Enoch Crowder

SHS C1046

In 1917, Edinburg, Missouri native Major General Enoch Crowder led the drafting and directing of the Selective Service Act. He was responsible for the registration, classification, and induction of American men who were 18–30 years of age during World War I.

Among the collections chosen for digitization this year is a selection of correspondence from the State Historical Society of Missouri's Enoch Crowder Papers.  Ranging from January 1917 to November 1918, the 500 pages from this collection chosen for digitization consist of Crowder's family, personal, and military correspondence.

Enoch H. Crowder was born on April 11, 1859, in Edinburg, Missouri, to John and Mary Weller Crowder. He attended Grand River College, the only school in northern Missouri at the time. As a teen, he took the entrance exam for the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. He finished second out of twenty-six applicants. The young man who received the top score was awarded the appointment, but he later resigned his appointment and Crowder took his place at the U.S. Military Academy in the fall of 1877. After four uneventful years, Crowder graduated ranked thirty-first out of fifty-four cadets in his class.

Newly commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Crowder reported to the Eighth Cavalry at Fort Brown, Texas, where he spent much of his time watching for cattle thieves. In 1884 he was sent to the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he served as professor of military science and was appointed head of the military department. Here he instructed two companies of cadets and created the first ROTC cadet band in the United States, which later became known as Marching Mizzou.  Crowder also helped organize the Ladies’ Department Drill Company. During his time at the University, Crowder studied law and received a Bachelors of Law Degree, which later helped him to write the Selective Service Act. The ROTC building, Crowder Hall, on the University of Missouri campus is named on his behalf. 

In 1886, Crowder was promoted to First Lieutenant and issued orders to rejoin his the Eigth Cavalry in New Mexico for the campaign against a group of Chiricahua Apache led by Geronimo. Geronimo and his followers eventually surrendered, though Crowder was not involved in their capture. He soon received orders to go to Fort Yates, North Dakota, where the U.S. Army was attempting to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1890, a Native American religious movement that led the the Massacre at Wounded Knee and the final campaign of Sitting Bull. This was the last time that Crowder took to the field; he spent the rest of his career far from the front lines, which he laments in later correspondence. While in North Dakota Crowder came to the attention of his superiors in Washington, DC, when he successfully defended several officers in court-martial proceedings. In 1891 he was temporarily assigned to the U.S. Army's legal branch, the Judge Advocate General's Corps, and ordered to the Department of the Platte in Omaha, Nebraska. In this position, Crowder was the legal adviser to the head of the department, investigated and prosecuted court-martials, and took care of various legal matters.  In January 1895, this temporary branch transfer became final and Crowder was promoted to Major.

When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Crowder was transferred to the Philippines as a judge advocate, where he filled many important posts in the military government of the Islands. In 1904, when the Russo-Japanese War broke out between Russia and Japan over territory in China and Korea, Crowder, now a colonel, served as a military observer in the region. From 1906-1909, Crowder was sent to Cuba  where he oversaw the Cuban elections in 1908, and later helped draft a body of laws for Cuba. In 1910, he represented the United States at the Fourth Pan American Conference in Buenos Aires and made official visits to Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. On February 11, 1911, Crowder was promoted to Brigadier General and assumed the duties as Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, a post he held until 1923. 

SHS C1046

When America entered the World War in the spring of 1917, Crowder, now Provost Marshal, was tasked with raising an army. He guided and implemented the Selective Service Act - federal law allowing the United States to draft American forces into military service. He supervised the registration, classification, and induction of all American men who were 18–30 years of age into the armed services, which amounted to approximately 2,800,000 men during the war. The draft was unpopular with the American populace. In order to sway American public opinion towards war and the necessity of the draft, Missourian George Creel became the United States' official war propagandist and established the Committee on Public Information.

The bulk of the pages selected for digitization consist of correspondence regarding the draft. While there are many letters from notable Americans lauding his efforts, there is also a large amount of anti-draft material from across the nation, including a letter from a chieftain arguing that Native Americans should be exempt from service. 

In October 1917, Crowder was promoted to Major General. Under his administration of military justice, the number of general courts-martial rose from 6,200 in 1917 to over 20,000 in 1918.  In 1918 Crowder was responsible for executing Secretary of State Newton Baker's "work or fight" order, which mandated that nearly every activity in the country support the war effort.

Enoch Crowder left military life shortly after the war. After forty years of service, he retired at the rank of major general in 1923.  Upon his retirement he received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities including Columbia University, Brown University, and Harvard University. He also received a Distinguished Service Medal. Crowder died on May 7, 1932, in Washington, DC. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1938, a Crowder State Park was established just miles from the Crowder homestead in Trenton, Missouri and was named in his honor. Camp Crowder, a World War II U.S. Army Signal Corps training center in Neosho, Missouri was also designated in his honor.

The digitized collection will be released online this spring.

Sources and suggestions for further research:

Archives of the University of Missouri. The Military and Mizzou: 1861-1947. Website. 

Christensen, Lawrence O. "World War I in Missouri: Part 2." Missouri Historical Review, v. 90, no. 4 (July 1996), pp. 410-428.

Crowder, Enoch H. The Spirit of Selective Service. New York: The Century Company, 1920.

Crowder, Enoch H. (1859-1932), Papers, 1884-1942 (C1046). Manuscript Collection. The State Historical Society of Missouri.

Harper, Kimberly. Enoch H. Crowder. Historic Missourians. Website. The State Historical Society of Missouri.

Lockmiller, David A. Enoch Crowder: Soldier, Lawyer, and Statesman. Columbia: University of Missouri Studies, 1955.

Missouri State Parks. General Information at Crowder State Park. Website.