118th Infantry Regiment (United States)

118th Infantry Regiment
118th Infantry Regiment Coat of Arms
Active	1846–1848 1861–1865 1898 1917–1918 1940–present
Country	United States of America
Allegiance	South Carolina
Branch	Army National Guard
Type	Infantry regiment
Motto(s)	Wherever My Country Calls
Engagements	Mexican–American War American Civil War First Battle of Bull Run, Battle of Williamsburg, Battle of Seven Pines, Battle of Gaines's Mill, Second Battle of Bull Run, Battle of Antietam, Battle of Fredericksburg, Battle of Gettysburg, Battle of Lookout Mountain, Battle of Fort Harrison, Battle of Deep Bottom. Spanish–American War World War I World War II Operation Enduring Freedom Operation Iraqi Freedom
Insignia
Distinctive Unit Insignia

The 118th Infantry Regiment is an infantry regiment of the United States Army, South Carolina Army National Guard. It has served the US since the mid-nineteenth century, and is one of the few surviving US Army regiments that can trace its roots to the Confederate States Army. Its 1st Battalion (1–118) and 4th Battalion (4–118) are still active and are attached to the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade.

The 118th Infantry Regiment traces its lineage to the year 1846, when the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry was organized for duty in the Mexican–American War. Company E, "Johnson's Rifles", lives on today as 4–118. During the American Civil War, the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry was reorganized into units of the First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, under General James Longstreet in 1861. The battalions of the South Carolina regiment first saw action at the First Battle of Bull Run, where the Union Army was defeated. They next fought in the Peninsula Campaign, and eventually had to retreat from General George B. McClellan's forces at the Battle of Williamsburg in mid-1862. Shortly after, the South Carolinians fought again at the Battle of Seven Pines, where the Union advance on Richmond, Virginia was stopped even though the Confederate forces did not deliver a decisive defeat. Longstreet's Corps recovered from the losses of the Peninsula Campaign and defeated the Union at the Battle of Gaines's Mill 26 days later, and followed the victory by decisively defeating the Union Army in the Second Battle of Bull Run. The battalions of the original 1st South Carolina took part on the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862, the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing.