Author: Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist
Thomas Cheatham Alston was born on April 22, 1894, in the city of Louisburg in Franklin County, North Carolina, to Archibald W. and Jennie R. Cheathem Alston. Thomas’ father was a grocery merchant in Franklin County by 1900. After working as a clerk for a time, Thomas Alston enlisted on April 9, 1915, in the North Carolina National Guard in 
Louisburg, North Carolina, for a three-year period. Prior to World War I, Alston served two and a half years in Company D, 3rd North Carolina Infantry, which was headquartered in Louisburg.
When the North Carolina National Guard was called to the Mexican border on June 19, 1916, as part of the Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa, Thomas Alston went with Company D to Camp Glenn, North Carolina, on July 1, 1916. Camp Glenn was the North Carolina National Guard’s annual encampment site and training site, where the state’s guard units came together and began to train for federal service.
Thomas Alston and his unit left Camp Glenn on September 27, 1916, for the U.S. Army station at Camp Stewart in El Paso, Texas, arriving there on October 2, 1916. Company D, 3rd North Carolina Infantry, was stationed at Camp Stewart through February 1, 1917, performing border patrol duty as the regular U.S. Army units crossed over the Mexican border in pursuit of Pancho Villa and his men.
On February 1, 1917, Company D moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico. On February 7, 1917, Alston’s unit moved to Anapra, New Mexico, and returned to Camp Stewart in El Paso on February 15, 1917. Alston and Company D left Texas on March 15, 1917, arriving at Camp Bickett in Raleigh, North Carolina. Company D, 3rd North Carolina Infantry, was mustered out of federal military service on March 27, 1917. Alston reached the rank of Sergeant during his time along the Mexican border.
After the United States entered World War I, Thomas Alston was called back into service on July 25, 1917. He was drafted into federal military service in the second increment of the first federal draft on August 5, 1917, when the North Carolina National Guard was called into service. He would serve during the war in Company D, 120th Infantry, 30th Division, U.S. Army, which was the federalized unit created from Company D, 3rd North Carolina Infantry.
The Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina is excited to announce that 212 photographs documenting the experiences of Company D, 3rd North Carolina Infantry, North Carolina National Guard, in the Punitive Expedition have been now been posted to the State Archives’ Flickr site. The photographs show Company D while it served on the Mexican border with his unit between October 1916 and March 1917. The photographs come from Thomas C. Alston, who either took or had printed from fellow soldiers’ negatives all of these 212 photographs, which were taken along the U.S.-Mexico border (mainly around El Paso, Texas). This is currently the largest collection of Mexican Punitive Expedition photographs for any North Carolina National Guard unit held by the State Archives of North Carolina.
The collection features 27 original photographs taken by Arthur L. Fletcher, a news correspondent for the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer newspaper. Fletcher was attached with the North Carolina National Guard while he served with the unit, and between October 1916 and March 1917 authored numerous field reports for the News and Observer about the North Carolina National Guard and the U.S. Army’s actions during the Punitive Expedition. Alston knew Fletcher, and Fletcher loaned Alston his negatives for Alston to make prints from. It is unknown if any of these images were ever printed in the News and Observer. These images may have been Fletcher’s personal photographs from his time on the U.S.-Mexican border. Arthur Fletcher went on to serve in World War I in the 113th Field Artillery Regiment, 30th Division, U.S. Army.
These photographs are from the Thomas C. Alston Papers (WWI 66), which are housed in the WWI Papers at the State Archives of North Carolina.
This blog post is part of the State Archives of North Carolina’s World War I Social Media Project, an effort to bring original WWI archival materials to the public through social media platforms in order to increase access to the items during the WWI centennial celebration by the state of North Carolina. Between February 2017 and June 2019, the State Archives of North Carolina will be posting blog articles, Facebook posts, and Twitter posts, featuring WWI archival materials which are posted on the exact 100th anniversary of their creation during the war. Blog posts will feature interpretations of the content of WWI documents, photographs, diary entries, posters, and other records, including scans of the original archival materials, held by the State Archives of North Carolina. You can follow along with these blog posts through the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ WWI centennial blog.