The 144th Infantry Regiment was created in April 1880, when six volunteer militia companies of the
Texas State Guard consolidated into the 4th Texas Infantry. The six companies were the
Lamar Rifles from
Dallas, the
Fannin Light Guards from
Bonham, the Frontier Rifles from
Henrietta, the Gate City Guard from
Denison, the
Johnson County Guard from
Cleburne, and the Queen City Guards from Dallas. In 1898, the 4th Texas Volunteers were mustered for federal service in the
Spanish–American War, and they were redesignated as the Second Infantry, Texas Volunteers, but they never deployed or saw combat. In 1903, the regiment regained its 4th Texas moniker after a state military force reorganization. The next day, they swept south to clear out any stalwart defenders, and were moved off the line. They spent the rest of the war acting as a divisional reserve. They had lost 369 men in the Great War, the second largest toll of the infantry regiments in the division.
World War II The day after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, 8 December 1941, the regiment moved to
Fort Lewis,
Washington to guard the
West Coast against possible
Japanese attack under the
Western Defense Command. Because of the restructuring of the US Army, the 144th was removed from the 36th Infantry Division command on 1 February 1942 and assigned to GHQ as a separate regiment. The regiment moved to
San Francisco, California, on 20 April 1942, and to
Santa Rosa, California, on 7 May 1942 under the
Western Defense Command. The regiment moved to
Atlantic Beach, Florida 21 January 1943 for coastal patrol duty with the
Eastern Defense Command, and then was assigned to
Camp Van Dorn.
Mississippi on 23 March 1944. The 144th was reassigned to the XXI Corps on 18 April 1944. From March 1944, the regiment provided an accelerated six-week course of infantry training (four weeks of familiarization, qualification, and transition firing, and two weeks of tactical training) to men who were formerly members of disbanded anti-aircraft and tank destroyer units or who had volunteered for transfer to the infantry from other branches of the Army, and men from the 144th served as replacements in 48 different Army divisions. The 144th moved to Camp Swift, Texas, on 5 January 1945, and then to Camp Rucker, Alabama, on 4 April 1945 under the
Replacement and School Command, where it was deactivated on 19 September 1945.
After 1945 When the
49th Armored Division was being created, the 144th Infantry was reactivated by battalion from April to November 1947. The 1st-4th Battalions were redesignated as
Mechanized infantry in 1959. The 144th was later mobilized in response to the
Berlin Crisis of 1961 and deployed to
Fort Polk,
Louisiana before returning home in May 1962. It was returned to state service in June. The regiment was briefly deactivated from 1968–1973, where it remained a component of the Texas National Guard. By 2018 the battalion Headquarters and Headquarters Company had relocated to
Wylie. ==References==