in World War One and the years
of World War Two, York was a pacifist for all
of his post conversion life, and then the years after
World War One was over, he sometimes wondered whether it
had even been worth it, but he absolutely saw the
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need for intervention in World War Two. He was advocating
for the United States to intervene against Japan in nineteen
thirty six in the face of just increasing Japanese aggression
against China, and in nineteen thirty eight he was advocating
for the United States to quote knock Hitler off the block.
This was in total opposition to a widespread strain of
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America First isolationism in the years leading up to Pearl
Harbor being bombed. It was a deeply unpopular stand for
York to take, and he took it knowing that it
could harm his efforts to raise money for the Institute.
The movie Sergeant York debuted in nineteen forty one, with
Gary Cooper in the starring role. That was something that
York himself had requested, and this film was a huge
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financial success for Warner Brothers. It was the biggest box
office hit of nineteen forty one. It also earned two
Academy Awards, one for Cooper's work as an actor and
another for film editing, and it was nominated in nine
other categories, including Best Picture and Best Director. York earned
about one hundred fifty thousand dollars on the film, and
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he put almost all of that money right into the
York Institute. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December seventh,
ninety one, Sergeant York was still in theaters. It had
been planned from the outset as a patriotic movie, but
it seemed even more so after the attack and after
the United States entry into the war. At the same time,
the movie was criticized as basically being wartime propaganda, and
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it was played on American military basis and distributed to
all the Allies in the war. York volunteered to return
to service during World War Two, but his age and
some health issues kept him from doing so. Instead, he
was made a major in the Army Signal Corps. He
toured the United States on behalf of the War Department,
giving patriotic speeches and encouraging military service and the purchasing
(28:58):
of war bonds. He also served on the Selective Service
Board Infantris County and became a spokesperson for the Fight
for Freedom Committee, an organization that was formed as a
counter argument to Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee.
York had a series of strokes towards the end of
his life, including a serious one in nineteen fifty four,
after which he couldn't leave his bed. About a year later,
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he wound up in a six year battle with the
I R S over unpaid taxes. Throughout his life, York
had been putting virtually all the money he got into
the institute, and he hadn't withheld money to pay taxes
on it. At one point, the I R S reported
that he owed a hundred and seventy two thousand dollars.
They eventually agreed on a twenty five thousand dollar payment.
(29:40):
York died of a cerebral hemorrhage on September two, nineteen
sixty four, at the age of seventy six. He was
survived by his wife, Gracie, and seven of their ten children.
A statue of Alvin York was unveiled at the Tennessee
Capital on December thirteenth of nineteen sixty eight. It was
sculpted by Felix Dweldon, who also created the Marine Corps
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War Memorial, also known as the U O. G Mememorial.
Alvin C. York State Park preserves the York home where
he and his family lived after World War One, and
the World War One commemorative silver dollar features a likeness
of Alvin York. He's also been commemorated on a postage stamp.
The York Agricultural Institute still exists today as a public
(30:22):
high school, and it was selected as Tennessee Center for
Rural Education. At one point it was scheduled for demolition,
but ultimately it was restored as a historic site. And
that is Alvin York. Do you also have a bit
of listener mail for us? I sure do. This is
from Rachel, and Rachel says Hi, Tracy and Holly. I'm
a huge fan of stuff you missed. I listened to
(30:43):
it on my train commute every day. I just recently
listened to the Unearthed in July podcasts. I know I'm
a weave it behind, and I have to say that
was easily my favorite Unearthed podcast yet, particularly the section
on games. I am an American PhD candidate. My specialty
is medieval and Renaissance games and recreation. My master's thesis
(31:05):
was on medieval chess, and my doctoral thesis is an
analysis of the transitions and political and religious implications of
court leisure and the concept of play in the courts
of Mary, Queen of Scott's. I'm always delighted to hear
about historic games and was thrilled to hear you talk
about dice. In the course of my research, I was
surprised to learn that it was a common practice in
(31:26):
medieval Western Europe to play chess with dice, which forced
the game to move along at a faster pace and
eliminated the need for strategy because the dice served to
choose which pieces moved along the board. In addition, one
of my favorite things about games the evolution of the
pieces and boards as they made their way across the globe.
As chess moved from India to Western Europe. The original
(31:47):
Indian pieces of a chariot and an elephant became the
rook and bishop that we have on modern boards. If
you'd like a fabulous book about the evolution of chess,
I'd recommend H. J. R. Murray's A History of Chess,
and much more manageably in terms of page numbers, Maryland
Yalom's Birth of the Chess Queen. That's one of my favorites.
I have attashed an image of a drawing I have
(32:07):
in my office, uh, and that is a picture of
some games. It's very lovely. My apologies for the port
image quality minus off being framed, so a screenshot of
it will have to suffice. Best wishes, Rachel. Thank you
so much, Rachel for that tidbit about games, uh, and
for enjoying the unearthed episodes. I enjoy putting those together.
(32:28):
If you would like to write to us about this
or any other podcast, where at History podcast at how
stuff Works dot com. We're also all over social media.
I missed in History and you can come to our
website which is missing history dot com and you will
find show notes for all the episodes Holly and I
have ever worked on. Together, as well as a searchable
archive of every episode ever. And you can find a
subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, so
(32:50):
wherever else you get your podcasts. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is it How stuff work?
Staff come
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly fry back In
we did a podcast about Desmond T. Doss and that
(00:21):
was the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal
of Honor, and from time to time when we share
that episode on our social media, someone comments something along
the lines of, what about Alvin York. So we're coming
up on the centennial of the act of heroism that
earned Alvin York the Medal of Honor that happened on
October nine, eighteen, so it seemed like a good time
(00:44):
to talk about him and to answer that frequently asked
question from our social media. Also, Alvin York's name is
pretty well known thanks to the nineteen forty one film
Sergeant York starring Gary Cooper, and the real life Alvin
York was an eyes are on the film. But it
really takes a whole lot of liberties, and it also
stops before the part of York's life that he thought
(01:07):
of as a much greater achievement than the actions that
earned him the Medal of Honor. So that is what
we were going to talk about today. Alvin Cullum York
was born on his family's small farm near Palmell, Tennessee,
in the Wolf River Valley, on December thirteenth of eight seven.
His parents were William Muriah York and Mary Elizabeth York,
(01:27):
and he was the third of eleven children. They all
lived in a dog trot cabin of the sort that
we actually talked about in our recent episode on air conditioning.
The Yorks were mostly subsistence farmers, although William also earned
some money as a blacksmith. As Alvin got a little older,
he joined his father in that work, and Alvin also
supplemented the famili's food supply through his growing skill as
(01:49):
a marksman, both from hunting and from winning turkey shoots.
The Wolf River Valley area was extremely isolated when Alvin
York was growing up. There were no paved roads or
railroads Infantris County, where Palmell is located. The Wolf River
itself also wasn't navigable by steamboat, and most of the
families living there were also subsistence farmers like the Yorks,
(02:12):
and this meant that Alvin, his siblings, and their friends
had very little formal education, their labor was needed on
the farm in order for the family to survive. York
described himself as having a third grade education, and that
amounted to about three months of school per year, spread
across three years. William York died in nineteen eleven after
(02:33):
being injured by a mule. Twenty four year old Alvin
was the oldest of the York children still living at home,
and his older brothers had families of their own, so
Alvin essentially became the head of the family. He was
expected to run the farm and to look after his mother,
and to help raise his youngest siblings. He had real
trouble coping with all of these new responsibilities and with
(02:54):
the grief over his father's death. He and his father
had bonded while hunting together, and Alvin deep respected his father.
After William Yorke died, Alvin and some of his friends
became increasingly rowdy. They headed across the border into Kentucky
to gamble and drink, and soon Alvin had several arrests
on his record, mainly for intoxication or trouble that he
(03:16):
got into while he was intoxicated. One night, Alvin and
his best friend Everett Delk got into a fight at
a bar. Circumstances aren't completely clear, but Delk was killed.
York was the one who had to take his friend's
body him, and at that point he started seriously reconsidering
his choices. The Yorks, like virtually all of their neighbors,
(03:37):
were churchgoers, and Alvin had been raised in a devout
Christian household, but in the years after his father's death,
Alvin was no longer actively attending. He returned to church
in part because he had met a young woman that
he was quite fond of. Her name was Gracie Williams.
Gracie's father thought Alvin was too old for her, and
on top of that, an unbeliever, and he would not
(03:59):
allow them to and the last week of nineteen fourteen,
York attended a revival held by an itinerant preacher, the
Reverend Melvin Herbert Russell. Alvin went to this revival in
part because he knew Gracie was going to be there,
But on the last day of the revival, which was
on New Year's Day nineteen fifteen, something really shifted for him.
(04:20):
On that particular day, he described the gospel quote as
if lightning had struck my soul. When the preacher put
out the invitation for people to come forward and to
publicly repent of their sins, Alvin did. This was a
night and day change for the way that he was living.
He gave up alcohol and he started trying to live
his life in a Christian way when that was rooted
(04:41):
in honesty, decency, mercy, and kindness. Soon Alvin and Gracie
were seriously courting. In his words quote Ms. Gracey said
that she wouldn't let me come according until I'd quit
my mean drinking, fighting and card flipping. So you see,
I was struck down by the power of love and
the Great God Almighty all together. One of the York's
(05:02):
neighbors was also a pastor, Rosier Pile. Pile became a
mentor to York after his conversion and then after another
revival in the area, Pile and York established a congregation
of the Church of Christ and Christian Union, also called
the Three c U. York became a singer and an
elder in their newly established church. After the Selective Service
(05:24):
Act was passed in nineteen seventeen, York was required to
register for the draft. He did, but in the space
that asked, do you claim exemption from draft? Specify grounds?
He wrote, yes, don't want to fight. He had come
to believe that fighting and killing were sinful under any circumstances,
and this belief contradicted his desire to serve his country.
(05:47):
His ancestors had also fought for the Union during the
Civil War, and part of him felt like he should
follow in their footsteps. He was really troubled over all
of these conflicting impulses about what was the right thing
to do. York had filled out his draft registration card
in June of nineteen seventeen, and that same month he
got engaged to Gracie Williams. Then on August he reported
(06:09):
for his physical He was found fit to serve, and
he started formally applying for conscientious object or status. This
is not something that you could just say, I'm a
conscientious objector. There were rules that you had to document
what we were talking about and why you had an
objection to serving in a military capacity. But his application
(06:30):
was turned down. The board ruled that the Church of
Christ and Christian Union was not a quote well recognized
religious sect since at the time it existed in only
three states. The board also noted that the three CU
quote has no special creed except the Bible, which it's
members more or less interpret for themselves. Some members of
(06:51):
the church interpreted the Bible to mean that fighting in
the war was sinful, but others did not. York filed
several applications for conscientious objectors attis, but once he reported
for duty, he stopped doing this. At least one request
was filed on his behalf in nineteen eighteen, though that
was done without his knowledge or consent, And that's probably
(07:12):
where some confusion comes from about the idea that somebody
else applied for him. Sometimes you'll see it described that
he never filed um an application on his own. That's
definitely not correct. There are multiple applications on record, but
he did write about how he had never done it
in terms of this one that was done after he
(07:33):
was already surveying, that was done without his consent. We
are going to talk about York's time in the army
after we first paused for a little sponsor break. Once
he got into the army, in some ways, Alvin York
seemed to really enjoy basic training, finding it easier than
(07:53):
being at home. His family had been living in poverty
for all of his life, and the food was in
very short supply. I But in the army he was
getting three meals a day and a cot to himself
that he didn't have to share, plus a new uniform
that was provided for him. And it also helped that
some of the things he was supposed to be learning
were things he already really excelled at, particularly marksmanship. But
(08:16):
in another way, it was quite difficult. York had never
been more than fifty miles away from Powell Mall. Nearly
everyone living in Fentriss County was white and had been
living there for generations. But many of the men in
training with him were immigrants to the United States who
had been living in northern cities, and they couldn't understand
one another, and they had very little in common. His
(08:38):
religious devotion also really set him apart from most of
the other men, and he had to keep his still
troubled conscience to himself. Men who objected to the war
were seen as cowards and idlers, and often they faced
extensive harassment from their fellow soldiers. So even though he
was having three square meals a day and a bed
(08:59):
just leap and that he didn't have to share with
anybody and that sort of thing. Socially, he was very isolated.
Once he was finished with basic training, York continued to
have doubts about what he was doing. These doubts escalated
while he was stationed in Camp Gordon, Georgia, with Company G,
Infantry Regiment, eighty second U. S. Army Infantry Division. Some
(09:20):
of their exercises at this point weren't just about marksmanship.
They were about killing with both firearms and bayonets, and
that whole idea continued to really trouble him. He talked
to two officers about his doubts. They were Captain E. C. B.
Dan Fourth Jr. And George Edward Buxton, and these three
men had lengthy discussions about what was weighing on York's conscience.
(09:44):
Dan Forth and Buxton were both really familiar with the Bible,
and they and York thoughtfully talked through what the scriptures
had to say about things like war and fighting and duty.
When these conversations didn't totally resolve York's doubts, he was
given leave to go back calm and consider what he
should do. So we went back to Tennessee, and while
(10:05):
he was there he ultimately decided that it was God's
will for him to fight in the army. He described
it as having received assurance from God himself that this
was the right thing to do, and that assurance came
after about thirty six hours of fasting and prayer. And
that's why Alvin York isn't considered to be the first
conscientious objector to earn the Medal of Honor. He did
(10:27):
earn the Medal of Honor, which we're going to talk about,
but he ultimately reconciled his questions of conscience and he
served in a combat role rather than serving in a
non combat role as a conscientious objector or going to
prison rather than serving. Shortly after York returned to duty
on March thirty one, nineteen eighteen, his division was sent overseas.
(10:49):
They spent several months rotating in and out of trenches
along the front, and then the muse are Gun Offensive
began on September twenty nine, and that continued until the
armistice was signed at the end of the war. It
was part of the one d Days Offensive, which we
talked about in our recent episode on the Battle of Amiens.
York earned his Medal of honor during the music On Offensive.
(11:12):
By that point he had been promoted to corporal. The
eighty second Infantry Division was deployed to capture the Deco
Villa Railroad, which was being used to resupply German troops,
but on the way there they encountered heavy machine gun
fire that kept them from reaching their target. On October eight,
York's platoon was ordered to cross a valley to capture
(11:32):
the machine gun nest that was preventing their advance. This
meant that they had to cross a stretch of open
territory to get to their target. An artillery barrage that
was supposed to protect them never arrived, and they faced
huge casualties as they tried to cross the valley. Only
seventeen men were still able to fight. Once they found
an unused trench to take cover in. This was not
(11:54):
an actual combat trench. It was like it had built
from some other agricultural pers maybe so it was a
temporary shelter, not something that was actually meant for military use.
And from there they carefully made their way back behind
the German line, where they surprised two German soldiers wearing
red Cross arm bands. When these soldiers disappeared into the brush.
(12:17):
The American force pursued them, but on the other side
of the brush was Lieutenant Paul Jurgen Vollmer's headquarters, which
was full of German soldiers eating breakfast. These soldiers had
hiked through the night. They were exhausted, and they were hungry,
and they seemed to believe that these American soldiers who
had just come in on them were an advanced unit
(12:39):
connected to a much larger force. A lot of the
German soldiers immediately surrendered. At this point, the German machine
gun crew on a hill above the headquarters noticed what
was happening, and they yelled in German for the soldiers
to drop, and then they opened fire on the American force.
Six Americans were killed, including Corporal Murray Savage, who had
(13:01):
become close friends with York. The wounded included their commanding officer,
Sergeant Bernard Early, and another officer, Corporal William Cutting. Of
the seventeen men who had taken cover in the trench,
only eight men, including York, were still able to fight.
York took command, and he and the other seven men
found cover on the side of the hill and started
(13:22):
returning fire against these machine gunners. Because of the way
that York and the surviving men were tucked in at
the bottom of the hill, the German force up at
the top of the hill had to stand up and
lean forward to aim down at them. York and the
other Americans shot at them when they did this, with
York calling out for them to surrender so that they
wouldn't be killed. Then a German lieutenant and about six
(13:44):
soldiers tried to charge down the hill with bayonets, trying
to take down whoever was killing the machine gunners that
was mostly York, and York shot each of them with
his pistol, working from the back of the charge to
the front, using the same technique he had used when
hunting turkeys or other birds at home and when hunting.
The idea was to take down the birds at the
back without alarming the ones at the front and causing
(14:06):
them to scatter, and when York was being charged, he
was starting with the men at the back so that
they couldn't take cover behind the bodies of the men
in front. One of the men also threw a small
grenade at York, but that missed. At this point, Valmer,
who had lived in the United States for a while
called out to York in English English. York answered, no,
(14:27):
not English. Valmer said what, and York answered American. Volmer replied,
good lord, if you won't shoot anymore, I will make
them give up, and then he ordered the rest of
the German force to surrender. Four German officers and a
hundred and twenty eight men were captured. The other Americans
who were there credited York with doing the vast majority
(14:48):
of the work. They escorted the German prisoners back to
a command post, and that command post had no facilities
to hold them, so they marched about ten miles to
the brigade headquarters. By the time time they arrived there,
they had picked up other German POWs as well, for
a total of about two hundred. After this, with those
machine guns out of commission, the Allies were able to
(15:10):
capture the deck of the railroad as planned. From there,
York and the rest of his units saw combat repeatedly
between that October eighth engagement and the end of the war.
On November one of nineteen eighteen, York was promoted to sergeant,
and then the war ended. On November eleven, Sergeant Alvin
York was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Quada Gair
(15:30):
with palms and the Middle of Honor for his actions
on October eighth of nineteen eighteen. The Medal of Honor
was awarded on April eighteenth of nineteen nineteen, and the
citation reads quote After his platoon had suffered heavy casualties
and three other non commissioned officers had become casualties, Corporal
York assumed command fearlessly, Leading seven men. He charged with
(15:53):
great during a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly
and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat,
the machine gun nest was taken, together with four officers
and one eight men and several guns. Later on, Sergeant
early In Corporal Cutting, who had enlisted under a false
name and was really Otis B. Matthew, where each awarded
(16:14):
the Distinguished Service Cross as well. There are a couple
of misconceptions about York's heroism on October eight and one
is that he captured thirty five machine guns. This is
repeated in a lot of places, including on the plank
of a statue of him, and that thirty five number
is a huge exaggeration. It's something neither York nor his
military record ever claimed, Yes, sometimes plaques on statues and
(16:39):
historical marker signs are just not right for for a
variety of reasons, for a number of reasons. So yeah,
this this is an exaggeration. That's not something he ever
said he did. And the other misconception is that he
did it single handedly. This is something that also appears
and a lot of places. It seems to have originated
with a Saturday Evening Post article by or Petulo that
(17:00):
was published on April nine, and then that was picked
up by other news sources. Patulo had interviewed several survivors
of the day, including Sergeant Early, and in his words
in this article quote there were seven other Americans present
at the fight, but it was York's battle and only York's.
(17:21):
But that is simply not true. The seven other men
were Private Percy Beardsley, Private Joe Konotski, Private Feodore Sock,
Private Thomas C. Johnson, Private Michael Sacina, Private Patrick Donohue,
and Private George Wills, and all of those men were
active participants in the fight against the machine gunners and
(17:42):
the capture of the German prisoners. The fact that York
got all of the credit led to ongoing animosity from
some of the other men, including in the case of
Otis B. Marrithew, a massive campaign making the claim that he,
and not York, had been the one to take command
and save the day. So the fact that these other
men were left completely out of the discussion was a
(18:02):
huge disservice to them, and it gave York a lot
of notoriety that he never asked for and didn't particularly want.
And we will talk about York's life after the war
and how that played into it. After another quick sponsor
break in February of nineteen nineteen, Alvin York went back
(18:26):
to the site of the events of October eighth of
the prior year as part of an inquiry to determine
whether he should be awarded the Medal of Honor. He
was asked, York, how did you do it? And he answered, sir,
it is not manpower. A higher power than manpower guided
and watched over me and told me what to do,
and that idea underpinned his entire life from this point.
(18:49):
He didn't want to really take credit for what had
happened or focus on the war, but by the time
York returned to the US on May twenty He was famous,
largely thanks to that Saturday Evening Post article. He was
welcomed as a national hero and greeted with ticker tape parades,
and the press was eager to report on what he
(19:10):
had done. He had rooms at the Waldorf Astoria thanks
to the Tennessee Society of New York, and he saw
plays on Broadway. Almost immediately, film producers began contacting him
about making a movie and trying to convince him to
sell the rights to his story. He got offers for
book deals and vaudeville tours as well, but he really
(19:31):
was not comfortable with this. Although he had reconciled himself
to his military service, he still didn't think what he
had done should be glorified. He thought he had done
what needed to be done and that he should not
become famous for it. And then once he realized that
he was famous for it, whether he wanted to be
or not, he didn't think he should exploit that fame
(19:52):
for his own personal gain. Even his letters home during
this time don't talk about things like earning the Medal
of Honor. They really focus on whatever was happening in
pal Maw, York. Was discharged from the army on May nine, nineteen,
and he married Gracie Williams on June seven. Even the
wedding was affected by his newfound fame, Tennessee Governor Albert H.
(20:15):
Roberts traveled to pal mall to act as efficient alongside
pastor Pile. There were about five thousand onlookers at this
wedding as well, and the couple decided to get married
outside on a rock ledge in the mountains so that
everybody who wanted to could see it. York got a
lot of offers of money and endorsement deals, and he
(20:35):
turned them all down. The only gift that he accepted
was a farm, which the Rotary Club had told him
would be his free and clear, but they didn't actually
get the donations they were hoping for to be able
to do that, and York wound up on the hook
for roughly twenty five thousand dollars, about ten thousand dollars
for the land itself, which the Rotary Club had bought
(20:57):
but still owed all that money on, and about five
teen thousand dollars to build a house on it. This
was a serious financial problem that was more money than
York would be able to earn. From the farm in
a lifetime, and his words spread about it, and efforts
started in Congress to have York designated a retired army officer,
which would entitle him to pay and benefits. That effort
(21:19):
dragged on for decades, but the debt on the farm
was actually paid off in nine after additional fundraising. Almost
immediately after his return home, Alvin York focused extensively on
one goal, providing educational opportunities for the people of pal
Mall and Fentress County. As we said earlier, this part
of the state was extremely impoverished. It was very isolated.
(21:42):
Most of the rural counties in this part of Tennessee
were so poor that there just weren't enough tax revenues
to fund a school. Fentress County had no high school
at all when York got out of the service. But
York's time in the Army had significantly broadened his horizons
and his view of the world, and he realized that
his lack of education was a huge detriment. He wanted
(22:04):
the children living in Fentriss County to have quote liberating
influences and educational advantages which were denied me. In his words,
I was called to lead my people toward a sensible
modern education. Soon after returning home, he founded the nonprofit
Alvin C. York Foundation. York personally raised about fifteen thousand dollars,
(22:27):
and the state of Tennessee and Fentriss County each contributed
about fifty thousand dollars towards starting a school. Along with
other fundraising efforts. The result was a vocational school called
the Alvin C. York Agricultural Institute. They broke ground on
the school on May eighth, ninety six, and they started
holding classes in nineteen nine. The school was built in
(22:48):
the county seat of Jamestown in Fentriss County, not far
away from pal Mall running concurrently with the creation of
the school. Was another obstacle. There were no paved roads
in Fentriss County, which would make it difficult too impossible
for some students to even reach the school. So York
went to the state capital of Nashville to convince the
Highway Commissioner to build a highway, and the result of
(23:10):
that effort was a thirty two mile it's about fifty
two kilometers highway across the county that's now known as
the Alvincy York Memorial Highway, then again using his own
money and money he personally raised, York bought school buses
and hired bus drivers to drive them. And throughout all
of this, York was actually teaching himself. He was teaching
(23:32):
himself to be an educator, an administrator, and a public speaker.
Arthur S. Bushing, who was from New York but had
married a woman from Fentriss County, acted as York's tutor
and speech writer and traveled with him as he tried
to raise funds. York was also encountering heavy resistance to
what he was doing. This was happening basically at the
(23:53):
same time as the Scopes trial that we've talked about before,
and there was an ongoing standardization of education that was
causing a lot of concern and resistance in a lot
of places. And then everyone, specifically in Fentress County was
making a subsistence level of of living through farming. This
was only possible if their children worked on the farm
(24:14):
for much of the year instead of attending school. So,
in York's own words, quote, I begun to work almost
as soon as I could walk. And that was really
just the reality of life in Fentriss County. Children had
to work from the minute they were able to, or
else their families simply could not survive. York also encountered
heavy resistance from the county's elite residents for having no
(24:36):
formal education and no training and no experience with any
of this. They thought the idea that an uneducated man
from rural Tennessee could figure out how to plan, open,
and run a school was completely ridiculous, no matter what
heroism he had evidenced in the war. This resistance even
involved a legal action, with an attorney claiming that York
(24:56):
was trespassing and the county Board of Education serve in
the school an eviction notice. But York persevered, and twice
during the Great Depression, when funding ran short on the institute,
he mortgaged his home to personally pay the salaries of
the bus drivers and the teachers at the school. He
ran the school himself until nine seven, at which point
(25:17):
all the infighting and hostility from the Fentress County elite
made it basically impossible for him to continue. York knew
that turning the school over to the county would be
a disaster. The county had been trying to stop him
from doing it for a decade, so he arranged for
the state to take it over, and the Tennessee legislature
became responsible for its funding and operation. Because York focused
(25:40):
on this institute with such single minded determination, doing so
much of it himself and educating himself in order to
get it done, and did it in the face of
so much opposition, both he and some of his descendants
have described it as a bigger accomplishment than the one
that earned him the Medal of Honor. Even though he
wasn't running the school anymore after nineteen thirty seven, York
(26:03):
continued to be involved and continued to raise funds for education. Then,
as World War Two began in Europe, York finally agreed
to sell the rights to his story to a film producer.
He made the deal with Jesse Laski, who had started
talking to him about it way back in nineteen nineteen,
and Harry Warner, president of Warner Brothers. They finalized that
(26:23):
deal in nineteen forty. York had really wanted this film
to be about his quest to open a school, but
as the war in Europe got worse, the producers persuaded
him to instead focus on his wartime service and to
make a really patriotic film that would serve as a
message that the United States should intervene and as an
inspiration to young men to serve. This might seem like
(26:46):
a very strange focus for a film about a man
who had felt so conflicted about his own service. Aside
from his service in World War One and the years
of World War Two, York was a pacifist for all
of his post conversion life, and then the years after
World War One was over, he sometimes wondered whether it
had even been worth it, but he absolutely saw the
(27:06):
need for intervention in World War Two. He was advocating
for the United States to intervene against Japan in nineteen
thirty six in the face of just increasing Japanese aggression
against China, and in nineteen thirty eight he was advocating
for the United States to quote knock Hitler off the block.
This was in total opposition to a widespread strain of
(27:28):
America First isolationism in the years leading up to Pearl
Harbor being bombed. It was a deeply unpopular stand for
York to take, and he took it knowing that it
could harm his efforts to raise money for the Institute.
The movie Sergeant York debuted in nineteen forty one, with
Gary Cooper in the starring role. That was something that
York himself had requested, and this film was a huge
(27:50):
financial success for Warner Brothers. It was the biggest box
office hit of nineteen forty one. It also earned two
Academy Awards, one for Cooper's work as an actor and
another for film editing, and it was nominated in nine
other categories, including Best Picture and Best Director. York earned
about one hundred fifty thousand dollars on the film, and
(28:11):
he put almost all of that money right into the
York Institute. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December seventh,
ninety one, Sergeant York was still in theaters. It had
been planned from the outset as a patriotic movie, but
it seemed even more so after the attack and after
the United States entry into the war. At the same time,
the movie was criticized as basically being wartime propaganda, and
(28:35):
it was played on American military basis and distributed to
all the Allies in the war. York volunteered to return
to service during World War Two, but his age and
some health issues kept him from doing so. Instead, he
was made a major in the Army Signal Corps. He
toured the United States on behalf of the War Department,
giving patriotic speeches and encouraging military service and the purchasing
(28:58):
of war bonds. He also served on the Selective Service
Board Infantris County and became a spokesperson for the Fight
for Freedom Committee, an organization that was formed as a
counter argument to Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee.
York had a series of strokes towards the end of
his life, including a serious one in nineteen fifty four,
after which he couldn't leave his bed. About a year later,
(29:20):
he wound up in a six year battle with the
I R S over unpaid taxes. Throughout his life, York
had been putting virtually all the money he got into
the institute, and he hadn't withheld money to pay taxes
on it. At one point, the I R S reported
that he owed a hundred and seventy two thousand dollars.
They eventually agreed on a twenty five thousand dollar payment.
(29:40):
York died of a cerebral hemorrhage on September two, nineteen
sixty four, at the age of seventy six. He was
survived by his wife, Gracie, and seven of their ten children.
A statue of Alvin York was unveiled at the Tennessee
Capital on December thirteenth of nineteen sixty eight. It was
sculpted by Felix Dweldon, who also created the Marine Corps
(30:01):
War Memorial, also known as the U O. G Mememorial.
Alvin C. York State Park preserves the York home where
he and his family lived after World War One, and
the World War One commemorative silver dollar features a likeness
of Alvin York. He's also been commemorated on a postage stamp.
The York Agricultural Institute still exists today as a public
(30:22):
high school, and it was selected as Tennessee Center for
Rural Education. At one point it was scheduled for demolition,
but ultimately it was restored as a historic site. And
that is Alvin York. Do you also have a bit
of listener mail for us? I sure do. This is
from Rachel, and Rachel says Hi, Tracy and Holly. I'm
a huge fan of stuff you missed. I listened to
(30:43):
it on my train commute every day. I just recently
listened to the Unearthed in July podcasts. I know I'm
a weave it behind, and I have to say that
was easily my favorite Unearthed podcast yet, particularly the section
on games. I am an American PhD candidate. My specialty
is medieval and Renaissance games and recreation. My master's thesis
(31:05):
was on medieval chess, and my doctoral thesis is an
analysis of the transitions and political and religious implications of
court leisure and the concept of play in the courts
of Mary, Queen of Scott's. I'm always delighted to hear
about historic games and was thrilled to hear you talk
about dice. In the course of my research, I was
surprised to learn that it was a common practice in
(31:26):
medieval Western Europe to play chess with dice, which forced
the game to move along at a faster pace and
eliminated the need for strategy because the dice served to
choose which pieces moved along the board. In addition, one
of my favorite things about games the evolution of the
pieces and boards as they made their way across the globe.
As chess moved from India to Western Europe. The original
(31:47):
Indian pieces of a chariot and an elephant became the
rook and bishop that we have on modern boards. If
you'd like a fabulous book about the evolution of chess,
I'd recommend H. J. R. Murray's A History of Chess,
and much more manageably in terms of page numbers, Maryland
Yalom's Birth of the Chess Queen. That's one of my favorites.
I have attashed an image of a drawing I have
(32:07):
in my office, uh, and that is a picture of
some games. It's very lovely. My apologies for the port
image quality minus off being framed, so a screenshot of
it will have to suffice. Best wishes, Rachel. Thank you
so much, Rachel for that tidbit about games, uh, and
for enjoying the unearthed episodes. I enjoy putting those together.
(32:28):
If you would like to write to us about this
or any other podcast, where at History podcast at how
stuff Works dot com. We're also all over social media.
I missed in History and you can come to our
website which is missing history dot com and you will
find show notes for all the episodes Holly and I
have ever worked on. Together, as well as a searchable
archive of every episode ever. And you can find a
subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, so
(32:50):
wherever else you get your podcasts. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, is it How stuff work?
Staff come
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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