Amos A. (Amos Alfred) Fries

Born in Viroqua, Wisconsin, in 1873, Amos Alfred Fries graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1898 and began his career as an Army engineer. Early assignments took him to the Philippines under John J. Pershing, and he also supervised road and bridge work in Yellowstone National Park.

During World War I, Fries organized and led major parts of the American Expeditionary Force’s gas service in France. After the war, he became a leading chief of the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service and helped make it a permanent part of the military establishment.

Fries also wrote about chemical warfare and remained a forceful public advocate for military preparedness. His career made him an important, and sometimes controversial, figure in the history of the U.S. Army and the development of modern chemical defense.