William Sidney Graves was a United States Army Major General.
Background
Graves was born on March 27, 1865 in Mount Calm, Texas, the seventh son in a family of nine sons and one daughter of Andrew C. and Evelyn (Bennett) Graves. The Graves family, which was of English descent, had settled originally in North Carolina, moving later to Tennessee and then to Texas. Graves's father, a Baptist minister and rancher, had been a member of the constitutional convention of the Republic of Texas and a colonel in the Confederate Army; his grandfather, Ruben Graves, had participated in the battles of Tippecanoe and Thames River.
Education
Young Graves was educated in Texas public schools and, after a brief spell of teaching school, at West Point.
Career
Graduating in 1889, Graves was assigned to the 7th Infantry at Fort Logan, Colorado. He served with the 7th Infantry at various western posts until 1899. In that year he was sent with the 20th Infantry to the Philippines, where he participated in the campaigns of the Philippine Insurrection and was cited for gallantry in action at the Battle of Caloocan, December 31, 1901. After returning to the United States, he again performed garrison duty in the West until 1909, when he was ordered to Washington as a member of the General Staff. With two interruptions, he continued to serve with the General Staff through most of World War I, acting as its secretary or as assistant to the Chief of Staff. In June 1918 he was promoted to the rank of major general and given command of the 8th Infantry Division, then being organized and trained at Camp Fremont, California, for service in France. Graves had hardly entered upon his new duties, however, when he received secret orders on August 2 to proceed at once to Kansas City, Missouri, where he was to contact the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker. In the Kansas City railroad station the Secretary informed him that he was to proceed immediately to Siberia to command an American Expeditionary Force that was being sent there. Graves never completely understood the purpose of his Siberian mission, and the conditions he encountered there complicated his task. To the internal chaos which followed the Russian revolutions of March and November 1917 were added the maneuvers and counter-maneuvers of the British, the French, the Japanese, and the United States State Department, to say nothing of the presence of a Czech army of about 70, 000 which had deserted the Austrian forces on the Eastern Front and had hoped to join the Allies on the Western Front by way of Siberia, but had instead become entangled in a brawl (beginning in May 1918) with Bolshevik troops. In the envelope Graves received, written by President Wilson, instructions. The instructions were ambiguous, especially since they gave no indication as to what Russian people Graves was supposed to aid. The small American force, moreover - two infantry regiments with auxiliary elements but with no artillery - was in no position to aid the far more numerous Czechs. It seems clear that the underlying purpose of Graves's mission actually was to forestall Japan from monopolizing power in the Far East and from annexing part of Siberia. Despite great pressure from the British and French officials in Siberia, as well as from representatives of the American State Department, to get Graves to aid the fight against the Bolsheviks, he consistently interpreted his instructions as forbidding any such action. Secretary of War Baker supported him completely, and American troops never fought the Russians in Siberia. Graves has been severely criticized for his stand, especially by British and French observers; in fact, however, the American policy, as directed by Baker and executed by Graves, succeeded in its limited objective. The ineffective military action against the Bolsheviks by the British, French, and Japanese, on the other hand, succeeded only in uniting the Russian people more firmly behind the Soviet government. After the American troops were withdrawn from Siberia, in April 1920, Graves served briefly as the commanding officer of Fort William McKinley in the Philippines and then, from 1920 to 1928, as the commanding general successively of the 1st Infantry Brigade, the 1st Division, the Sixth Corps Area, the Panama Canal Division, and the Panama Canal Department. During this period he devoted most of his time to careful supervision of training and administration. Graves was retired at his own request in 1928. After retirement he lived in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, working in his garden and writing his book, America's Siberian Adventure (1931). He died at his home on February 27, 1940, of a coronary thrombosis and was buried in the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia.
Achievements
Graves is best remembered as commander of American forces in Siberia during the Siberian Expedition, part of the Allied Intervention in Russia.
Personality
Graves was known as an officer of great integrity, with inflexible high standards of personal conduct for all, himself included, but at the same time invariably kind and considerate. Never a martinet, he was admired and respected throughout the service.
Connections
Graves married Katherine Boyd on February 9, 1891. They had two children.
