History

At the start of the Civil War, President Lincoln requested the immediate mobilization of 75,000 soldiers for the defense of Washington, D.C.  Within 48 hours of the President's call, five units from Pennsylvania, composed of 530 men, arrived in Washington. Four of these units – the Allen Rifles, the National Light Infantry, the Washington Artillerists of Pottsville, and the Ringgold Light Artillery of Reading – were met by President Lincoln and proclaimed to be, "The First Defenders."

In the 1870s, independent local militia units were consolidated into the newly organized Pennsylvania National Guard.  The Guard grouped the militia companies permanently into regiments and brigades and established a formal chain of command.  The units that had made up the “First Defenders” became the 4th Regiment of the National Guard of Pennsylvania, one of fifteen fielded by the Commonwealth in the early 1890s.

Upon the declaration of war with Spain in 1898, units of the 4th Regiment were mustered into federal service and involved in the capture of Puerto Rico.

In 1916, the regiment was again activated and sent to the Mexican border, serving under Brigadier General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing.

When Pennsylvania’s National Guard was called upon for service in World War I, it underwent a gut-wrenching reorganization.  Mobilized with three infantry brigades containing a total of nine regiments, the 28th Division had to be reorganized into the new model with two infantry brigades, each of two very large regiments.  This reorganization was accomplished by consolidating eight of the existing regiments into four new regiments.  The ninth existing regiment, the 4th, was broken up, its colors returned to Harrisburg, and its men used to fill the ranks of the Division’s Engineer Regiment, Ammunition Train and the machine gun battalions formed to support both the 28th and 42nd Divisions.

This is not the place to discuss the deeds of the “Iron Division” and the men of the old 4th Regiment in the “Great War”.  Suffice it to say that the record established is most creditable and that many Keystone Guardsmen remain beneath the soil of France.

When November 11th of 1918 had come and gone and the victory parades had ended, the pre-war leaders of the Guard – ably assisted by the young leaders who had emerged from the crucible of combat – began to think about reestablishing the institution of the National Guard in Pennsylvania.  It was decided that the organizational structure used during the war would be adopted for the post-war Guard.  The units comprising the four infantry, three artillery and one engineer regiments were allocated peacetime stations based, as much as possible, upon the locations from which those units had come before the 1917 reorganization.  This approach worked reasonably well, except in those towns and cities where the old 4th Regiment had been based, as the new structure did not contain a unit that fit the seven communities that made up the First Defenders.

The war just ended had seen the rise in importance of aircraft, and the need for a means by which enemy aircraft might be countered.  The Army had assigned responsibility for anti aircraft action to the Coast Artillery Corps, whose primary mission of coast defense involved highly technical fire direction for the big guns protecting the nation’s harbors.  There was a need for anti aircraft units both in the Regular Army and the National Guard.

Thus, a collection of former engineers, machine gunners, and ammunition supply men, located miles from the nearest coastline, became a regiment of Coast Artillery.