Sign up for our newsletters! So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received uvp into heaven, and sate on the right hand of God. Dawn broke that day on a new epoch, one that would carry the name of a man whose ideas and ideals would extend well into the next century. One thousand soldiers and a Marine Corps guard of honor joined the local police in restraining the hundreds who stood in the chilly first light in hopes of catching a glimpse of the illustrious passenger.
A battalion of the 13th United States Infantry surrounded the train. Brigadier General G. General John J. A year later than Pershing had promised, President Wilson tipped his hat and greeted the surrounding soldiers and sailors before proceeding through a huge shed, which was lined with three hundred Army Transport Service girls in khaki and infantrymen bearing fixed bayonets. Hundreds of flags, those of the United States and the Allied nations—Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Italy most recognizable among them—hung from the ceiling of this vast hall.
Wilson walked beneath the glorious array and onto his home for the next ten days, the United States steamship George Washington. As the President and Mrs. Then the Wilsons settled into their flower-filled accommodations. It was all to her liking, except for the soldiers outside their staterooms and patrolling the decks. Never in history had so much security surrounded an American president.
In addition to the military presence, eight members of the Secret Service were aboard the George Washington , with two more doing advance work in France. The ship, recalled agent Edmund W. There was not a fireman or cabin boy whose family and background had not been thoroughly looked into.
At the twin-stacked ship— feet long and weighing twenty-five thousand tons—backed into the Hudson River. Once its stern was sighted heading northward, all the vessels in the waters around the New York islands responded with bells and sirens and horns and whistles.
