Clarence Ransom Edwards was born on January 1, 1860 in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. He was an elder son in a family of four children of William and Lucia (Ransom) Edwards. He was a nephew of Oliver Edwards. The father, a wholesale groceryman, was a descendant of Alexander Edwards, early Welsh emigrant who settled in Springfield, Massachussets.
After attending Brooks Military Academy, Clarence entered West Point, September 1, 1879, and four years later was graduated last in a class of fifty-two, with an excellent record in athletics.
Bessie Rochester Porter
Promoted second lieutenant, 23rd Infantry, June 13, 1883, he was on frontier duty at Fort Union, New Mexico, 1883-84. Garrison duty at Fort Porter, New York, 1884-90, was interrupted by two years of service as commander of the guard at the grave of President Garfield, in Cleveland. From 1890 to 1893 he was professor of military science and tactics at St. John's College (later Fordham University), Fordham, New York, and from the latter date until 1895 he was in the Military Information Division of the Adjutant-General's Office, War Department, Washington, D. C. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, his rank, dating from 1891, was that of first lieutenant.
Promoted major and assistant adjutant-general, United States Volunteers, May 12, 1898, he served until the following year as adjutant-general of the IV Army Corps. Early in 1899 he accompanied Gen. Henry Ware Lawton to the Philippines and participated in various engagements of the general's campaign. On the death of General Lawton he was detailed to accompany the remains to the United States. His regular rank, dating from 1898, was that of captain; his volunteer rank, lieutenant-colonel, 1899-1901.
On Feburary 12, 1900, Edwards was assigned to duty under the secretary of war as chief of the Customs and Insular Division-the beginning of a period of administrative service lasting more than twelve years.
In 1902 his division became the Bureau of Insular Affairs and he was given the rank of colonel, which he held until 1906, when he was promoted brigadier-general. He had charge of the civil government of the island possessions, as distinguished from the military government.
Three times he visited the Philippines: with Secretary of War William Howard Taft and the "Congressional Junket" in 1905; again with Taft in 1907; and with the Secretary of War Jacob McGavock Dickinson in 1910. He was with Secretary of War Henry Lewis Stimson on visits to the West Indies in 1911 and 1912. In a pamphlet of Stimson's, What Is the Matter with Our Army? (1912), Edwards contributed an article, "It Lacks Organization. "
On May 12, 1912, he was made a brigadier-general in the regular army. Since his highest previous rank in that army was captain, many officers with more years of strictly military service to their credit resented the appointment. As a line brigadier-general he commanded the 6th Brigade, in Texas and Wyoming, 1913-14; the 16t Brigade, in Hawaii, 1914; and the United States Forces in the Canal Zone, 1915-17. In the First World War his first duties were at Camp Devens, Massachussets, where he commanded the Northeastern Department and organized the 26th, or Yankee, Division of the National Army, composed of New England national guardsmen. On August 5, 1917, he was made a major-general in that army, and in September took his division to France, where he had ten months of service at the front and participated in actions at Chemin des Dames, Bois Brule, Seicheprey, Château Thierry, St. Mihiel, and Argonne Forest.
On October 11, 1918, General Pershing ordered three major-generals and three brigadier-generals to return home and apply the experience gained in France to training new divisions.
The inclusion in the list of Edwards was resented by the men of the 26th Division, who were devoted to him. New England regarded him as a martyr; his enemies hinted that he was a "political" general. When all the facts relating to this unfortunate episode are made public, they may prove to be not unconnected with professional rivalries.
From December 1918 to June 1920, Edwards again commanded the Northeastern Department. Reverting to the rank of brigadier-general, he commanded the 2nd Infantry Brigade, 16t Division, 1920-21; and, after promotion to major-general, the I Corps Area at Boston, until his retirement, December 1, 1922. For his World War services he was decorated by France, Belgium, and Poland, but not by the United States.
On the day of his retirement he was appointed major-general of the Massachusetts National Guard. His home was at "Doneroving, " Westwood, Massachussets. He was a delegate from his adopted state to the Republican National Convention, 1928. Edwards died at Boston, after several operations for intestinal obstruction.
He was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery beside the graves of his wife and daughter.
Handsome and charming, a prince of good fellows, Edwards was well liked both in and out of the army.
On June 11, 1899, he was married to Bessie Rochester Porter, at Niagara Falls. Their only child, Bessie Porter Edwards, an army nurse, died in the First World War.
