These are the people from the twelve Heartland states whose photographs appear in Soldiers of the Great War, a memorial book published in 1920. Most of them died in the First World War, in battle, of wounds, of disease or by accident. The book also pictures some who were wounded in action.
We have set each portrait beside the caption the book printed under it, grouped by hometown, so a family can find a great-uncle and a town can find its own. Across our twelve states that is 6,336 people, 5,197 of whom the book records as having died.
Choose a state
- Illinois834 portraits, 716 who died
- Indiana366 portraits, 306 who died
- Iowa557 portraits, 464 who died
- Kansas346 portraits, 293 who died
- Michigan671 portraits, 555 who died
- Minnesota607 portraits, 483 who died
- Missouri692 portraits, 576 who died
- Nebraska257 portraits, 183 who died
- North Dakota200 portraits, 133 who died
- Ohio888 portraits, 763 who died
- South Dakota203 portraits, 133 who died
- Wisconsin715 portraits, 592 who died
How to read the captions
Every portrait in the book sits in an oval above a small printed banner: the rank, the name, the hometown, and a two-letter code for what happened.
- K.A.
- Killed in Action
- D.D.
- Died of Disease
- D.W.
- Died of Wounds
- D.A.
- Died of Accident
- W.A.
- Wounded in Action
Those five codes are the book's own legend, printed at the front of each volume. Ranks are printed short too: PVT. for private, CPL. or CORP. for corporal, SGT. for sergeant, LT. for lieutenant, CAPT. for captain, MAJ. for major, WAGR. for wagoner, MECH. for mechanic, BUGL. for bugler and MUSC. for musician. A few captions carry other titles; we show every one exactly as the book printed it.
| Code | The book's meaning | People |
|---|---|---|
| K.A. | Killed in Action | 2,622 |
| D.D. | Died of Disease | 1,509 |
| D.W. | Died of Wounds | 972 |
| D.A. | Died of Accident | 94 |
| W.A. | Wounded in Action | 1,139 |
Finding more about someone
Each name links to a search of our free database, where the same person may turn up in a death index, a cemetery record or a county history. The hometown printed under the photograph is often the best place to start looking for an obituary in the local paper.
Source
Soldiers of the Great War, compiled by W. M. Haulsee, F. G. Howe and A. C. Doyle, published in three volumes by the Soldiers Record Publishing Association, Washington, D.C., copyright 1920. It was published in the United States before 1931, so it is in the public domain. The scans are from the Internet Archive; the page images here are our own copies of those scans.
- Volume 1 (Alabama to Maryland): archive.org/details/soldiersofgreatw0001unse
- Volume 2 (Massachusetts to Ohio): archive.org/details/soldiersofgreatw0002wmha
- Volume 3 (Oklahoma to Wyoming): archive.org/details/soldiersofgreatw0003unse