Return from the Argonne – Montgomery, Alabama US

Sculptor – James Butler, MBE R.A.

Return from the Argonne – Montgomery, Alabama, US

The  body of an American soldier has been sent back to his country. The soldier has been fatally wounded  and has now returned to his hometown in Montgomery, Alabama.  The body is covered by a torn shelter half, and part of the face is revealed.  One leg is bare and the other leg has been wounded.  His boot is undone and his left arm comes out.

The figure is over life size and measures just over eight feet long and over three feet wide.

Location of memorial at Union Station in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Return from the Argonne memorial was dedicated on November 11, 2021 at Union Station in Montgomery, Alabama.

On May 12, 1919, three trains with 1,451 survivors of the original 3,677 soldiers of Alabama’s 167th Infantry arrived at Montgomery Union Station to parade to the Capitol. The Return from the Argonne Memorial, by sculptor James Butler, R.A., remembers their last battle of WWI in the Argonne. On October 16, 1918, Alabama’s 167th Infantry and Iowa’s 168th Infantry in Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur’s 84th Brigade of the 42nd Rainbow Division, assisted by the 151st Georgia Machine Gun Battalion, captured the Côte de Châtillon, the final obstacle standing between the Allied Army and Germany on the Hindenburg Line. It opened the road to the Rhine River and the final push that would lead the Germans to request an Armistice on November 11, 1918.

The Return from the Argonne Memorial also honors all Alabamians who fought in the Argonne between September and November 1918: this includes the Alabamians in the 31st Dixie Division who served as replacements in other divisions as well as the African American soldiers, mostly from Alabama, in the 366th Infantry Regiment of the 92nd Division. They participated in the Meuse Argonne campaign from the end of September to November 11.

Another Alabama native son, James Reese Europe, from Mobile, served in the Meuse-Argonne campaign. A famous musician, he led the military band of the 369th regiment (Harlem Hell Fighters) which brought jazz to Europe.

This Memorial from James Butler, M.B.E., R.A., is a gift to the City of Montgomery from the Croix Rouge Farm Memorial Foundation through the generosity of Nimrod Thompson Frazer, Silver Star, Korea.

It is in memory of his father, William Johnson Frazer, Purple Heart, World War I, who never forgot his fellow soldiers.

View the selected bibliography

See details about the dedication of the sculpture on November 11, 2021.