J. Franklin Bell

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J. Franklin Bell bigraphy, stories - United States Army Medal of Honor recipient

J. Franklin Bell : biography

January 9, 1856 – January 8, 1919

James Franklin Bell (January 9, 1856 – January 8, 1919) was Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1906 to 1910.

Bell was a major-general in the Regular United States Army, commanding the Department of the East, with headquarters at Governors Island, New York at the time of his death in 1919. He entered West Point in 1874, and graduated 38th in a class of 43 in 1878, with a commission as second lieutenant of 9th Cavalry Regiment, a black unit.

Spanish-American War

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Bell was acting as adjutant to General Forsyth, then commanding the Department of the West, with headquarters at San Francisco. He was immediately commissioned Colonel of Volunteers, and authorized to organize a regiment. This regiment was ordered to the Philippines and, under his command, saw service in the Philippine-American War.

After a few months in the Philippines, Bell was promoted from his commission of captain in the Regular Army to brigadier-general in the Regular Army, outranking many officers previously his senior.

Bell was awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions of September 9, 1899 near Porac on Luzon Island in the Philippines. According to the official citation, "while in advance of his regiment [Bell] charged 7 insurgents with his pistol and compelled the surrender of the captain and 2 privates under a close fire from the remaining insurgents concealed in a bamboo thicket." at www.army.mil

Notes

  1. Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903, Stuart Creighton Miller, (Yale University Press, 1982). p. 206;
  2. Miller, p. 207-208; General Bell’s orders can be found in a number of sources, , "The Issuance of Certain Orders in the Philippines," S. Doc. 347, 57th Cong., 1st Sess. They were also reproduced in S. Doc. 331, pt. 2 p. 1606–38; Circulars: S. Doc. 347

Service in America

In July 1903, Bell was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where he headed the Command and General Staff School until April 14, 1906; Bell was commissioned major-general, and in the spring of 1907, was appointed Chief of the Army General Staff. He served for four years, under Presidents Roosevelt and Taft. When the United States military forces of the Western Pacific concentrated in the Philippines, he returned to Manila in 1911, as military commander, until war with Mexico seemed imminent. He was then ordered home to take command of the 4th Division. The 4th Division remained in Texas City as reserve, and although at several times, he seemed about to cross the Rio Grande, he was never a part of the Mexican expeditionary force.

After the Mexican situation quieted, Bell was relieved of the 4th Division, and placed in command of the Department of the West. He remained in command at San Francisco, where he had once been acting adjutant, until America entered World War I.

In the early spring of 1917, Bell was transferred to the Department of the East at Fort Jay, Governors Island in New York City, and as commander of that department, assuming responsibility for Officers’ Training Camps created by his predecessor, Leonard Wood, at Plattsburgh, Madison Barracks, and Fort Niagara. Bell’s aide, Captain George C. Marshall was most directly involved in the logistical support for these camps, battling a lethargic army supply supply system to properly equip the volunteer citizen soldiers. These camps, in August, 1917, graduated the large quota of new officers needed for the new National Army and, to a large extent, to officer the new divisions of the east and northeast.

In the same month, Bell was offered and promptly accepted the command of the National Army Division to be organized at Camp Upton. Bell’s venerable figure, as he addressed the officers, and the men of the newly-formed 77th Division at Camp Upton, in September and the ensuing months of training, will be remembered among the first impressions of a life, strange and full of new conditions.