(center), commander of the U.S. 2nd Division, Colonel Preston Brown, the division's chief of staff, and other members of the division staff, pictured here at
Chaumont-en-Vexin, France, May 28, 1918. Brown entered the army as a private in 1894 and served in Battery A, Fifth Field Artillery. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1897 and rose through the ranks. He was promoted to major in 1916 and
lieutenant colonel in 1917. In 1918, after the
American entry into World War I, he was appointed a
colonel in the
National Army and in August of the same year was promoted to
brigadier general. He served as chief of staff of the
2nd Division at
Château-Thierry and
Saint-Mihiel between April 6–September 18, 1918, and was Chief of Staff of
IV Corps between September 20–October 1918. On October 18, 1918, he became commander of the
3rd Division, serving in that capacity through the
Battle of Meuse-Argonne. He was awarded the
Army Distinguished Service Medal for his wartime service. The citation reads: , at the War Department, May 1927. Stood in the back row, on the extreme right, is Major General Preston Brown, commanding the
First Corps Area. In November 1918, he became assistant chief of staff at General Headquarters of the U.S. Army of Occupation. He was appointed an instructor at the
Army General Staff College in 1919. In 1921, he was acting commander of the
U.S. Army War College and in the same year was appointed commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade. Preston Brown was commander of the
Panama Canal Zone from 1928 until 1932. From October 1933 to October 1934 he commanded the
Sixth Corps Area. In 1927 he was elected as an hereditary member of the New Hampshire
Society of the Cincinnati. Brown retired to
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts in 1936, having reached the rank of
major general. ==Personal life==