Biography
Jesse D. Hartzler was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Missouri who was drafted and arrived at Camp MacArthur, Texas, on September 7, 1918. Refusing on religious grounds to wear the uniform or to obey military orders, he was subjected to a mock trial, beaten, and put on a bread-and-water diet, though he also recalled sympathy and kindness from some of the soldiers and officers. Court-martialed in November 1918, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor and sent to the Fort Leavenworth disciplinary barracks; he was released on January 7, 1919, after the Armistice. He recounted the experience in a taped interview with Roger Golden on December 6, 1968, preserved in the Mennonite Central Committee's Civilian Public Service oral-history archive.
Earlier guardhouse phases in Hartzler’s oral history
In the archived interview excerpt, Hartzler recalls being sent to a guardhouse for refusing work and being beaten by other prisoners during an informal “kangaroo court,” with the mistreatment continuing for about four days. He says officials intervened and that he later testified at the trial of an unnamed second lieutenant who had watched the abuse. The one-day guardhouse sentence in that passage belongs to the lieutenant, not to Hartzler.
Hartzler describes returning to his company, spending about three weeks in hospital with influenza, and being sent to the guardhouse again after appearing without a uniform. He recalls bread-and-water restrictions, a letter to J. S. Hartzler and the latter’s intervention, followed by several weeks before his transfer to Fort Leavenworth. The account contains both twelve- and fourteen-day references concerning the food restriction; these are not treated as a precise custody total. At Leavenworth he recalls appearing before a Board of Inquiry. He separately says he was court-martialed at Camp McArthur, received a five-year sentence and was furnished a lawyer. The five years were an imposed sentence, not time served; the inquiry members are not identified as the court-martial judge.
The collection index explicitly identifies the speaker as Jesse D. Hartzler, interviewed by Roger Golden on December 6, 1968, and links this exact PDF. Although the index describes the broader sourcebook interview as pages 151–160, this four-page file supplies printed pages 155–157 and a short, unnumbered continuation. J. S. Hartzler, visitor Daniel Henry Bender and the separately mentioned Orie Hartzler are other people; the Becker interview appears only as a footnote cross-reference.
These pages establish earlier confinement but give no calendar date for either guardhouse admission or the physical Leavenworth transfer. The hospitalization and overall camp residence are not automatically counted as prison time, and Hartzler’s uncertain recollection that he may already have had a discharge at the inquiry is not a verified release day. The index’s November 16 court-martial date is not independently established here as the physical intake day. The existing November 16, 1918 to January 7, 1919 interval and its stored 52 days remain unchanged, without this excerpt validating its intake date, uninterrupted continuity or lifetime custody total. No new case or dated custody period is created for these internal movements.
Jesse D. Hartzler oral-history excerpt, original PDF pages 1–4, printed pages 155–157 and continuation; Mennonite Central Committee Civilian Public Service oral-history collection index, interview identity and broader sourcebook description.
