With many the cause was sheer patriotism.

Others said they had gone into the 15th for social reasons, to meet with their friends.

One--this seemed to me a most pathetic touch--said: 'I j'ined up because when Colonel Hayward asked me it was the first time anyone had ever asked me to j'ine up with anything in my whole lifetime.'" If any great amount of superstition had existed among the men or officers of the New York regiment, they would have been greatly depressed over the series of incidents that preceded their arrival in France.

In the first place they had been assigned to police and pioneer duty at camps near New York, a duty which no fighting man relishes.

They embarked on the transport Pocahontas November 12, 1917.