Whitside, Warren Webster, COL

TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, WHAT INFLUENCED HIS/HER DECISION TO JOIN THE ARMY?
Colonel Whitside was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on November 2, 1875, the son of a career cavalry officer, Brig. Gen Samuel M. Whitside. He spent the first fifteen years of his life among soldiers and Indians on the Western plains. He was educated at Kemper Military School, Boonville, Missouri, and the Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. This photograph depicts officers of the second squadron, 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment in camp at Fort Riley in 1888. 13-year-old Warren Whitside is standing on the right side of the tent. The squadron commander is Warren's father, Maj. S. M. Whitside, seated on the far right.

In May 1898 Colonel Whitside left college just before graduating in answer to President William McKinley's call to service during the Spanish American War.

TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE DIRECTION OR PATH HE/SHE TOOK IN HIS/HER MILITARY SERVICE. WHERE DID THEY GO FOR BASIC TRAINING AND WHAT UNITS, BASES OR SQUADRONS WERE THEY ASSIGNED TO? WHAT WAS HIS/HER REASON FOR LEAVING?
Col. Whitside was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Cavalry in 1899, and served for the next seven years as a lieutenant in the 10th Cavalry and 15th Cavalry Regiments. In 1906 he was promoted to Captain of Quartermaster Corps, and for the next 33 years he served in a variety of command and key leadership positions within the Quartermaster field.

From 1912 to 1915 he was instrumental in the establishment and construction of the Aleshire Quartermaster Remount Depot, Front Royal, Virginia, serving as one of its first commanders. Following his return from the Punitive Expedition, he was the commander of Fort Apache from 1916 to 1917.

From 1920 to 1925 he served as the Fort Riley Post Quartermaster where he was singularly responsible for modernizing much of the post including training sites for the National Guard, one of which was named in his honor and to this day is recognized as Camp Whitside. From 1925 to 1930 he served as the Department Quartermaster for the Panama Canal Division.

In 1930 he served as the Post Quartermaster of West Point, New York, followed by an assignment in Washington, D.C., as the Chief of Storage and Distribution in the Office of the Quartermaster General (OQMG). While assigned to OQMG, Colonel Whitside was featured on the cover of the July-August 1934 edition of the Quartermaster Review.

IF HE/SHE PARTICIPATED IN ANY MILITARY OPERATIONS, INCLUDING COMBAT, HUMANITARIAN AND PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS, TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, PLEASE DESCRIBE THOSE YOU FEEL WERE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT TO HIM/HER AND, IF LIFE-CHANGING, IN WHAT WAY.
Col. Whitside served on numerous campaigns including the Spanish American War in 1898; the Cuban Occupation from 1899 to 1902 with service on the staff of his father, then serving as the Commanding General of the District of Santiago Cuba; the Army of Cuban Pacification from 1906 to 1909 serving as a troop commander in the 15th Cavalry Regiment; the Punitive Expedition along the Mexico-U.S. border in 1916 serving as the Commander of Motor Truck Company No. 11; and World War I during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensive serving as the Commander of the 89th Division Trains and Military Police, a regimental level command for which he was awarded what was then America's highest decoration for service, the Distinguished Service Medal.

Pictured here is Maj. Gen. Craig and Col. Whitside at Fort Clayton, Panama, after receiving the Distinguished Service Medal for service in World War I. Whitside was the Quartermaster of the Dept of Panama, and Craig was the Commanding General.

FROM THEIR ENTIRE MILITARY SERVICE, DESCRIBE ANY PERSONAL MEMORIES, YOU MAY BE AWARE OF, WHICH IMPACTED HIM/HER THE MOST.
In January 1919 while serving in the Army of Occupation in Germany following World War I and during the Great Influenza Pandemic called the Spanish Flu, Col. Whitside had the unfortunate experience of sitting by the bedside of his brother, Maj. Victor Whitside, while he died of pneumonia. This picture is a hand written note from Col. Whitside for a telegram to his mother notifying her of the death of her youngest child.
"Know you will be brave. The Lord in His inscrutable wisdom has taken Victor from us. He died today of pneumonia. He had every care and attention possible. He at no time realized that end was near. Died peacefully and without pain. Break news to Elizabeth and Madeline. Love and sympathy - Warren".

IF KNOWN, PLEASE LIST ANY INDIVIDUAL(S) FROM HIS/HER TIME IN THE MILITARY WHO STOOD OUT AS HAVING THE MOST POSITIVE IMPACT ON THEM AND WHY?
His wife, Lillian Rigney Whitside, was by his side for 63 years, including his four decades in uniform. She was the daughter of Joseph Rigney, a wealthy Connecticut business man that owned and operated the Central Teresa Sugar Company at Manzanillo, Cuba. Lillian and Warren met and married during his first assignment with the 10th Cavalry during the Occupation of Cuba following the Spanish-American War.

While Col. Whitside was serving in the AEF during World War I, he recieved a poem from Lillian. It was a sequel to the famous poem "In Flander's Fields," which was a popular topic in American literature in 1918.

This picture is the hand written poem in Lillian Whitside's script, found in a scrap book that she kept during the War. Col. Whitside had the poem reproduced on the back of unused maps of France and distributed it throughout the 89th Division.

(America's Anwer to "In Flander's Fields.")

O voices, from fields where poppies blow
We caught your torch, the flame burned low,
In allied brothers' wearied hands.
We came, untried, from fresher lands,
At crucial hour. God willed it so.

Ye are not dead. Young bodies sleep,
Where poppies red their watch will keep.
Your souls live on, past time and space,
O'er Flanders' fields.

As Rhineward turn the beaten Huns,
Again the Christmas Season comes.
Ye pain-freed souls, row, on row,
Pray God, your King, we now shall know,
"Peace upon earth, -- good will to man".
Sleep, Flanders fields!"

L. R. Whitside

IF HE/SHE SURVIVED MILITARY SERVICE, WHAT PROFESSION(S) DID HE/SHE FOLLOW AFTER DISCHARGE?
From 1934 until his retirement in 1939 Col. Whitside returned to Front Royal as the Commander of the Remount Depot, which had evolved into the largest remount depot in the Army and served as a vital economic enterprise throughout the lower Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

He is pictured here at the remount depot at Front Royal, Virginia, circa 1935.

Col. Whitside retired from the military and started an apple cider business that ultimately failed. He was married for over 63 years to the former Miss Lillian Rigney of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He died in 1964 and was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery where his parents and brother were buried.

IF KNOWN, WHAT MILITARY ASSOCIATIONS WAS HE OR SHE A MEMBER OF, IF ANY? ARE YOU AWARE OF ANY SPECIFIC BENEFITS THEY DERIVED FROM THEIR MEMBERSHIPS?
On 18 June 2010 Brig. Gen. Jesse Cross, the 50th Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army, presided over a ceremony in which Col. Warren W. Whitside was posthumously inducted into the Quartermaster Hall of Fame. Pictured is BG Cross presenting the Hall of Fame certificate and medallion to Col. Whitside's granddaughter, Mrs. Ann Russell, and her husband, Col. Tom Russell, U.S. Army retired. Of Col. Whitside's service, the Command Historian had this to say:
Col. Whitside's long and very active service from the turn of the century to the eve of World War II encompassed a period of unprecedented change -- and what today we might call "Army Transformation" -- all of which he was very much a part of. His record of deployment as a Quartermaster is singularly impressive as well, from service in Cuba during and immediately after the Spanish American War, later with "Black Jack" Pershing in Mexico during the Punitive Expedition, and after that on the Western Front in Europe during the hard-fought Allied Offensives of World War I. As we often look to our Hall of Fame honorees for having left an enduring mark on a particular Quartermaster supply and service function, or area of logistical expertise, here too Colonel Whitside more than makes the grade. His name will forever be identified with the developments in the Quartermaster Remount Service in the first half of the 20th century. Even though ultimately mechanization would prove to be the way of the future, still many hundreds of thousands of horses and mules saw service in Europe in World War I, and in World War II as well. During the interwar period few names were more closely associated with Army remounts than that of Colonel Whitside, founder and early Commander of the Front Royal (Virginia) Remount Depot.

HOW EFFECTIVE HAS TOGETHERWESERVED.COM BEEN IN HELPING YOU RECORD YOUR REMEMBERED PERSONS MILITARY SERVICE? DO YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE?
TWS provides a phenomenal venue for Col. Whitside's great granrdson, Col. Sam Russell, to pass on this legacy of over forty years of service to the nation from 1898 to 1939.

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