Biography
Julius R. Greenberg was a Quaker conscientious objector from New York imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refusing military service, he was held at Fort Leavenworth; Fort Douglas. Sentenced to 10 years in prison - reduced to 3 years. (Documented in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection's World War I Conscientious Objectors database.) Archival note: objected to war on “humanitarian” grounds; registered for the draft on June 5, 1917 but not as a CO; classified as a 2; interviewed on June 5, 1918 at Ft. Jackson, and on July 20, 1918 at Leavenworth, by the Special Board, on charge of disobedience of orders; …
Confirmed Camp Funston guardhouse transfer
The signed report on treatment of conscientious objectors identifies Julius R. Greenberg among those received at the Camp Funston Military Police Guard House on September 5, 1918. This is a confirmed facility receipt, not an independently established new arrest or beginning of all imprisonment. The September 5 and September 27 groups explicitly came from the Fort Riley guardhouse. The October 7 entry names Greenberg among men reporting sick after the forced cold showers. The report covers events through October 21 but does not supply an individual discharge date. Existing original-admission, release, sentence and total-duration fields are not replaced by this receipt date or calculated from a military sentence.
A military investigation reproduced in the Congressional Record on February 12, 1919 independently records mistreatment of conscientious objectors confined in the Camp Funston guardhouse. Its findings identify Thomas Shotkin and Julius R. Greenberg as men whom Colonel John W. Barnes struck on the feet and legs with a riding crop on October 9, 1918. The investigator concluded that Barnes was not justified under law, that the act violated the 96th Article of War, and recommended trial. This is an investigation finding and recommendation, not evidence that Barnes was subsequently convicted. It adds official corroboration to the prisoners’ contemporary account without changing their custody endpoints.
Congressional Record, February 12, 1919, printed pages 3239–3240 (PDF 63–64).
