th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, recruited
in Montreal, although not under the authority of the University, was
affiliated with the McGill Canadian Officers Training Corps, and a large
number of its officers and men were members of that organization. Later,
two reinforcement drafts were organized in the University and each
contained a large proportion of students. One was a heavy artillery
draft, which on arrival in England in the autumn of 1917 was absorbed
into the artillery pool and was used to supply new siege artillery
batteries about to be organised or to reinforce field and heavy
batteries already at the front. The other draft was recruited for the
Tank Battalion raised in the universities of Canada. But apart from the
men in the units and drafts organized in the University, McGill men,
students, graduates and professors, were found in practically every
branch of the service, whether army or navy. The attendance of students
in the University was reduced to a minimum; the teaching staff was
depleted. In all, over twenty-five hundred McGill men enlisted. Three
hundred and forty-one were killed in action, or died of wounds or
disease; five hundred and twenty-two were wounded; three hundred and
eighty-two received decorations or honours, two of which were the
Victoria Cross. In recognition of its services in the allied cause the
University received a grant of one million dollars from the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. McGill's war record, tragic
but glorious, is one of her proudest possessions.

Principal Peterson's health had been impaired even before the war by the
cares of an active and busy life spent unsparingly in the interests and
the advancement of the University. Like his predecessor, his life at
McGill was one of unremitting labour and ceaseless, strenuous tasks
which drew in the end a heavy toll from his strength. Then the war came.
With its activities and the continuous demands it made upon his time and
energy, it severely taxed his already weakened constitution. During the
summer of 1918 he had been urged by his physicians and friends to rest
because of his failing health. He did not heed the advice; he felt,
indeed, that he could not in that troubled and anxious time obey it. He
refused to curtail his exertions, and he continued to give his great
ability and his unstinted service in every way to help the allied cause.
On Sunday, the 12th of January, 1919, although he was not then in