Isham B. Hudson (nonfiction)
Isham Barney Hudson was a soldier who kept a diary during the First World War.
Biography
Hudson was born on June 11, 1895, in Sampson County, North Carolina, to Samuel P. and Lucy Ann Daughtry Hudson. Isham’s father was a farmer in Sampson County. Isham’s mother Lucy died on September 2, 1909, after a two-year hospitalization with an unidentified medical issue. On July 19, 1909, Isham’s oldest brother died from diabetes (artificial insulin was not available). At the time of his draft registration for World War I, Isham Hudson was living on his family farm in the county, working as a farmer while also a student.
Isham Hudson grew up attending rural country schools. He completed high school as money allowed, for he had to earn enough money to pay for the year of education and traveled in two states to different high school educational opportunities. One year, Hudson traveled to study at what was then called the “high school department” at the private Christian school Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. It was while studying the high school courses at the university that he met Eleanor Chowning, whom he would marry after World War I. Hudson finished his high school education after three years and one summer school, graduating from Buies Creek Academy (present-day Campbell University) in Harnett County, N.C. He graduated as the most outstanding student in his class.
Isham Hudson was inducted into military service for World War I in the U.S. Army at Clinton, N.C., on May 26, 1918. Hudson was initially sent for basic training to Camp Jackson in South Carolina on May 27, 1918. He was then transferred on June 28, 1918, to Camp Sevier, South Carolina. Hudson was assigned to the 156th Depot Brigade until June 28, 1918, after which he was transferred to Company F, 323rd Infantry. Hudson was with the 323rd Infantry when they transferred to Camp Mills on Long Island in New York City on July 20, 1918.
On August 25, 1918, Isham Hudson was again transferred, this time to Company M, 168th Infantry, 42nd Division (known as the “Rainbow Division”). He would serve in the Rainbow Division under General Douglas MacArthur in the Battle of St. Mihiel. Hudson served as a private during his entire active military service in the war.
Hudson sailed to England with the 323rd Infantry aboard the Canadian Pacific Line ship R.M.S. Melita, arriving in Liverpool, England, on August 11, 1918. He served overseas in Europe during WWI from July 31, 1918 to July 27, 1919, and was honorably discharged on August 1, 1919. Hudson was able through the U.S. Army while stationed in England to study at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland for the summer college term of 1919.
By 1920, Isham Hudson had returned to live on his family’s farm in Sampson County, N.C. Hudson would return to school, graduating from Wake Forest College in Wake Forest, N.C. (present-day Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.) in 1921 with a law degree after two years. He began practicing as an attorney after he received his law license from the state of North Carolina in the spring of 1920.
In the fall of 1922, Hudson ran for the clerk of court in Sampson County, but lost the election. He would instead accept the position of principal at the Ransomville School in Beaufort County, N.C., in 1923. In 1924, he became a principal at Afton-Elberon school in Warren County, N.C. Hudson was made principal of the Wise School in Warren County in 1925 for one year.
Isham B. Hudson married his childhood sweetheart Eleanor Chowning in Cleveland County, Arkansas, on August 12, 1926. Hudson would later in life become the superintendent of the Onslow County Schools in Onslow County, N.C., from which position he retired in June 1963. Isham B. Hudson died on October 7, 1986, in Winston-Salem, N.C., and was buried in Forsyth Memorial Park in the same city.
To learn more about Isham Hudson’s WWI service, check out the Isham B. Hudson Papers (WWI 49) held in the WWI Papers of the Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh, N.C. Hudson's WWI diary has been digitized, and is available to view in the WWI digital collection on North Carolina Digital Collections (NCDC) in its entirety.
—Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist