James Woodruff

James Albert Woodruff (19 June 1877 – 20 August 1969) was a military engineer and United States Army major general. During World War I, he supervised the harvesting, milling and shipping of lumber for the allied forces in France. As colonel of the 20th Engineers and Attached Service Troops, he had direct command of over 20,000 officers and men in fourteen battalions harvesting French timber and operating 282 sawmills. He entered the United States Military Academy in June 1895 with an appointment from his father's home state of Vermont, eventually becoming Cadet First Captain. Woodruff graduated first in his class in February 1899 and was commissioned in the Army Corps of Engineers. He later graduated from the Army Engineer School in March 1901, the Army Staff College in July 1906 and the Army War College in May 1917. From August 1913 to September 1916, Woodruff served as an assistant to the Chief of Engineers in Washington, D.C.

In August 1917, Woodruff received a temporary promotion to colonel. From November 1917 to May 1918, ten additional battalions of forestry personnel were sent to France. In June 1918, Mitchell was reassigned to command the 2nd Engineers, 2nd Division and Woodruff assumed command of all forestry personnel, consisting of 49 engineer companies and 28 engineer service companies with fourteen battalion headquarters. This giant regiment, called the 20th Engineers and Attached Service Troops, was a merger of the 10th and 20th Engineers (Forestry), the 41st, 42nd and 43rd Engineers (Highway) and seven engineer service battalions.

The combined regiment built 81 new sawmills and cut over 272.5 million feet (83,06 million meters) of lumber, producing railroad ties, telephone poles, general construction material and firewood. Woodruff remained in command until July 1919 and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He retired from active duty on 30 June 1941, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 64.

Family and later life Woodruff was the son of Brig. Gen. Charles Albert Woodruff and his wife Louise Virginia (Duff) Woodruff. His younger brother Charles Armijo Woodruff was a 1906 United States Naval Academy graduate who briefly served as governor of American Samoa. One of his sisters, Genevieve, was married to General Malin Craig, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1935 to 1939. Their daughter Margarett Stafford Hubbell married Francis Joseph Johnson, a 1929 Naval Academy graduate who retired as a rear admiral. Their son James Albert Woodruff Jr. (5 August 1908 – 21 January 1997) was a 1930 Naval Academy graduate who retired as a commander. As of August 1969, Woodruff and his wife had five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Woodruff, his wife, his son and his daughter-in-law are buried together at San Francisco National Cemetery. he died in San Francisco, California in 1969.