Copyright, 1919 by Frederic R. Kilner As we shall the more devote ourselves, in peace and in war, to the cause of our Country’s honor because they gave up their lives for its sake, so do we dedicate this record to them, the memory and the loss of whom its pages recall:  ...

Since a battery comprises nearly two hundred men, and includes activities of diverse kinds at different places, it is obviously impossible for a brief narrative such as this, compiled by a single person, to furnish complete details on all of them. To suggest the life of the men in their various sorts of work, to trace as accurately as possible the accomplishments of the battery on the front in France, and to recount the outstanding incidents and events of its history, is as much as can be claime

Battery E of the First Field Artillery of the Illinois National Guard was organized at Chicago, October 23, 1915, Captain Henry J. Reilly in command. On June 27, 1916, it was mustered into federal service for duty on the Mexican border, and mustered out October 28, 1916, after training at Leon Springs, Arkansas, and taking part in the famous “Austin Hike.” The battery met for drill at the Dexter Pavilion, Union Stock Yards, Chicago, on Monday nights. After the United States declared war, April 6

The mounting flames of a bonfire cast a flickering red light down the battery street. Burning the whole night through, to consume boxes, refuse and abandoned material of various kinds, these ruddy illuminations in the quarters of the 149th Field Artillery, at Camp Mills, Long Island, were omens of unusual, and unpublished, happenings. The men of the regiment felt the nearness of these events, though they had been given no warning of them, and slept, fully clothed, with their packs still rolled a

The trip up the long hill on which lay Camp Coetquidan was made in trucks. The distance was not more than two miles, but the steady upward climb fatigued the boys many evenings, when they returned from a supper at the Hotel de France, or at Mme. Legrey’s chocolate shop, or at one of the places that sprang up to supply the demand of the soldiers for food. The camp was situated on the top of the highest hill in a region of gentle slopes of varying heights. From it was a wonderful view of the red a

Unloading at Gerberviller was far different from the easy job of loading at Guer. The night was black. On account of the proximity of the front, no lights could be used. Not a match’s flare, not a cigarette’s glow, was allowed, lest it serve as a target for some bombing aeroplane. There was no loading platform, and the carriages and wagons which had been rolled across ramps directly onto the flat cars had to be coaxed and guided down planks steeply inclined from the car’s side to the ground. Han

The 149th had no fireworks on July 4, 1918. Even the games arranged for the afternoon to celebrate the holiday were neglected. There was good reason: one of the biggest batches of mail our battery had ever received. A letter from home was worth many skyrockets or three-legged races to us. But that evening we saw a bigger variety of pyrotechnic displays than we had ever witnessed before, even at “Paine’s Burning of Rome” or some other such spectacle. After supper we were given the order to pack,

At our encampment near Montreuil-aux-Bois, whither we hiked from La Ferté-sous-Jouarre on the morning of July 23, we found traces of the horse-lines of the artillery of the 26th Division, in the shape of trampled picket lines, bunks of woven branches, and abandoned equipment of all kinds. Stories of heavy losses, of nights and days without sleep or rest, as the New England batteries tried to catch up with their infantry in the wake of the rapidly retreating Germans, of extraordinary advances by

Our train journey took us south to the divisional area, about Langres. The regiment detrained at Bourmont, and from there the batteries hiked to different towns, E to Bourg Saint Marie. This is as close as the battery ever came to spending leisure at a “rest camp,” of which we heard rumors at the front, and it promised to be quite the opposite of a rest, from the schedule laid out. No more than promised, however, for the ten days spent there sufficed for only a day or two of the schedule, after

At nightfall October 7, the battery took the road over the hill toward Cierges in the rain and darkness. The position lay on a hillside not far from gun pits where a wrecked gun carriage and other debris showed how thoroughly a preceding battery had been shelled out. From these gun pits the cannoneers carried abandoned ammunition all next day, while the pieces in turn kept up a bombardment of fifty rounds an hour. At mess, October 8, in the thicket near the windmill, the men first saw the newspa

On November 15, Battery E began the long hike into Germany, a total of 350 kilometres, the dismounted men covering it all on foot. During the first few days they carried full packs, but later these were put on the carriages, as before the order at Sommerance. The first day’s journey was only seven kilometres, through Buzancy, to Imecourt. There the battery received forty men from the 80th Division, as replacements, to bring the organization up to full strength. They brought with them 116 horses,

Transcriber’s Notes: Other than the corrections noted by hover information, spelling has been retained from the original. Punctuation has been corrected without note. The original text does not contain a Table of Contents. The Table of Contents included near the beginnning of this file was created by the transcriber as an aid for the reader....