Amy & Navy Journal Aug

3.1920

PREFACE

UNDER appointment by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, the "Biographer of the Harvard Dead in the War against Germany" is preparing a series of memoirs of the men whose names are inscribed on the Harvard Roll of Honor. This list, now exceeding three hundred and sixty in number, is made up of all those, ever enrolled as students or officers of Harvard University, who, as members of the fighting and auxiliary forces of the United States and the Allied Powers in the European War, have given their lives in service, or in direct consequence of that service, provided their deaths occur before the signing of peace between the United States and the Central Powers.

The Harvard War Records Office and the collections of the Harvard Memorial Society have provided much material for these memoirs. Still more has been secured through direct correspondence with the families of the "Harvard Dead." Many parents and friends have been most liberal in the lending of letters, diaries, and other memorials. For all this kindness I would express here a warm appreciation.

There has deliberately been no attempt to "standardize" the memoirs with respect either to length or to character. It has seemed better simply to make in each instance what could be made, within reasonable bounds, of the material at hand. Every effort has been put forth to secure equal supplies of material from all sources, but without success. This will explain in some measure the varying lengths of the memoirs that follow.

In this first volume of "Memoirs of the Harvard Dead" only those thirty men are included whose deaths occurred before the United States entered the European War, April 6, 1917. They were "The Vanguard," the men who sealed with their blood the pledge of that overwhelming sentiment in favor of the Allies which in time was to make our country an active participant in the fight. They deserve a volume to themselves. Those who give their all before anything is asked must be held in separate remembrance and gratitude.

Throughout the work it is purposed to take up the subjects, as in this volume, in the chronological sequence of their deaths.

M. A. DEW. H.

BOSTON, March, 1920.