Intrinsically a log cabin may have but little value.  Looking 
back into that bottomless vale of memory, this rough hewn room 
of logs conveys a value so great that it is beyond the ken of 
mortal man to figure.

Thus it is with the Memorial Cabin of the 314th Infantry, 
located on a beautiful knoll overlooking the Schuylkill River at 
Valley Forge, that shrine of American Independence. Log for 
log, and stone for stone, it is the identical cabin that brings to 
mind the long and arduous days of Camp Meade, when men were 
men preparing for a conflict beyond the seas.

Back in those hectic days of the fall of 1917 when Camp 
Meade presented a desolate and disordered sight with miles of 
sandy wilderness dotted here and there by what little nature 
could push up above the poor soil, the early arrivals built 
a log cabin.

Material at that time was scarce.  The abundance of stores 
that later presented itself was in the making.  Necessity forced 
those early pilgrims to use their initiative out of which rose the 
log cabin, from trees felled on the reservation, from hardware 
collected from the hinterland of the camp, and from other 
materials left by nature.  Spikes were hammered out of horseshoes 
and the massive hinges on the doors were shaped from wagon tires.

Situated just beyond regimental headquarters the log cabin 
became a sort of shrine to the thousands who poured through the 
camp.  It was something unique in the realm of soldierdom and it 
stood as an insignia of the regiment.

A memorial to those who lost their all was suggested.  What 
better monument could be reared than the cabin made by some 
of the very men who perished on the bloody fields of the Argonne?  
Log by log and stone by stone the Cabin was taken down and 
transported from Camp Meade to Valley Forge, where it now 
stands as an everlasting memorial to the men of the 314th.