Dewey Sackett - The County and the Kaiser

Wagoner, Co B, 304th Machine Gun Battalion, 77th Division.

Died November 4, 1918, of wounds received in action near Grandpré, France. Age 22.

Town: Bergen (also Livingston County; see text)

Burial: Mount Rest Cemetery, Bergen, Genesee County, New York

Dewey Sackett was living and working in Avon (Livingston County), New York, at the time he registered for the draft in June, 1917. He entered the Army on February 28, 1918, as a member of Livingston County’s fourth contingent of draftees, bound for Camp Upton, Long Island. In newspaper lists naming the contingent members, Sackett’s town is given as Rochester, so he may have lived there briefly before being called. The New York Roll of Honor lists him as a Livingston County soldier.

However, according to the November 26, 1918 Batavia Daily News, Dewey Sackett lived all but about four years of his life in Bergen (Genesee County). He was born in Bergen on April 29, 1896, the son of farmer Burt A Sackett and Jennie nee Collins Sackett. His mother died at age 35, when Dewey was six years old. According to Jennie Sackett’s obituary in the February 21, 1903 Batavia Daily News, the couple had two other sons: Irving, age 8, and “an infant, 12 days old.” The latter child was Dewey’s brother George Sackett, who is not listed in the Sackett household in subsequent censuses, and appears to have been raised and perhaps eventually adopted by his maternal aunt, Alice, and her husband Roland (or Rowland) Long of Rochester, New York. The 1905 NY Census lists George at age 2 as a nephew in the Long household; at age 7 in the 1910 US Census, he’s listed in the Long family as a lodger, and in the 1915 NY and 1920 US censuses he’s shown as the Longs’ son.

Dewey’s father was remarried on August 17, 1904, to Mary Vincent, and in 1907 the Sacketts moved from the family’s farm outside of town to Bergen Corners. The 1910 US Census shows the family, including Dewey at age 13, living on Rochester Street in Bergen.

On his 1917 draft registration card, Dewey Sackett is shown to be working as a gardener in Avon. In mid-April, 1918, following six weeks of training after his arrival at Camp Upton, home of the 77th Division, Private Sackett left with the division for overseas duty. Most units arrived in late April or early May. Following some front-line training in June and July with French forces near Baccarat, and several weeks of fighting near the Vesle River during the Oise-Aisne Offensive, the 77th Division was ordered in mid-September to march to the Argonne Sector to prepare for the Allies’ massive Meuse-Argonne offensive.

Private Sackett died during the final phase of the offensive, after surviving more than a month of some of the war’s heaviest combat. Assigned the critical left flank of the American First Army’s nine-division initial attack on September 26, the 77th had spent two weeks fighting into and through the viciously defended Argonne Forest, and another week battling across the Aire River, taking St. Juvin and part of Grandpré. It had been relieved on October 16, but two weeks later was ordered back into the line, where on November 1 it joined the First Army’s renewed attack north of St. Juvin.

Dewey Sackett received his fatal wounds three days later, exactly one week before the Armistice, as the 77th Division was pursuing retreating Germans against rear-guard resistance from machine guns and artillery. As a Wagoner for the division’s Machine Gun Battalion, Sackett was driving a Ford truck, shuttling food and ammunition to the front lines. According to accounts published in the June 3, 1919, June 6, 1919, and August 10, 1921 Batavia Daily News, he was struck in the legs by shrapnel from a high-explosive shell at about 3 o’clock in the morning on November 4, 1918, while sitting in his truck near St. Pierremont awaiting orders. He was taken to a first-aid dressing station and died later that day. Records in Sackett’s Burial Case File give his place of death as Grandpré.

Sackett was among seven men cited for bravery by the 77th Division’s commander in General Orders No. 10, dated February 3, 1919. The citation, as quoted in the June 6, 1919 Batavia Daily News, said the men “continuously day and night from November 2 to November 8, 1918, drove their cars along from the front line infantry battalions carrying reserve machine guns and ammunition during the day, and at night bringing up hot rations to the men at the guns. They tirelessly and courageously went forward without regard to personal safety and on November 3, 1918, they were among the first Americans to enter Antrughe [note: probably Autruche] and St. Pierremont. During the period five of their seven Ford cars were knocked out by shell fire or machine-gun fire and three of the men were wounded.”

Today, Bergen’s American Legion Post #575 bears Sackett’s name and that of two other fallen Byron-Bergen WWI soldiers, Lester Merrill and Walter White.

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—— [CLICK ON DOCUMENTS TO OPEN FULL VIEW IN SEPARATE TAB] ——

November 26, 1918 Batavia Daily News p7 c4

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June 3, 1919 Batavia Daily News p2 c5

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June 6, 1919 Batavia Daily News p8 c4

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August 13, 1921 Batavia Times p 5 c2

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Source: New York Service Summary from Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919, NY State Archives, Albany, New York

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Identity Tag in Dewey Sackett Burial Case File, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives – St. Louis, Missouri