This book forms but a single chapter—the latest one—in the eventful and ever-honorable history of the First Massachusetts Regiment. It has been written in the hope that it may aid in maintaining the splendid esprit de corps which always has been characteristic of the command.

Nor does this corps-pride lack warrant. Since 1844, under one designation or another, the First Massachusetts, as a regimental organization, has been continuously in the service either of the Commonwealth or of the Nation; through long years of peace it faithfully has held itself in trained and disciplined readiness against the hour of need; in two wars it unhesitatingly has responded to the call of the Government, returning from each with an untarnished record of duty well done. Furthermore—in part, at least, if not as a whole—it has been identified for over a century with the making of American history; for, like the sturdy oak, the regiment may trace its growth from still vigorous roots which reach far back into the historic past. "D" Battery (Roxbury Train of Artillery) was chartered in 1784, bearing upon its original muster-rolls the names of many veterans of the Revolution, and first seeing active service in the Shay Rebellion of 1787; "G" Battery (Boston Fusileers) dates its organization from 1786 and its record of active service from the War of 1812; "K" Battery (Boston Light Infantry) was first enrolled at the time of our brief naval war with France in 1798, and served with the coast-guard in 1812.

The story of the heroic work of the regiment in the Civil War already fills a volume by itself: Blackburn's Ford, First Bull Run, Yorktown, Williamsburg, White Oak Swamp, Fair Oaks, Savage's Station, Glendale, Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run, Chantilly, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Locust Grove, Spottsylvania—tremendous names like these may hint at the regimental record which was written in blood from 1861 to 1864. With an honor-roll of one hundred and seventy-three dead, and with a grim list of six hundred and forty-three discharges for wounds and disease, the First Massachusetts honestly bought and dearly paid for its treasured place among the "Three Hundred Fighting Regiments" of the Union Army.

This latest chapter in the regimental history deals neither with battles nor with foreign service—and yet it ill could be spared from the records of the Old First. Nothing possibly could have been finer than the spirit in which the young men of the regiment sprang to their places under its colors at the call of 25th April, 1898, believing, as they most sincerely did, that the very first of the fighting was to be theirs; nothing could have been more honorable than the unvarying discipline maintained during the dull months of garrison duty, when, day by day, their hope for action waned.

Half forgotten by the very citizens for whose protection the regiment was assigned to its stations; wholly ignored by the press, which ever has failed to comprehend the exacting requirements of efficient coast-defence,—the men of the First Massachusetts, like their comrades of the regular artillery, quietly stood to their guns during the time of possible peril, and as quietly returned to the routine of peace when that peril had passed. Time alone can fix the relative value of many things, and while that final adjustment is taking place the regiment may rest content with its own consciousness of having carried out well and faithfully whatever orders came to it.