Camp Hill (1)

Camp Hill (1) (1917-1919) - A U.S. Army World War I embarkation Camp first established in 1917 in Newport News, Newport News City, Virginia. Named Camp Hill after General Ambrose P. Hill (Cullum 1345), Confederate U.S. Civil War General who was killed at Petersburg 2 Apr 1865. The camp was abandoned in 1919. Camp HillMarker. World War I One of five U.S. Army Embarkation Camps established in 1917 to house and train troops awaiting shipment overseas. Camp Hill was established in August 1917 on a site alongside the James River docks at the Newport News Port of Embarkation. In 1918 the northern part of the camp became Camp Alexander (1) and was dedicated to processing some 50,000 black stevedores and workers on ships to ports in Europe. Embarkation Process The embarkation process usually began at one of the 32 divisional training camps (16 for the National Army (draftees) and 16 for the National Guard) with troops riding to the embarkation camps by train and spending a variable amount of time at the embarkation camp. From the Camp Merritt embarkation camp troops usually marched to the nearby Alpine ferry slip on the Hudson River and traveled by ferry directly to the Hoboken Port of Embarkation docks and onto troop ships. At the Newport News Port of Embarkation all four of the embarkation camps were close enough to the port for the troops to march directly to the ships. Infantry Divisions were too large to move intact on single ships so it could take a division a month or two to reassemble on the European side. The typical U.S. infantry division contained about 1,000 officers and 27,000 enlisted men. The largest available troop ship, the Leviathan, could deliver 12,000 men a month. Troops were sent directly to France or via England. Some 2,084,000 U.S. troops reached France and 1,390,000 saw active service on the front lines. When the armistice took effect on 11 Nov 1918 many of the embarkation camps became disembarkation camps. The returning National Army and the National Guard troops were, for the most part, sent back to one of the training camps for demobilization. The process of returning the troops home from overseas took place at even a faster pace than sending them over. Most troops were returned to the states and demobilized by mid 1919. The training camps and the embarkment camps closed as they completed the demobilizing process for their returning division(s). Many of the training camps had established large hospital complexes to treat wounded returning soldiers and these remained open even after the camps had closed. The realization that many of the wounded would require lifetime care gave rise to the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital system. At the end of the war, Camp Hill became a debarkation center until it was abandoned on 7 Oct 1919. Current Status Markers (2) at Newport News, Newport News City, Virginia. {"selectable":false,"height":"-500","width":"-500"} Location: Newport News, Newport News City, Virginia. Map points show the center of the camp (C) and marker locations (M). Maps & Images Lat: 37.008914 Long: -76.437788 Multi Maps from ACME Maps from Bing Maps from Google Elevation: .....' Sources: Roberts, Robert B., Encyclopedia of Historic Forts: The Military, Pioneer, and Trading Posts of the United States, Macmillan, New York, 1988, 10th printing, ISBN 0-02-926880-X, page 810 Links: North American Forts - Camp Hill Marker History - Camp Hill and Camp Alexander Waymarking - Camp Alexander Visited: 1 Apr 2018