Dates: 1916-1974.
Corporal, Battery D, 129th Field Artillery Regiment, 1918-1919.
The papers of Clifton J. Sampson consist of correspondence and other materials concerning his military service during World War I and his friendship with his commanding officer, Harry S. Truman.
Size: Less than one linear foot (approximately 200 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor has given her copyright interest in these papers to the United States of America. Records created by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are in the public domain. The copyright interest in other documents in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents or their heirs.
Processed by: Randy Sowell (2024).
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Clifton J. "Sox" Sampson served as a corporal in Battery D of the 129th Field Artillery Regiment during World War I. The commanding officer of his battery was Captain Harry S. Truman, who later described Sampson as “one of my most efficient, brave, and capable corporals.” After the war, Sampson was active in Battery D reunions, and participated with other veterans of the battery in President Truman’s Inauguration in 1949. Sampson died in St. Louis, Missouri on January 18, 1974.
The papers of Clifton J. Sampson consist of correspondence and other materials concerning his military service during World War I and his friendship with his commanding officer, Harry S. Truman. The correspondence in the collection includes letters from Truman to Sampson dating from 1939 to 1968, as well as letters from Bess Truman, Margaret Truman, and John H. Thacher, who had preceded Truman as Sampson’s commanding officer.
In addition, the collection contains materials concerning the 1949 Inaugural, which Sampson attended with other Battery D veterans. These materials include a set of “marching orders” for the veterans who participated in the event, and a program for the Inaugural Gala. Also in the collection are items pertaining to other reunions of Battery D veterans, and records relating to Sampson’s service in the Missouri National Guard before World War I and his combat duty in France during the war.
About forty photographs of Harry S. Truman, Clifton J. Sampson, and other people have been transferred from this collection to the Truman Library’s audiovisual collection.
More information about Clifton J. Sampson can be found in the Harry S. Truman Papers (President’s Personal File 981 and Post-Presidential Papers).
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Container Nos. |
Series |
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1 |
SUBJECT FILE, 1916-1974 Correspondence and other materials. Arranged alphabetically by folder title and thereunder chronologically. |
Box 1
- Correspondence, 1919-1956
- Correspondence, 1957-1974
- Inaugural Materials and Other Items
- Military Records