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General Amos W. W. Woodcock of Salisbury, Maryland (1883-1964) Gentleman, Soldier, Scholar, and Good Citizen Stephen C. Gehnrich This project for the M.A. degree in History has been approved for the History Department by Dr. Raymond Thompson Dr. Dean Kotlowski Dr. Maarten Pereboom May 15, 2008 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................3 Introduction ................................................................................................................5 Family and Early Education.......................................................................................9 Military Experiences ..................................................................................................16 Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Attorney ..........................................................32 Prohibition..................................................................................................................38 Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General .........................................................53 Back to St. John’s College .........................................................................................56 Tokyo War Crimes .....................................................................................................64 Conclusion .................................................................................................................74 Works Cited ...............................................................................................................80 Figures St. John’s College Class Photograph (1901)..............................................................12 Captain Amos W.W. Woodcock (ca. 1917) ..............................................................23 President of St. John’s College (ca. 1935) .................................................................61 Legal staff embark for Tokyo (1945).........................................................................67 2 Acknowledgments Like any project, the research for this thesis has had its share of frustrations and dead ends, but it has had many more moments of rewarding surprises and discoveries. Many people have helped me along the way, and although there are more than I can name here, I would like to acknowledge those who were particularly helpful. Starting at the beginning, I’d like to thank my father, Herman C. Gehnrich, who shared his interest in history with me, and helped foster my own. Finding old newspaper and magazine articles has always been a slow and tedious process, and I would like to thank Susan Brazer of Salisbury University’s Blackwell Library for introducing me to several electronic resources, which saved me endless hours of searching through microfilms, and helped me find articles that would have been impossible to find otherwise. Rosemary Harty, Director of Communications, and the library staff at St. John’s College went out of their way to help me find information about Woodcock’s time at St. John’s as a student, instructor, and college president. The friendly and helpful staff at the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University is very knowledgeable, and they have tremendous resources on the history of the Delmarva Peninsula. I thank them for sharing their archives and expertise with me. Like anyone who has worked on the local history of Salisbury, I gratefully acknowledge the work of the late Richard Cooper who did so much to document the history of the town and its people. I was very fortunate to meet and become friends with several members of General Woodcock’s family, who provided photographs, documents, stories and memories about 3 their “Uncle Walter.” I would like to thank Dee Middleton, William P. Atkins, Nancy Taitt, Kathy and Kelsey Ireland, and especially Dr. Nevins Todd, Jr. and Julia Cramer Brown, for their help and enthusiastic encouragement over the entire course of this project. I owe special thanks to Dr. Ray Thompson and Dr. Dean Kotlowski of the Salisbury University Department of History for their encouragement, and for reading drafts of the thesis and providing very helpful editorial comments and suggestions. Finally, and most significantly, I want to thank my wonderful family; my wife Pauline, and our two daughters Jennifer and Allison, who for the past five years have shared and supported my enthusiasm for this research. 4 Introduction “… for all his wonderful service to his country and his special talents, there has never appeared a proper profile of this dedicated man.” Salisbury historian Richard Cooper referring to Amos W.W. Woodcock in a letter to Dee Middleton, March 28, 1997. It has become commonplace to think of World War One as a great watershed that separates culture, politics, and society into periods “before” and “after” the War. Many historians now refer to the “long 19th Century” that lasted until 1914 when World War One began, and the subsequent “short 20th Century” that began in 1914 and ended in 1990 with the fall of the Soviet Union. But this division is not so clear cut, and especially for people whose lives spanned this period there was a “struggle between these two worlds;” the excitement of modernity and liberation from the old, mixed with a longing for tradition and anxiety about the future.1 General Amos Walter Wright Woodcock was a native of Salisbury, Maryland whose life (1883-1964) was intimately intertwined with many of the major events of the first half of the 20th century; and in many cases he played a significant role in them. Woodcock lived his life with a strong (perhaps not quite Victorian, but at least an Edwardian) sense of morality, patriotism, and dedication to public service. As a devout Methodist he accepted the teachings of John Wesley that emphasized “duty” as important for a respectable life as prudence, earnestness, and moral fervor.2 He served his community, state, and country in numerous capacities, including army officer, school board president, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Attorney, Director of Prohibition, and college president. 1 Geoffrey Perrett, America in the Twenties: Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 10-11. 2 Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring, (New York: Anchor Books, 1989), 130. 5 The few people who remember “The General,” describe him in a variety of ways. Salisbury historian Richard Cooper, a close friend of Woodcock’s, referred to him as being “a very lonely person,” “sentimental,” and “somewhat of a romantic, in a very broad scope of the word.” Woodcock’s ‘romanticism’ related not only to classical literature, music, and art, but also to his “appreciation and affection for young ladies.” Although this admiration for young women always seems to have been from a distance, there is a suggestion that Woodcock may at one time have proposed marriage to a local Salisbury girl. Nevertheless, despite occasional attempts, “he was always able to sidestep any intrusion into his bachelorhood.”3 But many other Salisbury residents, who did not know Woodcock as well as Richard Cooper did (and in some cases only knew Woodcock by reputation), describe him as “formidable,” “crusty,” “straight-laced,” “stern,” and “unbending.” It is undeniable that Woodcock had strong opinions, and that he was not afraid to state and defend them. Richard Cooper remembers him as “…a person who made no attempt to endear himself to the public at large; he stood up for what he felt was just and right, often contrary to the current mood…”4 The Baltimore Sun went so far as to characterize him as having “a disconcerting habit of forming opinions and holding to them like grim death regardless of political exigencies.”5 This reputation earned Woodcock few friends, but throughout his life he tried to emulate Abraham Lincoln and “apply to each problem his habit of direct, honest, and courageous thought and action.”6 Despite the fact that Woodcock was perceived as being “old-fashioned,” “Victorian,” and 3 Letter from Richard Cooper to Dee Middleton, March 28, 1997. 4 Richard W. Cooper, Salisbury In Times Gone By, (Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1991), 109. 5 “The New Boss of the Dry Army,” Baltimore Sun, July 6, 1930, p. 20. 6 A.W.W. Woodcock, Lincoln’s Birthday Address, Feb. 12, 1949. 6 “set in his ways” he also understood human nature, and on several occasions demonstrated a strong sense of compassion, understanding, and a pragmatic approach to assessing human behavior. In his defense of a nervous sentry during World War One, and in many subsequent legal cases, he emphasized the importance of trying to see a situation from another person’s point of view. He was willing to give people a second chance as evidenced by his defense of a drunken college student and his desire to allow students who had failed at one college to enroll in another college, and give them the opportunity to change their ways. After World War Two he was determined to see that Japanese war criminals were not simply punished out of a sense of revenge, but were only held accountable to existing international laws. He befriended the family of a local minister ‘charged’ with homosexuality who was otherwise ostracized in the community. These were not the actions of a man who was rigid or narrow-minded, and he lived by his admonition that “human judgment is not so infallible that it should pass sentence for ever more” over someone who had failed one time.7 Woodcock was a highly educated man who

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