The 16th Infantry Regiment ("Semper Paratus") is a regiment in the United States Army and has traditionally been a part of the 1st Infantry Division.
History
Formation and earlier units designated "16th Infantry"
Five U.S. Army units have held the designation "16th Infantry Regiment." The first was constituted on 16 July 1798 and discharged 15 June 1800. The second was constituted on 11 January 1812, consolidated from May to October 1815 with the 6th, 22nd, 23rd, and 32nd Infantry Regiments to form the 2nd Infantry Regiment. The third 16th Infantry was constituted on 11 February 1847 for the Mexican-American War and disbanded on 10 August 1848. The fourth 16th Infantry Regiment was constituted on 3 May 1861 and consolidated on 18 April 1869 with the 2nd Infantry Regiment, the unit retaining the designation of 2nd Infantry.
The fifth and present 16th Infantry was originally constituted as the 1st Battalion, 11th U.S. Infantry by direction of the president on 4 May 1861, and confirmed by the act of 29 July 1861. Colonel Erasmus D. Keyes assumed command, and the regiment was organized by Major DeLancey Floyd-Jones. The regiment was organized into three battalions of eight companies each. On 6 April 1869, the regiment was consolidated with the 34th Infantry Regiment (originally organized as the 3rd Battalion of the fourth iteration of the 16th Infantry Regiment under the order of the president of May 1861), and redesignated the 16th Infantry Regiment.
United States Civil War The 1st Battalion, 11th U.S. Infantry (today's 16th Infantry Regiment) was initially organized at Fort Independence, Massachusetts, in the summer and fall of 1861. That October, the regiment was transferred to Perryville, Maryland, to prepare for Major General George B. McClellan's upcoming spring campaign on the Virginia Peninsula. Assigned to the Army of the Potomac's 2nd Division, V Army Corps in the spring of 1862, the regiment fully participated in most of the key battles of that campaign to include the Siege of Yorktown (1862), Gaines's Mill, and Malvern Hill. The regiment participated in the Second Battle of Bull Run in August. This clash was quickly followed in succession by the regiment's involvement at the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Shepherdstown and the actions Leetown that fall. In December 1862, the regiment fought at the Battle of Fredericksburg and at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. A month later, the 1st Battalion, 11th U.S. Infantry fought what was arguably its most significant action of the war at Gettysburg under the leadership of Major Floyd-Jones. In heavy fighting in the Rose Wood and Plum Run Valley between the Devil's Den and the Wheatfield, the regiment lost about 50 percent of its strength as it fought to contain James Longstreet's breakthrough of the Union Third Army Corps at the Peach Orchard. During the spring and summer of 1864, the regiment participated in General Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign and fought at the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Jericho Mills, Cold Harbor, and finally in the Siege of Petersburg. In November the regiment was sent to New York for a short period, then after short stints at Lafayette Barracks in Baltimore and Camp Parole (Parole Camp) at Annapolis in Maryland, it was returned to the Army of the Potomac to perform duties as part of the Army of the Potomac's Provost Guard in February 1865. By the spring of 1865, only a few of those soldiers sworn in at Fort Independence in 1861 were still present to participate in the regiment's last wartime task—to help disarm General Robert E. Lee's weary Confederates at Appomattox that April.
On 18 April 1869 Headquarters, Staff, Band and the remaining companies of the 16th Infantry Regiment were consolidated with the 2d Regiment of Infantry, and the consolidated unit designated as the 2nd Infantry Regiment. Colonel Samuel W. Crawford, 16th Infantry, took command of the consolidated 2d Infantry because of his seniority.
Reorganized 14 April 1869, under the act of 3 March 1869, the present 16th Infantry was formed by the consolidation of the Eleventh (11th) and Thirty-fourth (34th) Regiments of Infantry. The 34th Infantry was organized by direction of the president 4 May 1861 as the Third Battalion, 16th Infantry and designated Thirty-fourth Infantry on 21 September 1866 under the act of 28 July 1866.The honors and battle history earned by the 11th Infantry during the Civil War became the 16th Infantry's with the 1869 consolidation and are displaying on its colors.
Following the Civil War the 16th took part in the reconstruction of the south, including the occupation of the Confederate capital of Richmond, and then served on the frontier, in the Indian Wars.
Spanish–American War The 16th participated in the capture of San Juan Hill as part of the First Brigade, First Division of the V Corps, in the brigade commanded by Brigadier General Hamilton S. Hawkins. On 31 May 1899 the 16th sailed from San Francisco for Manila aboard USAT Grant to fight in the Philippine–American War. It fought 27 engagements with the greater part of its activities concentrated against the rebels in the Cagayan Valley, defending the Manila & Dagupan Railroad in a series of counterinsurgency actions. The regiment was relieved in March 1902 and returned to Fort McPherson, Georgia. It returned to Fort McKinley in the Philippines to serves as part of the Philippine Division under the command of Brigadier General John J. Pershing. It returned to the United States in 1907, where the First Battalion was assigned to Fort Logan H. Roots in North Little Rock, Arkansas and the remainder of the regiment assigned to Fort Crook.
Pancho Villa Expedition
From July 1910 through July 1912, the 16th Infantry was assigned to a variety of posts in Alaska, then returned for duty at the Presidio of San Francisco aboard USAT Sheridan. Two years later, the regiment was transferred with the 8th Brigade, commanded by "Black Jack" Pershing, to the Mexican Border to help secure it from Mexican bandits and paramilitary forces commanded by Francisco "Pancho" Villa. On arrival in April 1914, the regiment was posted to Camp Cotton in the city of El Paso. For the next two years, in addition to the normal garrison duties, the troops conducted foot patrols along the dusty Mexican border. In March 1916, Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, which, in turn, caused President Woodrow Wilson to order Pershing to take an expedition into Mexico to find Villa.
Assembling a largely cavalry force, Pershing selected two infantry regiments to accompany the Pancho Villa expedition, the 16th and 6th Infantry Regiments. The long march into the interior of Mexico was hot and dusty. After several weeks of movement between Colonia Dublán and El Valle, the 16th Infantry finally settled in the latter place in June. There the soldiers built mud brick huts for quarters and returned to a garrison routine, except for occasional patrols into the nearby mountains and valleys to hunt for rumored Villistas. Though the cavalry had several clashes with Villista and federal forces, the infantry had an uneventful eight months. In February 1917, Wilson recalled Pershing's expedition from Mexico.
World War I
As part of the new 1st Expeditionary Division, soon to become known as the "Big Red One," the 16th Infantry, commanded by William Herbert Allaire Jr., sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, and landed at St. Nazaire, France, near the end of June 1917. As such, it was among the first four American regiments to arrive on French soil in World War I. Soon after the regiment's arrival, the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry was selected to show the flag and parade through Paris on 4 July 1917. The battalion conducted a five-mile march through the streets of the city to Picpus Cemetery where General John J. Pershing and the other Americans in attendance paid homage at the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, and declare, "Lafayette, we are here!" Prior to being committed to battle, the 16th Infantry Regiment, began training in July 1917 in the Gondrecourt area with the French 47th Division, Chasseurs Alpins, nicknamed the "Blue Devils." Throughout the summer and fall the training went apace and soon it was time for exposure to actual combat. On 3 November 1917, while occupying a section of trenches near Bathelémont, the 16th Infantry became the first U.S. regiment to fight and suffer casualties in the trenches during World War I when it repelled a German night raid. In the months that followed, the 16th Infantry would sustain even more casualties in defensive battles at Ansauville, Cantigny, and Coullemelle. The regiment's first major attack was made during the bloody three-day drive near Soissons in late July 1918. Along with the rest of the Big Red One, it relentlessly attacked until a key German rail line was severed forcing a major withdrawal of the enemy's forces. The regiment also participated in the First U.S. Army's huge offensive to reduce the St. Mihiel salient in September. Arguably the regiment's most gallant action was the grueling drive that liberated the little village of Fléville in the Argonne Forest region on 4 October 1918. This feat was significant in that the 16th Infantry was the only regiment in the entire First Army to seize its main objective on the first day of the Meuse-Argonne Campaign. To this day that action is celebrated annually during the 16th Infantry Regiment's Organization Day. The 16th Infantry also participated in the 1st Division's final drive of the war when the division attacked to seize the city of Sedan. The verve and vigor of that drive demonstrated the regiment lived up to the division's new motto, "No mission too difficult, no sacrifice too great—Duty First!" During the Great War, the 16th Infantry suffered its greatest number of wartime casualties to date, all in a single year of combat. It sustained 1,037 soldiers killed in action or mortally wounded, and 3,389 wounded. In addition to the 7 campaign streamers earned by the regiment and the 2 Croix de Guerre granted by the French government, its soldiers were awarded at least 97 Distinguished Service Crosses. The 16th Infantry, along with the rest of the 1st Division, marched into the Coblenz Bridgehead in late 1918 to perform occupation duty there for the next 9 months. In August 1919, the division received orders to come home and boarded ships at Brest, France, later that month.
Interwar period
The 16th Infantry arrived at the port of New York on 3 September 1919 on the troopships Amphion, Freedom, Suwanee, and Marica, and was transferred to Camp Merritt, New Jersey, where emergency period personnel were discharged from the service. The regiment participated in the 1st Division Victory Parades in New York City and Washington, D.C., on 10 and 17 September 1919, respectively. It was transferred 4 October 1919 to Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky. After the passage of the National Defense Act of 1920 reorganized the Army, the 1st Division was allotted to the Second Corps Area and transferred on 16 September 1920 in a permanent change of station to Camp Dix, New Jersey. The 16th Infantry was transferred on 10 June 1922, less the 3rd Battalion, to Fort Jay, on Governor's Island in New York Harbor; the 3rd Battalion transferred in September 1922 to Fort Wadsworth, on Staten Island. The regiment was organized with elements of the 18th Infantry into the “Composite Regiment” and went to Washington, D.C., to act as an honor guard for the unveiling of the 1st Division War Memorial on 4 October 1924. The 3rd Battalion was transferred on 18 March 1933 to Fort Jay. Due to the regiment's popularity in New York City, mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia later nicknamed the unit "New York's Own" and ''The Sidewalks of New York" became the regimental song.