[Homepage] [88th Bde Main] [88th Bde History] [Training Schedule] [Recruitment]

[7th CA] [1/8 Bn] [1/9 Bn] [1/15 Bn] [1/47 Bn] [1/51 Bn] [2/104 Bn] [1102FMSD]

1st Battalion 47th Regiment

Major

Pablo Sierra

Commander

HISTORY: The 47^th Regiment was created during the Civil War, in the City of Brooklyn.  During the war it saw two tours of Federal service as embodied militia.   

27 May - 6 June 1862,  manned the famous Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, during the Peninsula Campaign

26 June - 23 July 1863, helped occupy the defenses of Washington during the Gettysburg Campaign.

The regiment remained active in the National Guard after the Civil War, and was inducted into Federal service for the Spanish-American War on 3 May 1898, being assigned to the I Corps, at Chickamauga Battlefield Park.  On 15 October 1898 the 47th landed in Puerto Rico, where it performed occupation duties until 4 March 1899, when it took ship for home.  When mustered out of Federal service on 31 March 1899, the 47th had served one of the longest tours on active duty of any state regiment in the war.

The regiment remained active in the National Guard, receiving Federal recognition under the Dick Act of 1903.  Mobilized in 1916, it saw active duty on the Mexican Border.  The following year it was called into Federal service for World War I.  During World War I the regiment was reorganized as the 53rd Pioneer Infantry, an assault engineer unit, and earned battle honors for St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne.  While in Federal service, the regiment was replaced in state service by the 47^th Regiment, New York Guard..  When the 53^rd Pioneer Infantry returned to the state, it resumed its state designation, and absorbed its New York Guard counterpart.  In the massive reorganization of the National Guard that followed World War I, New York State had too many infantry regiments, and not enough units of other types.  As a result, in 1920 the regiment was reorganized as the 47th Engineer Battalion, a mounted element of the new 56th Cavalry Brigade, and then, in 1921 as the 27th Division Train, Quartermaster Corps.  When the 27^th Division entered federal service in 1940, a new 47^th Regiment was activated in the New York Guard for State service.  Although this regiment was deactivated after World War II, it was reactivated in the New York Guard in 1994.

Text by: MAJ Albert A. Nofi, PhD