COL Fitzhugh Lee Minnigerode

COL Fitzhugh Lee Minnigerode was born 10 Nov 1878 at Oatlands, his grandparents' home, in Loudon County, Virginia. He was the 5th of 7 children born to Charles Frederick Ernest and Virginia Cuthbert (Powell) Minnigerode. His grandfather was a German immigrant, professor of Latin & Greek and well-known clergyman who had ministered  to the highest levels of Virginia and Confederate States society and brought the first Christmas tree to Williamsburg, Virginia. His father had been aide-de-camp to GEN Fitzhugh Lee during the Civil War and worked as a railroad supply broker until business problems and lingering effects of a nearly mortal wound in the war drove him to commit suicide in 1888. Fitzhugh was just 9 years old. The family was then apparently supported by his grandfather. When he came of age, Fitzhugh began working as a clerk. His mother died of Bright's disease in 1899 at the family home at 414 Prince Street in Alexandria. Fitzhugh moved to live with his brother Charles (a civil engineer) at 1331 30th Street NW in Washington, D.C. and worked as a clerk for a railroad company. 

Fitzhugh enlisted in the army in May 1902. Serving in the 12th cavalry he rose through the ranks to 1SG. 1SG Minnigerode was commissioned a 2LT of the infantry in Oct 1904 at Fort Leavenworth, KS and assigned to D Company 8th Infantry. From 1904 to 1916 1LT Minnigerode served at least 2 tours with the 8th Infantry in the Philippines. On one of the unit rotations back to the Presidio of Monterey in Monterey, California, he met and married Ethel Patricia O'Brien, a newspaper reporter from Alameda, California in September 1911. After returning from the Philippines CPT Minnigerode was, for a time, Commander of Cadets at the University of Alabama but he was reassigned in 1917 in favor of more senior officer to deal with the increased number of officer candidates due to the war. Promoted to MAJ and reassigned to the 367th Infantry (a Negro unit in this time of segregated army), a position for which he was carefully selected. The was among the first in the 92nd Division to leave for the war, shipping out for France aboard the USS America on 10 Jun 1918. MAJ Minnigerode's long service with GEN Pershing may have helped him get the command of the 114th Infantry in the 29th Division which he was commanding during the Meuse-Argonne campaign when he performed an act for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The following is the text of the citation:

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Lieutenant Colonel (Infantry) Fitzhugh L. Minnigerode, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 114th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, A.E.F., near Verdun, France, 23 - 24 October 1918. When his battalion commanders, who had gone forward on a reconnaissance, preparatory to an attack, were prevented from returning by heavy shell and machine-gun fire, Lieutenant Colonel Minnigerode personally led his regiment into position under coyer. With a soldier, he then went forward for a distance of two kilometers under artillery and machine-gun fire, found the battalion commanders, and guided them back to their comrades.

At the end of the war now LTC Minnigerode was reassigned as commander of the 116th Infantry and was the commander when it boarded the USS Matsonia and departed Saint Nazaire, France for home on 9 May 1919. He had been promoted to COL on 7 May 1919. He was retired due to disability, reportedly hearing loss.

After his retirement Fitzhugh became the New York Times' London bureau representative as well as writing numerous freelance articles. He and Ethel split their residence between Alexandria, Virginia and 320 E. 57th Street New York City but often traveled to England and Italy. Their daughters were educated in England and Italy. They later moved to San Antonio, Texas.

The following is a copy of one of many obituaries written for him. 

Fitzhugh Lee Minnigerode, retired Army colonel, journalist and poet, died yesterday in a hospital in San Antonio, Tex., where he had been a patient for six months.  His age was 69. 
  A son of Charles Minnigerode, who served as aide-de-camp to Gen Robert E. Lee and before that as a Confederate officer in Fitzhugh Lee’s Cavalry, Colonel Minnigerode was a hero of the first World War.  Retired from active duty in 1920 for a service-incurred disability, he distinguished himself afterward as representative of THE NEW YORK TIMES Sunday Magazine in Europe, with headquarters in London. 
  He had won the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal for extraordinary heroism in action near Verdun in October, 1918, when he was a lieutenant colonel of the Hundred-fourteenth Infantry Battalion of the Twenty-ninth Division. 
  Well over six feet tall, slim and handsome, Colonel Minnigerode was impressive and charming.  When he was introduced to Sir Philip Gibbs, the British correspondent, in London in 1926, the latter turned to T. R. Ybarra, then London correspondent for this newspaper, and said:  “A dramatic figure, is he not?” 

A Picturesque Personality 

  The colonel’s associates remembered him as a wonderful raconteur who expressed interest in everything and everyone.  They saw him as a picturesque personality, a good writer and a graceful poet who never lost his military bearing and impeccable manner.  He was popular in America and Europe in the Nineteen Twenties, and he was closely associated with Queen Marie of Rumania,  George Bernard Shaw, Lady Nancy Astor, H. G. Wells, George Clemenceau and many other great personalities. 
  Born Nov. 10, 1878, in Oatlands, Loudoun County, Va., he was baptized in honor of his father’s cavalry chief.  His grandfather, the Rev George Minnigerode, a Lutheran minister, had emigrated from Germany to this country. 
  Settling in Richmond, Va., the grandfather accepted the call as rector of St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, where General Lee, Jefferson Davis and others high in the Confederacy attended services. 
  In May, 1902, Fitzhugh Lee Minnigerode enlisted as a private with Troop F of the Twelfth Cavalry, then rose through the ranks to become a second lieutenant of infantry on Oct. 15, 1904.  He was engaged in heavy fighting against the Moros in the Philippines Insurrection and served under Gen. John J. Pershing, then a brigadier. 

Made Captain in 1916 

  He was promoted to first lieutenant in March, 1911, and to captain on July 1, 1916.  In August, 1917, he was made a major and within a year won a lieutenant-colonelcy.  When he retired in 1921, with a mild deafness he suffered from gun firing, he was a full colonel. 
  He married the former Patricia O’Brien of San Francisco and for the next several years made his home in Italy.  Since 1920 he had contributed articles to THE TIMES Magazine. 
  Lester Markel, editor, hired him as European correspondent on Oct. 12, 1925, and Mr. Minnigerode remained in the London office until 1928, when he returned to this country.  He wrote many features on military tactics and about Army generals.  He found romance also in stories about New York, about Greenwich Village and the like. 
  He became an assistant to the late Dr. John H. Finley, editor-in-chief of THE TIMES, shortly after his return from London, and in this capacity made many after-dinner speeches before organizations here. 
  Besides his wife he leaves two daughters, Mrs. Arthur Ponsonby of London and Mrs. Rene Bouet-Willaumez of this city, and a brother, Cuthbert Powell Minnigerode, director of the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, D.C.

This was published on the 100th anniversary of his birth.