Baltimore's Own: Courage, controversy and the crucial role of the 313th Regiment to end World War I

THEY CAME FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE. Bookkeepers. Tailors. Farmers. Bankers. Draftees into the U.S. Army's newly created American Expeditionary Force from all parts of Maryland - and even some from around the country. But mostly, they came from the Baltimore area, so they were quickly dubbed "Baltimore's Own" by their commanding officer. Long lost to history - until now - is the story of this courageous army regiment that played a controversial and crucial role in bringing the Great War to an end. It was "over there" that the 313th Regiment and the 79th Division - the greenest troops in the entire AEF - would go over the top with the toughest task in the greatest ground offensive in U.S. history. This is their story, as told through the wartime letters, memoirs, diaries, and newspaper accounts by the soldiers themselves. From their arrival that first day at training camp on a blistering hot late September day in 1917, until exactly one year later when they jumped off into no-man's land for the first time, these peace-loving civilians were turned into a formable fighting force of doughboys and got their baptism of fire on the frontlines of France. Forty-seven days later it would be all over, "over there." But not before the 313th had been in the midst of it all in the Great Meuse-Argonne Offensive.