Hometown: Denver, CO
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: Company A, 356th Infantry, 89th Division
Military Honors: Medal of Honor, Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: November 5, 1918 - KIA near Le Champy-Haut, France
Age: 23
Conflict: World War I, 1914-1918

Marcellus Chiles’ family moved from their Eureka Springs, Arkansas, home to Denver, Colorado—where his father John Horne Chiles worked as an attorney—by the time Marcellus was five years old, in 1900.

After graduating high school, Marcellus attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs and played football for the Tigers. During his sophomore year, with the United States officially declaring war on Germany, Chiles enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917.

He was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas, and enrolled in officer training school. Chiles received his commission as a Second Lieutenant after completing his training in August 1917. On February 18, 1918, he was promoted to First Lieutenant.

Sent to France with the 356th Infantry Regiment, 89th Division, Chiles achieved the rank of Captain and saw combat in Saint-Mihiel, France, in August of 1918.

On November 3 of that year, Chiles was fighting in northern France in what would turn out to be the last Allied offensive of World War I: the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Pushing forward between the small French towns of Nouart and Le Champy-Haut, Chiles’ battalion came under heavy German machine-gun fire. The battalion commander and two staff lieutenants were cut down in the initial burst.

In a letter to Capt. Chiles’ parents, a Colonel with 356th Infantry Headquarters wrote:

Seeing his men checked, he jumped to the front, picked up a rifle from one of the fallen men, and called to his men, “Follow me, men. Let’s go get ‘em!” He jumped into a stream waist deep in water and led the way across and forward…his example was their inspiration—they followed, as men will ever follow the heroic example of a gallant leader. Just after gaining the forward bank of the stream, your son fell, mortally wounded by a sniper’s bullet through the abdomen. But always heroic in action and actuated by the highest sense of duty, he refused to be moved to the rear until he had turned over to his successor all maps and instructions in his possession. He succumbed to his wound within a few days after reaching the hospital.

Out in front of his command, alone, he was a marked man. There was not one chance in ten thousand that he would escape, and of course he knew lt.

For his courageous actions, Capt. Chiles was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, which was upgraded to the Congressional Medal of Honor a year later.

Capt. Marcellus Holmes Chiles is buried among 14,245 of his fellow soldiers in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery (Plot C, Row 31, Grave 23), east of the village of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon in Meuse, France.

On the campus of Colorado College, the Chiles House student apartment building has been named in his honor.

Sources
Congressional Medal of Honor Society: Marcellus Holmes Chiles
Central Arkansas Library System, Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Marcellus Holmes Chiles (1895–1918)
Colorado College—Building Names: Marcellus H. Chiles
The American Legion: Marcellus Holmes Chiles
Burial Site: Find a Grave