Baltimore's Own: Courage, controversy and the crucial role of the 313th Regiment to end World War I

The author has done painstaking research to tell the readers about these men and their ordeal. Even to the streets they grew up on and the neighborhood they were from. As someone familiar with Baltimore I appreciated that. We should be thankful that they were so brave and someone told their story. That trench warfare must have been unimaginably horrific to those young men and Mr. Martin has told their story so deservedly.

Baltimore's Own is a great source on the history of the 313th Regiment and Maryland soldiers during WWI. It's a well researched book which is also very enjoyable.

This book reads like a novel but is in fact all true. Using the words of the men “over there” …and with impeccable attention to detail, the writer takes you back to the end of WW1 and largest land invasion ever made by the US Army. It’s the story of one regiment in particular and the role they played in bringing the war to its end. I could not put this book down. If you like history and want to be transported to an earlier time, when courage and patriotism was at its height…read this book. You will not be disappointed.

A masterful work on many levels in a book of five hundred, ten pages, loaded with information and images that any historian will love to embrace when it comes to discovering a large slice of the amazing world behind The Great War.The book developed over decades from the time Mr. Martin’s friendship with his back yard neighbor, the author of the letters, and Mr. Martin passing through life, with marriage, children, a career as a history teacher and then clearly understanding that the letters he possessed deserved to be opened to all. It stands as an excellent tribute that this story is now told and is expanded so well with a good large measure of discovery which is added to the storyline of world war in the early twentieth century.Let me say, you will not regret adding this excellent book to your collection. And, I suggest you spend unhurried time with the stories and back stories that are so well written in this book. Keep this manuscript if you are a writer about history as it has information you will discover that will make your own work so much better.Now, my only criticism about this book, that I keep on my reading table next to my comfort chair, is Mr. Martin chose not to include an Index. The lack of this guide, within a book so precious as this one, is unfortunately, sad.