“Building an Army” – Missouri general developed system of military conscription used in WWI

By Jeremy Amick
via the War History Online web site

A Missouri native, Major General Enoch Crowder served his country for fifty years but has garnered greatest recognition for his implementation and administration of the military draft in WWI. Courtesy Museum of Missouri Military History.General John J. Pershing was a Missourian who gained notoriety during World War I for leading the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe. His fame, however, has over the years eclipsed that of a fellow Missourian whose distinguished career was defined by his role in establishing a system of registering and classifying more than four million Americans for military service during WWI.

A native of Grundy County, Enoch Herbert Crowder was born on April 11, 1859, in the farming community of Edinburg near Trenton, Mo. As noted in David Lockmiller’s book aptly titled “Enoch H. Crowder: Soldier, Lawyer and Statesman,” during his boyhood, Crowder “preferred reading to plowing and found from experience that a combination of the two produced crooked rows.”

Crowder completed a course of study at a local college at the age of 16 and later taught at a rural school near Chillicothe. At the urging of his mother, he took the examination for the United States Military Academy at West Point and, as luck would have it, earned appointment to the academy in the fall of 1877 after the first nominee resigned his appointment.

For the next four years, he received a well-rounded education and in his senior year “studied civil and military engineering, Spanish law, military tactics, ordnance and gunnery,” Lockmiller wrote. Crowder “enjoyed listening to addresses and debates but disliked speaking in public,” the author further explained, but in the time leading up to his graduation from the academy in 1881, he “gradually overcame his shyness…”

The young officer was soon assigned to the 8th Cavalry at Fort Yates, N.D., with whom he remained until April 19, 1891, noted the 1890-1900 edition of the “Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy.”

He was briefly reassigned to serve as the professor of military science at the University of Missouri in Columbia. While serving in this capacity, he chose to continue his education and earned his bachelor’s degree in law, which would prove beneficial in later military appointments. 

Read the entire article on the Military History Online web site here.

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