Capt. Timothy L. Barber was a physician and a surgeon in Charleston, WV, when the United States entered the war. Barber organized a medical unit made up of local men. In July 1918, he was detached from his unit stationed in Fort Meade, MD and sent to France to fight in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
On 10 October 1918 he died in a field hospital after triggering a German mine.
In a letter to his mother, Dr. Barber wrote:
Just a line to assure you that I am all right. Have been on the firing line a week and it was like a lifetime in hell! It was one of the worst and bloodiest battles of the war, and why or how I came through it is more than I can tell.
We have been going from one hill and woods to another ever since being relieved—sleeping in the rain and on the hillsides—no baggage, dirty, no water to wash in and very little to drink, marching 10 to 20 miles every night, the men all tired from the six days of continuous fighting. My mother, you cannot imagine what a terrible life this is! I am 10 years older already, and have seen all my friends and comrades blown to pieces beside me. The suffering has been great. We lost about 45 or 50 percent of our regiment.
Have received a number of letters which I will answer as soon as we stop long enough to get my mind together, and paper enough to write on.
We leave tonight for the front again.
Capt. Barber is buried in the U.S. Meuse-Argonne Cemetery Plot F, Row 32, Grave 4
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