Veterans Day at Woodland Cemetery: Honoring Sergeant Archie DePriest Stern

November 6, 2023

By Dr. Mandi Barnard, Research Historian for the African American Burial Ground, Andrew P. Calhoun Family Plot, and Woodland Cemetery Historic Preservation Project

This piece is re-posted from the November 2023 newsletter.

The war to end all wars ended in armistice at 11:00 AM on November 11, 1918. In the years since, Armistice Day, or Veterans Day, as it is known now in the United States, is a time to honor those who have served in the Armed Forces. On this year’s 104th Veterans Day, the cemetery project honors Sergeant Archie DePriest Stern. Sergeant Stern was a detached recruit with the 8th Infantry, USAR, who served his final years at Clemson College. He worked under Captain R. W. Johnson as an instructor of Military Tactics for the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Stern was a veteran of the Philippines Campaign and served in the US Army of Occupation, in France and Germany from 1919-1923.

Archie Stern was born on March 8, 1881, near Glenville, WV. His father, Jacob Stern, immigrated from Germany to the United States in 1857, settling in the area of what is today West Virginia. Stern later served in the US Army during the Civil War. Jacob Stern married a local woman, Julia DePriest, and Sergeant Stern was the eighth of their 11 children. Stern’s father and brothers worked as saddlers, making saddles and tack for horses. In 1904, at 23, Stern enlisted in the US Army Coastal Artillery Corps (CAC). The CAC was tasked with harbor defense of the US mainland and US territories acquired in the Spanish American War of 1898. Each coastal port was fitted with innovative fixed munitions. By World War I (WWI), CAC installations were essential in preventing U-Boat attacks on the coast.

Sergeant Stern served stateside at Fort Mott, NJ, and at Fort Casey and Fort Lawton in Washington State. He also served for a time in Panama at the Canal Zone. From 1915-1918, he was stationed in Manilla, The Philippines, defending that port during WWI. Though his enlistment record is incomplete, Stern reenlisted in 1919, at Camp Meade, MD, as a private with the 35th Co. Field Artillery, 9th Replacement Unit, US Army Expeditionary Force. While it is not known what role Stern played in France and Germany with the US Army of Occupation, it can be inferred that his years of experience with coastal defense and knowledge of munitions would be vital to the task of maintaining the peace in Europe following adoption of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

While in Europe, Sergeant Stern met his wife, Anna P. Schwartz. They returned to the United States separately, in 1923, relocating to Fort Screven, GA, where he was then stationed. Anna Stern was from Glogau, Silesia, Prussia which is now in Poland. In 1925, Stern and his wife came to Clemson, where he worked as a military tactics instructor for the ROTC program. They were both well-liked and respected among the campus community as evidenced by articles about them in The Tiger. Sadly, Anna Stern became sick with leukemia and died on May 17, 1927. She became the first person buried in Woodland Cemetery, which was established by the Board of Trustees in July 1924.

Obituary for Archie Stern in the March 20, 1929 issue of The Tiger newspaper.

In August 1928, Sergeant Stern reenlisted for his final two years of Army service before retirement. At 47 years old, and recently recovered from an operation, he had just returned to Clemson in autumn of that year. On the evening of November 5, Stern was seen in his military uniform walking to Woodland to visit Anna’s grave. It was after 10 pm. The following morning, he did not report for duty. Three weeks later, the Board of Trustees went public with Stern’s disappearance and appealed for help locating him. He had left his car, belongings, and bank account untouched. Months passed. In March of 1929, a man in Elberton, GA, pulled a body from the Savannah River following a flood from a dam. Documents on the body and the uniform gave the identity of the deceased as Sergeant Archie Stern.

The Clemson community was in shock. The verdict of the coroner’s inquest was death by homicide. However, the Board of Trustees believed Stern took his own life in sorrow over the loss of his wife Anna. Stern’s siblings believed he had been killed. To this day, no one knows what happened to Sergeant Stern. His body was taken back to Clemson by Captain Johnson and buried beside Anna at Woodland Cemetery. Sergeant Stern was the fourth Clemson burial at Woodland. He was the first active-duty US military personnel to die and be buried here, and he was the first veteran of the US Armed Forces honored at the campus cemetery.

Citations

1. Press Clippings, Series 37, Military Science Department Information File, Clemson Special Collections Library, Clemson University Libraries.
2. US Armed Forces Enlistment Records, Ship Manifests, Immigration and Naturalization Files, and Press Clippings from US National Archives on Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com.