Orders, Decorations and Medals

An important and rare Great War D.S.M. group to Major-General George S. Farnsworth, Commander of the 37th United States Infantry Division which served with distinction in France, a graduate of West Point and a veteran of the Spanish American War

U.S.A., Army Distinguished Service Medal, numbered on the edge ‘1728’; Silver Star, named on the reverse ‘Charles S. Farnsworth’, numbered on the edge ‘6223’, the reverse suspension marked ‘BBB Co/Phila.’ for Bailey Banks & Biddle; Spanish Campaign Medal, Army, numbered on the edge ‘No.4181’; Army of Cuban Occupation Medal, numbered on the edge ‘No.3831’; Mexican Service Medal 1911-1917, Army, numbered on the edge ‘10050’; Victory Medal, with silver Citation Star and 3 clasps, Defensive Sector, Meuse-Argonne, Ypres-Lys; Society of the Army of Santiago, gold and enamels, the reverse centre named and numbered ‘1st Lieut.Charles S. Farnsworth’, several minor chips and flakes to green enamel and small loss on lower reverse arm; Military Society of the Midnight Sun, silver gilt and enamel, the reverse circumference engraved with the title of the society and named ‘Charles Stewart Farnsworth, Captain, 7th Infantry U.S.A.’, complete with eskimo sled top suspension brooch; Belgium, Order of Leopold I, Commander’s neck badge with swords, silver-gilt and enamels, several ball-point finials bruised and bent with consequent damage to enamels; France, Legion of Honour, Commander’s neck badge, gold and enamels, some damage to enamels of suspension wreath; Croix de Guerre 1914 1918, with bronze palme; Verdun Medal, unofficial, unless otherwise described, good very fine and extremely rare (12) £6000-8000

Charles Stewart Farnsworth was born in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, on 28 October 1862, and entered the United States Military Academy at West Point on 1 July 1883, graduating on 12 June 1887, with a ranking of 47 out of a class of 64 cadets. As a new Lieutenant, his first assignments were in the western states where he served at Fort Shaw, Montana, for 4 years, Fort Buford, North Dakota, for 2 years, and then at Grand Forks, North Dakota, as a Professor of Military Science at a local college for 2 years. During this period, he did not participate in any of the final Indian War campaigns. His first wife died in 1892 and he remarried in 1895. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, 7th Infantry Regiment, on 31 July 1894, and, after his college duties in North Dakota, was sent to Fort Logan, Colorado.

At the outbreak of the Spanish American War in 1898, he served in Cuba from 7th June to 21st August, participating in the battle of Siboney on 1st July, and at the engagements around the city of Santiago de Cuba from 2nd to 17th July, 1898. His distinguished service at this time as Acting Quartermaster in the Second Division, 5th Army Corps, brought him a recommendation for the brevet rank of captain. After being sent back to Montauk Point, New York, with his unit in August/September, he then became aide de camp to Major General Adna Chaffee on 28 September 1898, and was promoted to captain on 2 March 1899, returning to Cuba for service during the occupation. His next duty assignment was in Alaska, where he served in command of both Fort Gibbon, and Fort Egbert on the Yukon River near the Canadian border. At that time, the U.S. government was anxious to establish a military presence in Alaska for the construction of new roads and telegraph facilities in order to maintain peacekeeping responsibilities as a result of the Klondike gold rush. As a result of his service in Alaska, Farnsworth was invited to join the Military Society of the Midnight Sun, a veterans society established at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on 25 June 1905, to commemorate the service of "those who first blazed the trails and shared the hardships of the North country". Membership was open to officers of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Revenue Cutter Service, and Marine Hospital Service, who had served in Alaska (above the Artic Circle) prior to 1 September 1904, the time during which the telegraph line was established between Fairbanks and Nome, Alaska, site of another major gold mining camp. The most well known of this small veterans society was then Captain William ‘Billy’ Mitchell, of the Signal Corps, who later became the highly decorated General of the U.S. Air Service in WWI, only to be later tried at court-martial in the 1920's for his outspoken views about the neglect of the new air service by senior army commanders. The insignia badge of this military order was made by Bailey, Banks and Biddle of Philadelphia, and is extremely scarce and little known by medal collectors. The top suspension brooch is shaped in the form of an eskimo snow sled, the type pulled by dogs. In July 1901, Farnsworth received a letter of commendation from the Inspector General, U S Army, based on the favorable inspection of the facilities under his command in Alaska.

After Alaska, and brief assignments at Vancouver Barracks, Washington, and the Presidio in San Francisco, Captain Farnsworth was sent to the Philippines in 1903 for two years, as Assistant to Constructing Quartermaster, when Fort William McKinley was being built. This duty, however, did not qualify Farnsworth for the Philippine Insurrection campaign medal. Over the next 10 years, Captain Farnsworth was assigned to various duties in the states and graduated with distinction from the School of the Line in 1909, attended the Army Staff College in 1910, and the Army War College in 1916. He came to the attention of General John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing in 1914, when Farnsworth was being considered for promotion to major. They had known each other at West Point, as Pershing graduated only one year prior to Farnsworth, but had not served together since. Pershing was impressed with Farnsworth at the promotion hearings and made highly favorable written comments about this, which virtually guaranteed the new rank for Farnsworth, thereby setting the stage for a close relationship that was to last for the next 10 years. When the Mexican Border campaign started in 1916, Pershing took command and tried unsuccessfully to capture Pancho Villa in northen Mexico. By then, Farnsworth has become a Lieutenant-Colonel, and was commanding the base of operations in Columbus, New Mexico, only a few miles from the border with Mexico, ultimately spending a great deal of time directly with Pershing and other key members of his staff.

In 1917, Farnsworth was stationed in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, commanding a school for machine-gun instructors. With the year in Europe gaining more and more attention in the U.S., Farnsworth wrote to the War Department requesting that he be considered for promotion to general, which Pershing approved immediately. He was assigned command of the 37th Infantry Division, then being organized in Ohio, and took the Division to France and Flanders where it served with distinction until early 1919, when the troops returned home. For his service during the war, General Farnsworth was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal, a silver star gallantry citation, the Victory Medal with three battle clasps, Croix de Guerre, and various orders from the government of France and Belgium. After returning from France, General Farnsworth was appointed as the first Commandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and later became the Chief of Infantry on 1 July 1920. He retired on 27 March 1925, after 41 years of active service. In retirement, he moved to the Pasadena area of southern California, and in addition to becoming an avid golfer he also became involved in many civic organizations, serving once as the Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade in Pasadena in the 1930's. He died on 19 December 1955, aged 92 years, in Riverside, California, and is buried in the national cemetery at the Presidio, San Francisco, alongside his wife. He was the last surviving member of his West Point class of 1887.

This important group is accompanied by a named Great War Commemorative bronze-gilt medallion presented to the Major-General ‘by the citizens of Jefferson County, Ohio’, and the following original documents:

(i) United States Army Citation, ‘for distinguished and exceptional gallantry at Cierges, France, on 28 Sept. 1918,’ awarded on 27 March 1919.

(ii) United States Army Citation, ‘for exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous services as Commanding General of 37th Division,’ awarded on 19 April 1919.

(iii) Certificate for Army Distinguished Service Medal, ‘Charles S. Farnsworth, Major-General, U.S. Army, commanding the 37th Division, American Expeditionary Forces, during the World War.’ dated 10 November 1925; together with original notification and citation for the award, dated General Headquarters, A.E.F., France, 12 June 1919, ‘For exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services. In command of the 37th Division, his efficient leadership and military abilitywere important factors in the successful operations in the Argonne-Meuse offensive, and later proved their worth when this division served with the British forces in Belgium.’

(iv) Certificate for Order of Leopold, dated 27 February 1920; together with G.H.Q., A.E.F., letter of notification with citation, ‘In recognition of meritorious services rendered the Allied cause’.

(v) Certificate for Legion of Honour, dated 16 March 1919; together with G.H.Q., A.E.F., letter of notification with citation in French for the Escaut operations of 1st-2nd November 1918.

(vi) Certificate for the Croix de Guerre, dated 28 March 1924; together with official U.S. ‘True Copy’ letter of notification with citation from French Army Orders which reads: ‘Charged with throwing the enemy back beyond the ESCAUT River, threw his division into the attack with the greatest vigor, making the enemy fall back five kilometers the first day and taking from them numerous prisoners, cannon and material; he continued his victorious advance the next day and threw the enemy beyond the ESCAUT River, crossing the River in spite of all bridges being destroyed and holding his position against all efforts of the enemy to push him back across the River.’

(vii) “The 37th Division in the World War 1917-1918”, 2 vols., Columbus, Ohio, 1926; together with portrait photograph and a quantity of further research.