From the Gold Star Files: Private Daniel Robinson

March 21, 2018

During World War I, mothers of soldiers who died in service were awarded Gold Stars by the federal government. The Alabama Department of Archives and History compiled a list of the state’s Gold Star families from the bulletins of the U. S. Committee on Public Information. For several years after the war, the Archives sought out biographical information on these deceased soldiers, sending letters and biographical questionnaires to their relatives. Many families responded by sending the Archives letters, newspaper clippings, and photographs. Although the Archives’ goal of compiling this information into a book was never realized, what remains is a fascinating and informative collection of materials on Alabamians who died in the Great War. 

In mid-November 1921, a small envelope arrived at the Archives from Prairie, a rural community in Wilcox County. It contained brief biographical information and a photograph of Private Daniel Robinson. Born in Prairie in 1896, Robinson grew up on a small, rented farm with his mother, Bella, and grandmother, Julia Marsh. He enlisted in the Army during the summer of 1918. He trained at Camp Sherman in Ohio as part of the 802nd Pioneer Infantry, one of thirty-seven predominantly African American regiments used primarily as labor units, reconstructing roads and bridges to aid in troop movements. Robinson and the other members of the 802nd received accelerated training at Camp Sherman. One observer wrote: “The great mass of these men had known absolutely nothing of military life six weeks, and in some cases three weeks, before taking transport for France. But they went as others had gone, resolute and firm in faith.”

Private Daniel Robinson’s tour of duty was tragically brief. Less than eight weeks after he arrived in France, Robinson contracted purulent pericarditis, a serious infection which damaged his heart. He died on October 2, 1918, and is buried at St. Mihiel Cemetery in Thiaucourt, France. Newspapers back in Alabama noted his passing, along with sixteen other soldiers from the Yellowhammer State who died overseas in October 1918.

The friend or relative who relayed these brief facts to the Archives in 1921 included a striking photograph of the young man. In it, Robinson stands in front of an American Flag. Stone-faced, he stares directly into the camera, looking much older than his twenty-two years. Few of the images in the Archives’ Gold Star collection are more striking than this photograph of a young Army Private from rural Wilcox County.