Hometown: Oostburg, WI
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: Company B, 58th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division
Date of Sacrifice: August 6, 1918 - KIA at the Vesle River, near Ville-Savoye, France
Age: 27
Conflict: World War I, 1914-1918

Edgar Hartman was born in the small dairy-farming village of Oostburg, Wisconsin on June 14, 1891. After graduating from the village school, Hartman traveled 50 miles south to attend Milwaukee Business College. Following a year of studies, he took a job as an engineer at the Pantzer Lumber Company in his hometown.

With war raging in Europe (World War I, 1914-1917), the U.S. Congress and President Woodrow Wilson passed the Selective Service Act into law on May 18, 1917—requiring all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for military service.

Hartman was drafted into the Army, and on November 1, 1917, left Oostburg for Camp Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan. There he was assigned to Company B (Machine Gun Company), 58th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division. On February 17, 1918, Pvt. Hartman was transferred to Camp Greene in Charlotte, North Carolina, to prepare for deployment to Europe.

Escaping Death

Just as the 58th Regiment set out to board a ship and cross the Atlantic, Pvt. Hartman fell ill. He was returned to St. Francis Hospital in New York, where he spent the next month recovering from a case of mumps.

While Hartman recovered in New York, his Company B was in the English Channel aboard the HMS Moldavia, a passenger steamship purchased by the British Admiralty and converted for use as a troop transport.

On the dark, overcast early morning hours of May 23, 1918, Moldavia was part of a convoy of vessels in the English Channel, south of London. A brief opening in the clouds provided enough moonlight for a German U-boat (UB-57) submarine commander to clearly see his target through the periscope.

At 2:40 a.m., the U-boat fired a single torpedo into the port-side hull of Moldavia. The ship sank slowly enough for most aboard to be rescued by the destroyers in their convoy. But of the 56 American soldiers lost in the attack, all but one was from Pvt. Hartman’s Company B. The German torpedo left a gaping hole in Moldavia’s hull—destroying the compartment where soldiers of Company B had been sleeping.

Deployment to France

Pvt. Hartman recovered from his illness and embarked from Camp Merritt and the Port of Hoboken, New Jersey, on another transport ship—arriving in England on July 2, 1918, to rejoin his regiment.

After additional preparation in England, Hartman’s 58th Infantry Regiment deployed to northern France. From July 15 to August 6, 1918, the French Army—along with several American infantry divisions—launched an offensive to push the German Army back to France’s Vesle River.

Waiting for Word

Following the Allied push to the Vesle, Pvt. Hartman’s family agonized for months. Letters home from Edgar stopped, and there was no word from the War Department about his fate.

According to The Sheboygan Press, Pvt. Hartman’s sister, Mabel (Hartman) Dirkse, received a letter from his commanding officer, Captain T.E. Roderick, dated December 17, 1918—a month after the war ended:

Dear Mrs. Dirkse,

While fighting at the Vesle River, your brother, Edgar J. Hartman, was wounded on August 7.* A piece of shrapnel entered his right side while he was carrying a box of ammunition to the front. He was given first aid and sent to the hospital. We have not heard from him since. I sincerely hope that you have heard from him by this time and that he is well.

Months after Armistice Day, (Nov. 11, 1918) Hartman’s sister continued to write to Edgar. In March of 1919, she wrote: “Dearest Brother, Am making another attempt to have you hear from me. I have now had eleven of my letters returned to me but none the past month so will send something in search of you. We have been unable to find any trace of you up to now, nor received anything from you since your field service card reached us on August 7th.”

Pvt. Hartman’s sister sent letters to the War Department in Washington D.C., requesting news of her brother. In response, she received a letter from Cpt. E.T. Raylan, stating that Edgar Hartman “was discharged May 13, 1919, his address being given as Hilton, Tenn.” The family later believed that Cpt. Raylan had confused their Edgar Hartman with another soldier by the same name.

Newspaper appeals to other local soldiers for any news on Pvt. Hartman provided no answers.

Worst Fears Confirmed

Nearly two years after the war ended, Hartman’s family had their worst fears confirmed in June of 1920. A letter to Wisconsin Congressman Edward Voigt from Pvt. Hartman’s squad leader, Cpl. Leo B. Zastrow, described Edgar’s final moments:

[Edgar Hartman] was instantly killed on the Vesle River, close to Ville Savoy. He was a member of my platoon, but was in another squad about 300 yards to the left of us. We had just finished a barrage of 15,000 rounds to cover our infantry’s advance across the Vesle when they were fired upon by a German one-pounder cannon, and according to his squad leader’s information to me, he was killed instantly by one of the shells.

I wish to inform Mr. Hartman’s folks that he was a member of my squad in a little skirmish a few days before the engagement on the Vesle River and he was my most trustworthy man. When transferred to another squad, I surely felt his loss. I can assure them that he died a hero.

Pvt. Hartman’s body was returned home, and “the entire village and countryside turned out…paying tribute to the martyred hero,” according to The Sheboygan Press.

*Hartman’s headstone shows his date of death as August 6, 1918—the same date listed in The Sheboygan Press (June 18, 1921) account of his memorial service.

Edgar J. Hartman is remembered in his hometown, with Oostburg’s Hartman-Lammers American Legion Post 286 named in his honor.

Sources
Card photo provided by J.C. Schaap, Pvt. Hartman’s great-nephew.
J.C. Schaap, Professor of English Emeritus at Dordt College, August 10, 2018: Stuff in the Basement: In memory of Edgar Hartman
Tampa Morning Tribune, May 25, 1918: Transport is Torpedoed; 56 Americans Lost
Bach, Hall, and Dabo: The Fourth Division, Its Services And Achievements In The World War: Gathered From The Records Of The Division (1920)
U.S. Army Center of Military History: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I
The Sheboygan Press, February 5, 1919: Oostburg Yank was Wounded in Fight on Vesle
The Sheboygan Press, April 1, 1919: Edgar Hartman of Oostburg Reported Wounded or Missing
The Sheboygan Press, June 16, 1919: Relatives Anxious for News of Edgar Hartman, Missing
The Sheboygan Press, June 18, 1921: Impressive Services Held for Late Pvt. Edgar J. Hartman in the Village of Oostburg Today
Burial Site: Find a Grave