Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 5 (1912): Behind the Lines

The Capture of New York, a documentary film released on September 1, 1912, incorporated scenes of military maneuvers in nearby Connecticut. The New Rochelle Evening Standard Note printed a story which detailed the actions of two Thanhouser cameramen, Carl Louis Gregory and Francis Newburgh:

If anyone thinks the motion picture man's part in war is a vaudeville sketch as seen from the "house," let him ask "Private Gregory" and "Major Newburgh," of the Thanhouser forces. Carl L. Gregory and Frank Newburgh, two of the operators for the Thanhouser company, went to the scene of the recent war maneuvers in Connecticut to make pictures of the war scenes, consisting of the landing of troops, the troops on the march going into battle, and the charges of infantry and cavalry, and the artillery action. They wore uniforms of the regular army, with the red bands of the attacking army, and carried passes from General Bliss, chief of umpires, which were to take them anywhere within the lines they desired to go. Their equipment consisted of 250 pounds of camera, tripod, film and other accessories, so that they carried no rations with them. They made their headquarters at a hotel in Bridgeport. The picture men traveled in a hired automobile with a chauffeur and did a great deal of high speed work over the dusty Connecticut roads. Many pictures were made of the troops, engineer corps, and signal corps of the wireless troops setting up their stations, and the aeroplane corps at work.

On the first day of hostilities the picture men were hurrying on the advance of the Red army when they were fired upon from ambush and captured by an outpost of the Blue army. Mr. Newburgh wore the uniform of a major and Mr. Gregory that of a private, and as they wore the red badge, the Blue soldiers thought they had made an important capture. They believed Mr. Newburgh to be a major of the Red army, and that Mr. Gregory was his orderly. Soldiers could not account for his big camera except that the two were spies seeking to make photographs of the Blue army's position. Major Newburgh and Private Gregory kept the camera going all the time and secured some good pictures of their own capture before they showed their passes, which allowed them to pass on to the main body of the Blue.

They had taken their camera apart and were resting sometime afterward near the Blue outpost when suddenly a troop of Red cavalry appeared on a scouting excursion, opened fire on the Blues and retreated back to their main party. The picture men started to get their camera together in a hurry, and as the scouts retreated one horse fell, taking its rider to the ground. Words cannot express the thoughts of Private Gregory when he realized that he had missed a rare picture.

Private Gregory and Major Newburgh went to the general stores and bought beans, potted ham, crackers, olives and ginger ale and ate two days' rations in one meal, while the chauffeur was putting a new shoe on the automobile. When they were ready to go on, and the chauffeur had packed up his tools, Major Newburgh wiped the perspiration from his own brow, remarking, "Gee, that was hard work;" and the motion picture detail started off with Red headquarters to get the information for next day.

At headquarters Major Newburgh went up with Lieutenant Milling in one of the army aeroplanes, leaving Private Gregory on earth making pictures of their flight. The work of the succeeding battle was about the same until the day of the great battle of Walnut Tree Hill. There was a four o'clock call that morning; the picture men started from their hotel at Bridgeport at 5:00. They joined the Second Battery at breakfast and were invited by Sergeant Love to join them. They had one whole boiled spud each, with a piece of "willie" bacon about the size of an aeroplane at 3,000 yards, and black coffee. But the coffee put fighting blood in them. Major Newburgh relished the fare because he had had experience in the army. When breakfast was over Private Gregory asked for a napkin, and was told that that napkin had been used for padding for the pack mules. When they were ready to take their cameras to the front they hit the rear of the column and were delayed several hours in the broiling sun and without a drop of water.

Artillery firing was heard and they left their automobile to climb a high hill where they expected to find the battery. But they found that they were on the wrong hill and the battery was on another five miles away. About that time an aeroplane came along, and while they were training their camera on it the thing whizzed by them, and making a landing so close that both had to duck, it missed the camera by an inch. After carrying the 250-pound equipment half a mile up a steep hill, they had to lug it down again. The road was so narrow that the troops, marching in columns of fours, could not pass it, and the chauffeur was ordered to move on with the troops. Two hundred and fifty pounds had to be carried on their backs five miles away to the battlefield. All this time the battle was raging and their camera was idle, and there was not a drink of water to be had.

But if had not been for Captain Hennessey, with a big automobile truck, who came along and picked them up, Private Gregory believes they would never have reached the scene of the action. They were taken into the thickest of the battle and obtained a better position than if they had gone in their own car. The two picture men roamed at will through the firing lines and among batteries of artillery in action. They were in the midst of a Blue battery which was so intent upon the distant enemy that neither the captain nor the men saw the two companies of Red infantry come out of the woods on their flank and charge them. They were surrounded and fire was up and upon them before they realized the presence of the enemy. The umpires came and ruled the battery off the field.

When the battle closed at noon with a recall blown by the trumpets, Private Gregory and Major Newburgh began to think of home and mother and her delicious pancakes and omelettes, and rare steaks and homemade pies. But they were in Newtown, 15 miles from their hotel, and their automobile was among the missing. They sat down under a tree, hoping their chauffeur would come their way looking for them. After waiting two hours, some soldiers came along and shared their field rations with them. Then Private Gregory smiled a little. They walked to the nearest railroad station, where they found two young women who had come to see the maneuvers with them and had not been able to find them. But the ladies had had the time of their lives with an army officer who took them about in his automobile.

They all returned to Bridgeport, and at 7 o'clock that night their automobile arrived at the hotel, covered with dust, and the chauffeur ready to tell how he had been captured and held prisoner by the Blues during the battle. Private Gregory says he saw many amusing sights and some sad ones. Among the latter, he says, he saw at least two dozen soldiers carried off the field, victims of heat stroke and sun stroke. He saw a soldier throw his canteen of water to another. The canteen slipped and cut a deep gash in the second soldier's forehead. Several motion picture machines were bowled over by cavalry when the operator did not get them out of the way quickly enough, and one picture man fell down a hill, breaking a leg and smashing his expensive camera. Note

The Capture of New York garnered reviews from "very acceptable," by The Moving Picture World, to "exceptionally entertaining," by The New York Dramatic Mirror.