Pennsylvania National Guard 112th Infantry Regiment
Erie, Erie County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Organized in 1921, the 112th is part of the famed 28th Div., the oldest continuous infantry division in the US Army. The 112th, previously known as the 16th, has origins in the storied 83rd PVI regiment formed in Erie in 1861 during the Civil War. It served in the Spanish-American War, WWI, and Iraq and was awarded Presidential Unit Citations in WWII and Korea. For 90 years 112th units served at Erie Armory, a National Register-listed property.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
The 112th Infantry Regiment traces its lineage to the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, raised in Erie in 1861 as the Civil War began. Reorganized over the decades, it became part of the 28th Division, the oldest continuously serving infantry division in the U.S. Army, and its soldiers fought in the Spanish-American War, both World Wars, Korea, and Iraq. For ninety years those units mustered at the Erie Armory, a building now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Why it matters
The regiment's long service links a single Pennsylvania community to nearly every major American conflict since the Civil War, embodying the citizen-soldier tradition of the National Guard.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The story on this marker reaches back to 1861, when Erie, Pennsylvania — a growing Great Lakes port and industrial city — sent its men to war as the nation split apart. The Civil War drew soldiers from towns and cities across the North, and the regiment raised here became part of that vast mobilization of ordinary citizens into armies.
Over the following decades, the American military reorganized again and again, and the units with roots in that Civil War regiment were reshaped, renumbered, and folded into larger formations. By 1921, in the years just after the First World War, the 112th Infantry Regiment took the form named on this marker, as part of the 28th Division.
Throughout this long span, Erie remained a home base for these citizen-soldiers. For ninety years its units gathered at the Erie Armory, a building substantial and significant enough to earn a place on the National Register of Historic Places — a physical anchor for generations of local service.
People & events
The lineage here is a chain running through American history. It begins with the 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, formed in Erie in 1861, one of the many volunteer regiments raised across the North during the Civil War. That unit's identity carried forward, later known as the 16th, and then reorganized in 1921 as the 112th Infantry Regiment.
As part of the 28th Division — described on the marker as the oldest continuous infantry division in the U.S. Army — the 112th served across a remarkable sweep of the nation's conflicts: the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, and, much later, Iraq. Along the way its soldiers earned Presidential Unit Citations in both World War II and Korea, among the highest recognitions a unit can receive for extraordinary performance in action.
Behind that record are generations of Pennsylvanians who mustered, trained, and shipped out from the same city. For ninety years the Erie Armory was where they assembled — the building where local men became soldiers and, when the fighting was done, came home.
Its place in the American story
This regiment embodies the citizen-soldier tradition at the heart of the National Guard, in which people leave their ordinary lives to serve and then return to them. Its unbroken thread from 1861 to the wars of the twenty-first century ties a single American community to nearly every major conflict the nation has fought in that long span.
The 28th Division's claim as the oldest continuous infantry division in the U.S. Army places the 112th within one of the deepest institutional lineages in American military history. Presidential Unit Citations in two different wars mark moments when these soldiers performed at a level the nation chose to single out for honor.
There is a larger truth here about how America has fought its wars: not only with career soldiers but with regiments raised from specific towns, carrying their community's name into battle. Erie's long connection to the 112th is a local example of that national pattern — a hometown regiment whose service maps onto the country's own story.
If you visit
This is a place to think about continuity — the idea that the same community sent its people to serve across more than a century and a half. Standing here, you can trace a line in your mind from Civil War volunteers to soldiers deployed to Iraq, all sharing a single lineage and, for ninety years, a single home base.
Look toward the Erie Armory, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and consider what a building like that meant to a city: the place where neighbors gathered before shipping out, and where families waited for them to return. Armories were civic landmarks as much as military ones, woven into the life of the community around them.
It makes a meaningful stop on a visit to Erie, a city with its own rich Great Lakes and maritime history. Give yourself a moment to appreciate that the marker is not about one battle or one war, but about generations of citizen-soldiers from this one place — a reminder that military history is also local history.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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