Excerpt from History of the 118th Infantry: American Expeditionary Force, France

About the middle of July the Regiment was assembled at Camp Sevier, near Greenville, S. C., as the pioneer regi ment of the 3oth Division. The camp at that time consisted mostly of woods, cultivated fields and mud. By the first of November great improvements had been made in the camp, this Regiment having contributed more than its share of work in the cleaning up process. Infantry might have been the official designation of the Regiment, but the men insisted that it should be called the South Carolina Land Development Company, so expert had they become with the use of the pick and shovel.

Under the new plan of organization, the personnel of an infantry regiment had been greatly increased, the new plan calling for a war strength of more than men and officers. As this Regiment had a strength of about when it reached Camp Sevier, it was necessary to add twice its strength to fill it up to the required standard. The dis solution of the 55th Depot Brigade in October added sev eral hundred men who had belonged to National Guard units from South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. A draft of men from Camp Jackson, S. 'c., during the same month, brought the strength to around two hundred men per company but even this was not enough, so during the winter another contingent from Camp Dodge, Iowa, was added, bringing the Regiment to full war strength. The Camp Dodge men were mostly from Iowa, Blinnesota and the Dakotas, but soon had warmed themselves into the hearts of the Southerners, establishing a friendship between the different sections of the Union that will always be remembered by those concerned.

Having started training when the Regiment first reached Camp Sevier, the drills, hikes, trench work and other forms of amusement continued through many weary long mon-ths. Day after day the men struggled through eight hours of work, slowly but steadily progressing toward a standard that would mark them trained soldiers. Specialist schools were established, in which men and officers were taught the use of machine guns, automatic rifles, grenades, the bayonet and all the other modern weapons used by infantry in France. These schools were supervised by French and British officers who selected the men showing special qualifi cations as their assistants, these assistants, in turn, acting as instructors throughout the Regiment, thus enabling practically every man to become familiar with the use of one or more of these weapons.

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