Courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives:
Representative from Alabama; born in Anniston, Calhoun County, Alabama, April 16, 1888; attended the public schools and the Alabama Presbyterian College at Anniston; served with the Alabama National Guard, 1904-1914; clerk of the circuit court of Calhoun County, taking office in January 1917; resigned that office in May 1917 and entered the U.S. Army, serving with the Eighty-second Division in France; was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by the United States Government; promoted to rank of Major of infantry; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Fred L. Blackmon; reelected to the Sixty-eighth and to the five succeeding Congresses and served from June 7, 1921, to January 3, 1935; chairman, Committee on Civil Service (Seventy-second and Seventy-third Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1934; resided in Daytona Beach, Florida, until his death there on June 1, 1983; interment at Arlington National Cemetery.
JEFFERS, LAMAR
- Captain, U.S. Army
- 326th Infantry Regiment, 82d Division, A.E.F.
- Date of Action: October 11, 1918
Citation:
The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Lamar Jeffers, Captain, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action neat St. Juvin, France, October 11, 1918.
On the night of October 10 – 11 Captain Jeffers reconnoitered a badly damaged bridge, and early in the morning of the 11th he supervised its repair, being continuously under an intense machine-gun fire. He later led the leading company of the battalion over this bridge and across an open and level terrain, where all of his officers and almost two-thirds of his men became casualties and he himself was seriously wounded.
He continued to lead his company forward until he fell, shot through the jaw with a machine-gun bullet.
General Orders No. 46, W.D., 1919
Home Town: Anniston, Alabama
Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.
Reviewed by: Michael Howard