[1] Secretary of War Newton Baker authorized Major General Samuel Sturgis to organize the 162d Depot Brigade, an element of the 87th Division.

[3][4][5] The brigade filled two purposes: one was to train replacements for the American Expeditionary Forces; the other was to act as a receiving unit for men sent to camps by local draft boards.

[8][9] The role of depot brigades was to receive and organize recruits, provide them with uniforms, equipment and initial military training, and then send them to France to fight on the front lines.

The depot brigades also received soldiers returning home at the end of the war and completed their out processing and discharges.

Depot brigades were often organized, reorganized, and inactivated as requirements to receive and train troops rose and fell, and later ebbed and flowed during post-war demobilization.