Lore of the Corps: A Judge Advocate in World War I

Minnie Howell Gallogly (left), COL James Arthur Gallogly’s second wife; Maria in middle at two-yearsold circa 1950 (Photo courtesy of author

Lore of the Corps

A Judge Advocate in World War I

The Life and Times of James A. Gallogly

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By Fred L. Borch III

The roughly 425 lawyers who were Army judge advocates (JAs) during World War I served in the United States and overseas in England, France, Italy, and Russia. One of those lawyers was James A. Gallogly, a West Point graduate who transferred to the Judge Advocate General’s Department (JAGD) after earning his law degree. Gallogly’s story is worth telling because his time as a JA in World War I was unusual: he served in three countries (England, France, and Germany), was cited for gallantry in combat (later receiving the Silver Star), and after the fighting in France ended, studied law at the Inns of Court in London. What follows is the story of Gallogly’s life and career as an officer and lawyer—and a postscript about Gallogly’s oldest son, whose activities almost certainly gave his father much heartache.

Known as “Art” to his mother but “Jim” to his West Point classmates and Army peers, James Arthur Gallogly was born near Zanesville, Ohio, on 6 July 1881.1 He was named in part for his grandfather, Dr. James Gallogly, who served as a physician in the Union Army during the Civil War.

When Gallogly was a year old, his parents moved to Oregon City, Oregon. He grew up there, and after graduating from high school, enrolled at the University of Oregon. During the summer months when school was not in session, Gallogly worked with surveying parties in central and eastern Oregon. On one occasion, upon finding himself and his party surrounded by forest fires, Gallogly and his comrades escaped in a boat they discovered close by in a river. Later, while waiting to be admitted to the U.S. Military Academy, the twenty-one-year-old Gallogly worked as a substitute teacher on the Quinault Indian reservation on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

Gallogly entered West Point in 1903 and graduated four years later, ranked eleventh in a class of 111 members. His military record reflects that he was six feet, one inch tall and weighed 182 pounds, which was very much above average for a man in the early 1900s.2 Commissioned in the Coast Artillery Corps, Second Lieutenant Gallogly reported for duty at Fort Barrancus, Florida, a Civil War-era fort built to protect the Pensacola Bay.3

While at Barrancus, Lieutenant Gallogly served on courts-martial in various capacities. Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Samuel E. Allen, the post commander, subsequently wrote that Gallogly “constantly expressed great interest in [legal] work, and this has been evinced not only in the preparation of cases referred to him, but also in careful study of military and civil law.”4 Lieutenant Colonel Allen noted that Gallogly “has devoted all his spare time to the study of law,” and Allen was correct: Gallogly sat for the Georgia State Bar Examination, and after passing it, was admitted to the Georgia Bar in June 1910. Deciding that he should have a more formal legal education, Lieutenant Gallogly earned his law degree from the Atlanta Law School in 1913.

From 1914 to 1915, Captain Gallogly was in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was in charge of the Army recruiting office at the main Post Office Building. This was his last assignment as a Coast Artillery officer, as he was then admitted to the JAGD and promoted to the rank of major (MAJ). Assigned to Hawaii in early 1916 as the Hawaiian Department JA, MAJ Gallogly’s “duties required that he study native Hawaiian law, which he found quite interesting.”5 Since Hawaii had been a U.S. territory for less than twenty years, the interplay of law from the days of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Republic of Hawaii, and the Hawaiian Organic Act almost certainly explains why MAJ Gallogly found his legal work in Hawaii to be interesting.6 His boss certainly appreciated his legal acumen. Brigadier General John P. Wisser, the department commander, wrote that Gallogly was “a gentleman of high character, industrious and studious, thoroughly reliable and trustworthy.”7

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, MAJ Gallogly served for a time at Fort Greene, North Carolina, before sailing for France to join the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Once on the ground in April 1918, he served as JA of the 3d Division and participated in the Aisne, Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, St. Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne campaigns.

Major Gallogly saw combat at Chateau Thierry and performed well under fire. On 1 June 1918, at Viels-Maison, MAJ Gallogly “volunteered to carry, and did carry an important message from the division commander to the commanding officer, 7th Machine Gun Battalion, then in Chateau-Thierry.”8 According to the citation published in 1920, MAJ Gallogly volunteered to perform this mission because it was “required that an officer deliver the message” and no courier officer was available.9 “The route over which MAJ Gallogly traveled with the message was under constant enemy shell and machine gun fire. His side car was struck by enemy shell fire and after proceeding as far as practicable in the side car, he continued on foot . . .” to deliver the message.10 As Major General E. M. Lewis later wrote, MAJ Gallogly “displayed exceptional valor and a devotion to duty which set a splendid and inspiring example.”11 Major Gallogly demonstrated that an Army lawyer could enhance mission success in ways other than the practice of law, and his combat heroism in June 1918 earned him the Silver Star after Congress established that decoration in 1932.12

In July 1918, MAJ Gallogly was promoted to LTC. The following month, he left the 3d Division for a new assignment with AEF’s Services of Supply (SOS). As part of the SOS legal staff, headed by Colonel (COL) Blanton Winship,13 LTC Gallogly was one of thirty-four JAs at the headquarters. The fighting ended only a few months after LTC Gallogly was assigned to the SOS, but post-armistice legal work continued, especially for courts-martial and claims.

On 1 August 1919, LTC Gallogly informed COL Winship that in June and July 1919 alone, SOS JAs had reviewed fifty-two general courts-martial, including six records of trial forwarded to them by the First Division, which had redeployed to the United States.14 One of these records LTC Gallogly examined was the joint trial of Privates John Kellie, William LeBuff, and Ernest Knight for attempted murder. The three Soldiers had broken into the stockade to murder Private First Class Sam Evans, who previously had pleaded guilty to sexual intercourse with an underaged French girl. Kellie, LeBuff, and Knight also had engaged in sexual relations with her, and they now wanted to kill Evans so that he would be unable to testify against them at their upcoming court-martial.15

USMA Cadet Gallogly (Photo courtesy of author)

At their joint trial for assault with intent to commit murder, the three men were found guilty and sentenced to five years confinement at hard labor and a dishonorable discharge. The Army then prosecuted the three convicted Soldiers at a second court-martial for statutory rape of the young French girl. The panel sentenced Kellie, LeBuff, and Knight to an additional twenty-five years’ imprisonment. Based on Gallogly’s review of the records of trial, COL Winship recommended to the Third Army commander that he approve both courts-martial and their punishments—which he did.

In March 1919, LTC Gallogly arrived in London, England, where he enrolled as a student at Kings College and studied at the Inns of Court. In November, he had a short tour of duty in Rome, Italy, where he served as the JA in the court-martial of a Soldier. Gallogly subsequently returned to England and then sailed for the United States shortly before Christmas 1919, but not before being “selected to receive the formal thanks of a distinguished committee of the British Parliament, investigating the conduct of courts-martial during World War I.”16

Assigned to the Office of The Judge Advocate General in Washington, D.C., then-MAJ Gallogly (he was reduced in rank in the demobilization that followed World War I) worked as a section chief in the Military Justice Division. Colonel Walter A. Bethel, who had served as a brigadier general and the top lawyer in the AEF in World War I, wrote that Gallogly was a “good lawyer, energetic officer, with a practical turn of mind.”17 Apparently, however, working in Washington, D.C., was not to Gallogly’s liking, so he retired at his own request in December 1922.

Gallogly then joined S.W. Strauss and Company, a New York financial firm, at their offices in Atlanta. He was the resident manager for Strauss clients in the southeastern states, who wanted financing to construct large buildings in southern cities.

In 1926, after a very contentious divorce, Jim Gallogly moved to Miami (he had left Strauss and Company some months earlier), where he started his own investment counselling firm. “Life in Miami was pleasant and interesting, his work required lots of reading and study and his hobby, contract bridge, proved a constant challenge to his keen sense of competition.”18 According to his obituary, Gallogly also tried “to recover, for clients, remnants of fortunes lost by the bursting of the Florida [land] boom and the crash of the stock market that followed a few years later.”19

Dapper Dick (Photo courtesy of author)

The Gallogly story is, however, about more than Jim Gallogly’s years as a Soldier and lawyer. This is because his oldest son, Richard Gray Gallogly, caused him considerable trouble. Dubbed “Dapper Dick” by the press, the young Gallogly and another man named George Harsh committed seven armed robberies in Atlanta and were involved in the murder of a drug store owner.20

Sensational headlines about their crime spree were front-page news across the United States in October 1928. Although Jim Gallogly had moved away from Georgia and was no longer married to his son’s mother, Dapper Dick’s crimes must have weighed heavily on Jim Gallogly’s mind.

It started when Dick Gallogly was an eighteen-year-old student at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. He hung around with a crowd of fellow students led by twenty-one-year-old George Harsh. Both Gallogly and Harsh had unlimited money. Gallogly’s money came from his grandfather, James Gray (his mother’s father), who had been a successful Atlanta businessman and part-owner of the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper. As for Harsh, he inherited a fortune from his father, who died in 1921.21

Gallogly and Harsh, in their fancy automobiles, “aggressively sped around Atlanta to speakeasies and roadhouses.”22 They were wild and carefree in their approach to life and living—and Harsh also owned a Colt Model 1911 .45 caliber pistol. At first, Gallogly, Harsh, and two other students in the “Oglethorpe gang” used streetlights on Peachtree Street as targets for the .45, but in early October 1928, they began robbing gas stations, drug stores, and grocery stores.

Two men would serve as lookouts in the car while the other two would rob a business “armed with Harsh’s pistol.”23 They would restrain the store clerk and help themselves to the cash register. Sometimes the robbers would remain in the store and pretend to be employees so they could also rob customers who came into the premises.

On 20 October 1928, Gallogly and Harsh committed their seventh robbery. The two men entered a drug store with Harsh “brandishing his pistol.”24 But, things went horribly wrong, because store owner, Willard Smith, also was armed. Smith pulled out his pistol and shot Harsh in the hip, and Harsh returned fire, killing Smith.

Gallogly and Harsh escaped the crime scene to Gallogly’s apartment near the Oglethorpe campus. Apparently, the bullet that struck Harsh passed through the flesh of his hip, so there was no bullet to be removed. Nonetheless, a maid cleaning Gallogly’s apartment found Harsh’s bloody trousers and took them to a laundry for cleaning. When the laundry owner discovered a bullet hole in the trousers, he notified the Atlanta police.

When confronted by the police, Harsh quickly confessed to the seven armed robberies and the murder of Smith. His confession resulted in a speedy trial, conviction for the murder of Smith, and a sentence of life in prison. Unfortunately for Gallogly, Harsh also told the police that Gallogly had been with him at the time of the shooting.

Dapper Dick was indicted for both the robbery and the murder. Despite the overwhelming evidence, he pleaded not guilty and the first two juries hearing the case deadlocked. In the middle of a third trial in 1930, however, Gallogly decided to plead guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

In March 1940, now thirty-year-old Dick Gallogly managed to escape from prison—with his new wife whom he had married while imprisoned. While two prison guards were transporting Gallogly in a green Studebaker sedan (owned by the Georgia Prison Inspector) along with his new wife and his mother, Gallogly used a fake gun to take over the automobile. He left the guards and his mother on the side of road and drove away. Gallogly eluded capture by heading to Texas, until he decided to turn himself “in to a police station seeking Texas justice.”25 Unfortunately for him, he was extradited back to Georgia.

While one might have thought that Gallogly would spend many more years in prison, this was not to be. In the 1930s, both the Gallogly and Harsh families lobbied sitting Georgia governors to pardon the two men. The first two governors who had the option of giving clemency to Gallogly and Harsh chose not to do so, but on 13 January 1941, Governor E. D. Rivers pardoned both men.26 They were free.

Jim Gallogly, who suffered from Parkinson’s later in life, died in Florida in October 1962.27 His son, Dick Gallogly, lived a quiet life in Georgia until his death in June 2002.28

So ends the story of James Gallogly—and his son, Dick Gallogly. The father, who had served with great distinction as a JA in the Great War, must have been disappointed in Dick—even if he loved him as a father loves a son. TAL

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Mr. Borch is the Regimental Historian, Archivist, and Professor of Legal History and Leadership at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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Notes

1. James Arthur Gallogly, Assembly: Ass’n of Graduates, U.S.M.A., Spring 1963, at 100, 100 [hereinafter Assembly].

2. In 1900, the average height of a male in the United States was 170 centimeters (approximately five feet, six inches). See Average Height of Men by Year of Birth, 1820 to 1980, Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-height-of-men-for-selected-countries?facet=entity&country=~USA (last visited July 13, 2023).

3. Fort Barrancas, Nat’l Park Serv., https://www.nps.gov/guis/learn/historyculture/fort-barrancas.htm (last visited June 30, 2023). Today, Fort Barrancus is part of Naval Air Station Pensacola. Fort Barrancas Area, Nat’l Park Serv., https://www.nps.gov/guis/planyourvisit/fort-barrancas-area.htm (last visited June 30, 2023).

4. U.S. War Dep’t, Adjutant Gen.’s Off., Form No. 98-5, Summary of Efficiency Reports: Gallogly, James A. (1910) (on file with author).

5. Assembly, supra note 1, at 101.

6. In 1893, “a Committee of Safety that represented the American and European sugar planters, descendants of missionaries, and financiers” overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii and “proclaimed the establishment of a Provisional Government.” Joint Resolution to Acknowledge the 100th Anniversary of the January 17, 1893 Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Pub. L. No. 103-150, 107 Stat. 1510 (1993). When Congress enacted the Hawaiian Organic Act in 1900, it established the Territory of Hawaii and provided for a government under U.S. control. 107 Stat. at 1512. But the Hawaiian Organic Act also provided that “laws of Hawaii not inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution or [Organic] Act” remained in effect. Act to Provide a Government for the Territory of Hawaii, ch. 339, § 6, 31 Stat. 141 (1900). Consequently, Major Gallogly had to be conversant with laws that had existed in the Republic and those enacted by the territorial legislature—as well as applicable military law.

7. U.S. War Dep’t, Adjutant Gen.’s Off., Form No. 98-5, Summary of Efficiency Reports: Gallogly, James A. (1916) (on file with author).

8. Headquarters, 3d Div., Camp Pike, Arkansas, Gen. Order No. 4 (23 June 1920) (on file with author) [hereinafter Gen. Order No. 4]; see also Fred L. Borch III, Judge Advocates in the Great War 1917-1922, at 80, 102 n.5 (2021).

9. Gen. Order No. 4, supra note 8.

10. Id.

11. Id.

12. See id.; Assembly, supra note 1, at 101; Criteria for Army Awards, AMEDD Ctr. of Hist. & Heritage, https://achh.army.mil/regiment/awards-silverstar (last visited June 30, 2023).

13. Blanton Winship was the most highly decorated judge advocate (JA) in World War I. While in France, he served simultaneously as the First Army’s JA and as the commander of the 110th and 118th Infantry Regiments. For his extraordinary heroism in combat, then-Colonel Winship was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star. Winship served as The Judge Advocate General from 1931 to 1933. After retiring from active duty, he was appointed the Governor of Puerto Rico. For more on Winship, see Borch, supra note 8, at 229-30.

14. Id. at 80.

15. Id.

16. Id.

17. U.S. War Dep’t, Adjutant Gen.’s Off., Form No. 711, Efficiency Report: James A. Gallogly, 1 July 1922 to 15 Dec. 1922 (1922) (Block N) (on file with author).

18. Assembly, supra note 1, at 101.

19. Id.

20. For more details on Richard Gray Gallogly’s criminal past, see Conor Lee, Richard “Dapper Dick” Gallogly, Hist. Atlanta (Aug. 30, 2013), http://historyatlanta.com/richard-dapper-dick-gallogly; see also David Beasley, Without Mercy: The Stunning True Story of Race, Crime, and Corruption in the Deep South 20 (2014).

21. See Chuck Perry, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New Ga. Encyc. (Sept. 11, 2019), https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/atlanta-journal-constitution.

22. Lee, supra note 20.

23. Id.

24. Id.

25. Id.

26. Id.

27. Assembly, supra note 1, at 101.

28. Lee, supra note 20. As for Harsh, he went to Canada in 1941, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, and flew combat missions over Germany. He was shot down in 1943 and imprisoned in the infamous Stalag Luft III prison camp. While held as a prisoner of war (POW), Harsh was one of dozens of Allied prisoners who worked day and night to dig secret tunnels in what has become known as “The Great Escape.” Id. Harsh was transferred to another POW facility before the escape occurred—an event later popularized in a film starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Charles Bronson. See The Great Escape (Mirisch Co. 1963). The film, depicting a fictionalized version of the mass escape of British Commonwealth prisoners from Stalag Luft III, is based on Paul Brickhill’s 1950 book of the same name. Lee Pfeiffer, The Great Escape, Britannica (Apr. 6, 2023), https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Great-Escape. The film is a classic and is famed for its fictional motorcycle chase scene. See Sinclair McKay, The Great Escape: 50th Anniversary, The Telegraph (Dec. 24, 2014, 3:43 PM), https://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-great-escape-1962; Wook Kim, Top 10 Memorable Movie Motorcycles: The Great Escape, TIME (Feb. 16, 2012), https://entertainment.time.com/2012/02/17/top-10-memorable-movie-motorcycles/slide/the-great-escape. Harsh survived World War II and died in January 1980.