Historians have been unkind to the 26th Division of the U.S. Army 
during World War I. Despite playing a significant role in all the major 
engagements of the American Expeditionary Force, the "Yankee 
Division," as it was commonly known, and its beloved commanding 
officer, Maj. Gen. Clarence Edwards, were often at odds with Gen. 
John J. Pershing. Subsequently, the Yankee Division became the 
A.E.F.'s "whipping boy," a reputation that has largely continued to 
the present day.

    In The Yankee Division in the First World War, author Michael E. 
Shay mines a voluminous body of first-person accounts to set 
forth an accurate record of the Yankee Division in France—a record 
that is, as he reports, "better than most." Shay sheds new light on 
the ongoing conflict in leadership and notes that two of the division's 
regiments received the coveted Croix de Guerre, the first ever awarded 
to an American unit.

    This first-rate study should find a welcome place on military history 
bookshelves, both for scholars and students of the Great War and for 
interested general readers.

_________________________________________________________

MICHAEL E. SHAY, a Superior Court judge in the State of 
Connecticut, has had a long interest in World War I. His previous 
book, A Grateful Heart, on the Yankee Division's 103rd Field Hospital, 
was published in 2001.


Number Ten: C. A. Brannen Series


What people are saying about this book

"There is no other book that deals with the 26th Division in World 
War One. . . . That division was one of the first to arrive in France, 
and, along with the 42nd, 1st, and 2nd Divisions, formed the core 
of the AEF under John J. Pershing. . . . For those interested in World 
War I, a book on the 26th and its controversial commander will be 
welcomed."—James Cooke, Professor Emeritus of History, University 
of Mississippi