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For a generation the Lost Battalion exemplified the best of America’s involvement in World War I. Until World War II pushed the Lost Battalion out of the national memory with its own scenes of horror and heroism, mention of the unit’s name summoned up what America admired in its soldiers: unpretentious courage, dogged resistance, and good cheer and adaptation under adversity.

“[In October 1918 the Seventy-seventh American Division attacked in the Argonne. One mixed battalion of companies from two regiments got as far as it could. Germans closed in the rear, surrounding 600 men. Six days later, after incredible hardships, the wounded and an unharmed 194 were relieved. . . . [The authors have reconstructed every dramatic hour of the six-day siege. . . . Correcting myths, cleaning up official whitewashes, Johnson and Pratt succeed in telling a more dramatic story than all the myths and official embroideries put together.”—New York Times

Thomas M. Johnson was a newspaperman and author who covered World War I. Fletcher Pratt was a historian and prolific author. Edward M. Coffman is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of several books, including The War to End All Wars: The American Military Experience in World War I.