and Vosges, the newly trained 92nd Colored Division, mostly manned
by Colored officers, went into the thickest of the battles with such
telling effects that fourteen officers and forty-three non-officers
were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. When those battles were
over and the survivors learned that they had lost from among their
chums 209 killed in action, 32 dead from wounds, 589 slightly or
severely wounded, 700 overcome by the German’s scientific gases and 18
unaccounted for, the 92nd Division became even more convinced that it
had well earned the many honors and distinctions accorded to it.
Those regiments that were brigaded with the French Army were; the
369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd Infantries. In the engagements of
Marson-en-Champagne, Minancourt and Bois d’Hause Champagne, the
369th Infantry (N. Y. 15th) took an active part and it was at
Marson-en-champagne that the whole regiment was cited for deeds of
valor and awarded the Croix de Guerre. It was at Soissons Front that
the most formidable oppositions were successfully faced by the 370th
Infantry (Illinois 8th) that was commanded by Negro officers from
Lieut. Col. O. B. Duncan, down. The final capture of Hill 304 after
a severe encounter by that regiment proved to the Germans that those
Colored lads had not paddled across the “Big Pond” to learn the “Goose
Step.” The loss of 1,065 out of 2,384 men signifies the serious
activities of the 371st Infantry in the Champagne Sector between
September 18th and October 6th, 1918. Besides the entire regiment
receiving citation for extreme bravery, its regimental colors were
decorated. It was this regiment that broke a standing record at that
time by shooting down three German airplanes on the wing. The 372
Infantry took part in the fighting around Vacquois Sector and Argonne
West, places not very far from the celebrated Verdun. For distinguished
service all along the fighting lines the whole regiment was decorated
with the Croix de Guerre.
While the 369th (New York 15th) enjoyed the distinctions of being the
first Colored fighting organization to go overseas into action and the
first Allied division (Colored or white) to reach the banks of the
Rhine; it was the 370th (8th Illinois) Infantry that won the glory of
probably fighting the last engagement of the World War. It appears that
on the morning of November 11, 1918 the French commander sent word to
the officer in charge of the 370th Regiment to cease firing at 11 a.m.
as the Armistice would be signed at that hour. But the Colored troops
were pressing forward so rapidly after the enemy that it was long past
11 a.m. before the messenger could overtake them. When he did finally
ride up to the regiment, it was just putting on the finishing “frills
and frazzles” in capturing a German army train and its crews of fifty
supply wagons.
Through the untiring efforts of Dr. Joel E. Spingarn, one of the
truest and most loyal friends the American Colored people have today,
Dr. W. E. B. Dubois, Editor of the Crisis, Col. Charles Young, U. S.
Army and many other prominent Colored leaders and friends of the race,
the Secretary of War authorized on May 19, 1917 the establishment of
an Officers’ Reserve Training Camp for Colored soldiers at Fort Des
Moines, Iowa. This is the place where the 639 Colored men mentioned
elsewhere in this article were trained before being commissioned into
the United States Army. After being divided into as equal groups as
possible these officers were ordered to report on November 1, 1917 for
regular duty in the following named camps: Camp Dix, New Jersey; Camp
Dodge, Iowa; Camp Funston, Kansas; Camp Grant, Illinois; Camp Meade,
Maryland; Camp Sherman, Ohio; and Camp Upton, New York.
Special National Guards
It was just at that most critical time during the first months of
this same year, (1917) before the United States declared war against
Germany, and when no white man in America positively knew nor
absolutely trusted any other white man as to his real one hundred
percent Americanism, that the Administration called out the first
Separate Colored Battalion of the District of Columbia. This group
of well trained and true loyal American soldiers was made a Special
National Guard to defend, from the enemies of the Government, the
Capitol, White House and other important Federal buildings located in
Washington, D.C. the Capital of the United States of America. The mere
fact that the Administration did not select a white group of soldiers
for such a purpose at such a critical time when spies of the enemy
were everywhere in every form proves without a doubt that the American
white people not only had to admit among themselves but were forced to
acknowledge to the whole world that this was one time in the history of
the country when they had not confidence enough in members of their
own race to intrust to them the Nation’s most valuable and delicate
assets and responsibilities, namely; its filed-away official records,
its treasuries of monies, its cherished honors and its liberty-loving
Government. And the necessary intrusting of such national assets and
responsibilities to the care of Colored soldiers reminded the outside
world (what American white people should never forget) that the
Colored people in the United States form the backbone of the American
nation; especially when the Nation is required to use that backbone
in overthrowing such white traitors of this country as the despised
Benedict Arnold and such white murderers of Presidents as the scorned
J. W. Booth.
That Special Colored Guard of Honor was under a Colored commander,
Major James E. Walker, who at all times intelligently and fearlessly
directed and guided his men in so successfully carrying out that
responsible and trustworthy task. And it was on account of his constant
exposure to all kinds of early spring weather (They started guard
duty March 25, 1917.) while daily and nightly directing and watching
the movements of his men, that Major Walker contracted the incurable
cold which resulted in his fatal illness and untimely death just in
the flower of his youth and in the performance of one of the most
confidential and mental-straining duties the Nation could impose upon
a citizen; guarding the history, good name, wealth and liberty of one
hundred ten million people.
ON THE SEA
_“Of The People, By The People, For The People.”_
On U. S. Ships, Colored men deserve
More than to cook or meals to serve;
And some are worthy of better fates
Than be only stewards and gunners’ mates.
Miss “Annapolis-Stevens” should never forget
Foreign nations are looking in shocking regret
At her vamping white boys, for caresses to get
In this School where one Colored has studied but yet.
--_Harrison._
In regard to the Colored men who took part in Naval strifes on the
high seas, it has been estimated that at least ten thousand of them
served in the Navy during the World War. While they were not allowed
to advance in the Navy in proportion to their advancement in the Army,
nevertheless, Colored college graduates and students, fully knowing
such facts, put aside for the time being their educational ambitions
and careers, entered the Navy and patriotically as well as unselfishly
served in the menial positions of stewards, cooks and mess boys. And
judging from the sleek full cheeks and plump round bodies of the
officers and sailors aboard the vessels, those Colored boys, who were
broad-minded and big-hearted enough to put down college pride and take
up in its place national patriotism, went into galley and mess rooms
and used the same kind of brain power in wrestling with pots and pans,
foods and dishes as they had so brilliantly used in tussling with
slippery mathematical, historical and linguistic problems when in their
college class-rooms.
And who but God has an accurate record of the noble deeds humbly
performed by many of those entrapped and unrescued Colored firemen and
stokers who to the very last possible moment kept up the motor powers
of their vessels in trying to outspeed and outdodge the death dealing
submarine torpedoes? Those swift snakelike missives were always aimed
and usually struck at either the life-giving lungs (fire rooms) or
the pulsating hearts (engine rooms) of their objects. And it was in
those vital organs of several great sea-ploughing vessels where many
feverishly working, loyally dying and unsung Colored heroes went down
to forever sleep in the dark deep chambers of “Father Neptune.”
THE STEVEDORES
While their duties, not being on the battle fields nor firing lines,
called forth no spectacular incidents, citations for bravery or award
of medals, nevertheless, the work of the stevedores was as important
and valuable as the efforts of any other division in the World War.
And their giant strengths and swiftness of movements in loading and
unloading supply transports on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean played
a very very clever part in helping the world to finally get a Zbyszko
“toe-hold” a Stecher “scissors-hold” and a Lewis “strangle-hold” upon
Germany and gradually forcing her shoulders backward and flat upon the
universal mat of democracy.
(For some of the facts and figures used in writing-up the actual
military and naval actions of the different wars that have been
recorded on the foregoing pages, the writer is reverently grateful
to his deceased Father, who as a runaway slave served through the
Civil War, and other veterans of the Civil, Spanish-American and
World Wars. But for the remainder and majority of such war data
herein used, the author is fully indebted to The National Benefit
Life Insurance Company, through the generous courtesies of its
President, Mr. R. H. Rutherford, Washington, D.C., whose personal
permission the writer secured to use such data in this book.)
HIGHEST COLORED OFFICERS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY
A BRUNETTE GENERAL
Through all the wars these States have gone,
A million Colored their parts have borne,
But never a General has one been made:
Yet, Lafayette’s France have them so paid,
For character there out-points darkest shade.
Colored taxes are yearly in dollars fed
To help in the drilling of West Point’s tread:
On kinder treatments Negroes should have dined,
Who rarely got there and mostly resigned.
If length of service and training thorough,
And physical fitness without a blur
Mark Colored soldiers for station anew,
“Uncle Sam,” they would fill them both brave and true;
These nephews who never have treasoned you.
--_Harrison._
Those who have been appointed the highest Colored officers in the
United States Regular Army are as follows:
Colonel Charles Young (retired) Tenth Cavalry.
Lieutenant Colonel Allen Allensworth (retired) deceased,
Chaplain, Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Lieutentant Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Ninth Cavalry.
Lieutenant Colonel John E. Green, Militia Attache, Monrovia, Liberia.
Major William T. Anderson (retired) Chaplain, Tenth Cavalry.
Major John R. Lynch (retired) Paymaster.
Major Richard R. Wright, Paymaster, 1898, Spanish-American War.
Major George W. Prioleau, Chaplain, Twenty-fifth Infantry.
Captain W. E. Gladden, Chaplain, (retired) Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Captain T. G. Steward, Chaplain retired, Twenty-fifth Infantry.
Captain Oscar J. W. Scott, Chaplain, Tenth Cavalry.
Major Louis A. Carter, Chaplain, Ninth Cavalry.
First Lieutenant A. W. Thomas, Chaplain Twenty-fourth Infantry.
Those who held the highest Colored commissions above captains in the
United States Army during the World War are as follows:
“Colonels:
Franklin A. Denison, 370th Infantry; Charles Young retired.
Lieutenant Colonels:
Ollie B. Davis, 9th Cavalry; Otis B. Duncan, 370th Infantry; John E.
Green, Military Attache, Monrovia, Liberia.
Majors:
“Thomas B. Campbell; Milton T. Dean, 317th Ammunition Train; John C.
Fulton, 372nd Infantry; William B. Gould, Jr., National Guard; Charles
L. Hunt, 370th Infantry; William H. Jackson, 369th Infantry; Thomas
H. Moffatt, 371st Infantry; Adam E. Patterson, Judge Advocate, 92nd
Division; Rufus M. Stokes, 370th Infantry; James E. Walker, 372nd
Infantry; Arthur Williams, 370th Infantry.”
(The above list of officers’ names are quoted from Work’s Negro Year
Book, edition 1918-1919, pages 223-228.)
IN THE WORLD WAR
At Home
Relative to the willing sacrifices, unfaltering patriotism and loyalty
of the millions of Colored people who remained at home in the United
States during the World War, several books could be written but limited
space herein will not permit but a few paragraphs covering their many
activities.
After the white American men had enlisted or were drafted into the Army
and Navy, there were left vacant thousands and thousands of responsible
positions. The European foreigners who had previously immigrated here
and were immediately given (even before they could understand the laws
of the land or speak its language) full American opportunities and
privileges, except the ballot, were now found unreliable. Great hordes
of them showed their gratefulness to America for earlier throwing wide
open her doors to them by refusing to come up to her test of one
hundred percent Americanism. Even after all of the available mothers,
wives, daughters and sisters of the departed white American soldiers
were used in such places, there still remained many thousands of
positions unfilled. All that time millions of Colored men and women
who were loyally and willingly asking and waiting to fill such places
were at first purposely ignored. Because of the lack of sufficient man
power, the cog-wheels of industry all over the country began to stop.
It seemed as though the American white sentiment of prejudiced feeling
against the Colored people had become so bitter that the country was
willing to commit industrial suicide while stopping to wallow in its
mires of racial hatred.
But a certain good white sentiment (that usually turns up sooner
or later, and in some cases more later (than sooner) after great
sufferings have been caused) gently but firmly reminded America that
there were millions of Colored people who were able and willing to
fill those places. They were the people who had made and spent their
money here to enrich and build up America as well as at all times and
under all conditions had proved themselves most loyal and trustworthy
citizens. That reminder although known to be wholly true was still
laughed and sneered at by many until they were suddenly and painfully
brought to realize that they must either employ Colored people in
those positions or let the country go in starvation and ruin for want
of sufficient and proper productions. Colored men and women were then
at first reluctantly given employment in all parts of the country
in almost all kinds of work. Thus for the first time since their
forefathers and mothers had arrived in America nearly three hundred
years before, Colored people were nationally allowed to use and enjoy
many of the opportunities and privileges that had been stingingly
withheld from them merely because they were Negroes and freely given
to (many times forced upon) alien enemies just because they were
Caucasians.
Leaving home in the morning long before dawn and returning late after
twilight, Colored men faithfully dug coal in the mines of Alabama,
Iowa, West Virginia and elsewhere in order that various kinds of
industrial plants might continue to run in full blast and that
transportation carriers might quicken their speeds to stations and sea
ports. “A. J. Webster, a coal miner of Buxton, Iowa, is reported to
have broken the record by earning $214.06 in 14 working days, during
the last half of July, 1918. The wage was based on the amount of coal
mined.”
In the shipyards along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, where the
long swift-keeled ocean grey hounds and the heavy big-bodied sea-pacing
mastiffs were rapidly born into life, thousands of Colored men were
busily helping to assemble the durable steel ribs into place and rivet
the armorplate hides of those ferocious watch dogs that prowled back
and forth sleeplessly guarding the front doors of their master and
mistress--“Uncle Samuel” and “Aunt Liberty”. And among those Colored
ship builders, it was Charles Knight and his crew of seven men, who
on July 16, 1918, at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s Sparrow Point,
Md., plant, drove 4,875 rivets in a 9 hour day. The highest previous
record of 4,442 rivets for the same time had been made in Scotland.
Knight and his men, therefore, were the first Americans (Colored or
white) to break and bring that record to the United States. His regular
services for the day earned him $102; he received a bonus of $50.00
for bringing the record to America, and twenty-five pounds sterling
($125.00) offered through the London Daily Mail by Mr. McLeod, the head
of a London Shipbuilding Company, to the one who broke the record. Thus
Knight received for his one day’s labor $277.00, besides having the
honor of being the first American to break the European riveting record.
Many people have heard the time-worn expression “make bricks fly”,
but it has been left for Alonzo Harshaw, a Colored artisan, to break
a record by making bricks fly in laying them at the rate of sixty
thousand paving bricks per day. It is said that Harshaw, who works for
the Southern Paving & Con. Co., lays bricks with such rapidity and
exactness that he has been photographed while at work by several moving
picture firms.
In the rolling mills, steel and iron foundries, Colored men were
there in thousands sweating away their strength and burning up their
vitality before blistering metals in order that the best possible steel
and iron might be made strong and durable enough to withstand the
bursting shells and the snake gliding torpedoes from the submarines of
the scientific Germans.
Pushing pens and pencils on top of desks, tapping keys of clicking
typewriters, bending over buzzing sewing machines, plying needles over
tailors’ benches, before the humming looms, by the dangerous railroad
crossings, in the car-filled train yards, between the handles of
loaded wheelbarrows, through the crops of farmerette fields, among the
death-dealing explosives in munition and arsenal plants and in many
other places, thousands of brave and willing Colored women were to be
found either in yeowomen’s suits or overalls and blouses steadfastly
working with cheery dispositions and hopeful smiles.
In December, 1918, two distinguished Colored Americans were sent to
Europe on special missions as follows; Dr. Robert R. Moton, who was
sent by the President of the United States and the Secretary of War to
investigate the conditions of and talk to the Colored soldiers, and
Dr. W. E. B. DuBois who went to Europe as the representative of the N.
A. A. C. P. and The Crisis to collect historical data pertaining to
the American Colored fighters in the World War and to call and form a
Pan-African Congress.
At Home Buying Liberty Bonds
“The Biennial meeting of the National Association of Colored Women’s
Clubs was held in Denver, Colorado in July, 1918. Among the important
subjects considered at this meeting were: Temperance, Suffrage,
Lynchings, Religious Work, Negro Women’s Problems, Food Conservation
and what the Negro Women Were Contributing to War Work Service. It was
pointed out that the Association had representation on the Women’s
Committee of the Council of National Defense, that in the Third Liberty
Loan, 7,000 Negro Women were at work and raised $5,000,000. It was
also stated that, judging from the number of buttons sold through the
colored women’s clubs, that about $300,000 had been contributed in Red
Cross Drives.”
“David H. Rains, a wealthy Negro farmer, living near Shreveport,
Louisiana, walked into the Liberty Loan Headquarters in that city
and purchased $100,000 worth of the Fourth Liberty Loan Bonds and
said that: ‘If they fell short of the quota he would make up the
deficiency.’ (Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pages 48-49).
According to an article on page 273 in the April 1921 issue of The
Crisis, ‘Mr. Rains, who is reputed to be worth $1,500,000, owns 2,000
acres of land on which there are 40 producing oil wells; he pays a
clerk $100 a day to check up his royalties.’”
“A report from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was that the Negro school
children subscribed for $27,000 worth of Third Liberty Loan Bonds.
Through a Negro bank in that city, over $400,000 worth of Bonds were
bought, and it was stated that the total amount of Third Liberty
Loan Bonds purchased by the Negroes of Philadelphia was more than
$1,000,000.”
“At the close of the Third Liberty Loan Drive, the United States
Treasury Department awarded first place among all the banks of the
country to a Negro bank, the Mutual Savings, Portsmouth, Virginia. This
bank was given a quota of $5,700 to raise. A total of over $100,000,
almost twenty times the stipulated quota was raised. This bank was
assigned $12,500 as its quota of the Fourth Liberty Loan. Its total
subscription for this loan was reported to have been $115,000.”
“The Negroes of Jacksonville, Florida, were awarded the first honor
flag given to Negroes for exceeding their quota in the Third Liberty
Loan Drive. They were asked to raise $50,000; they raised $250,000. In
the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive, they were assigned a quota of $500,000
and raised over $100,000 more than this amount. The following are
additional examples of subscriptions of Negroes to the Fourth Liberty
Loan: Mobile, Alabama, $250,000; Norfolk, Virginia, $250,000; Kansas
City, Missouri, $500,000; Savannah, Georgia, $500,000; Memphis,
Tennessee, $700,000; Chicago, Illinois, $1,000,000; Birmingham,
Alabama, $1,155,000; Maryland, $2,000,000.”
“When Secretary McAdoo visited Little Rock, Arkansas, in the interest
of the First Liberty Loan, he was presented with a certified check
for $60,000 as the Mosaic Templars’ bit toward financing the war. This
society’s subscriptions were added to for subsequent loans until a
total of $135,000 was invested in Liberty Bonds.”
Not only rich Colored people gave freely of their wealth, but poor
Colored people sacrificed to extents that are not imaginable in giving
their last few dollars to help end that world strife, as soon as
possible.
“Mary Smith, a colored cook in Memphis, Tennessee, was asked by her
mistress if she would not undertake to buy a $100 Bond. Mary said: “No.
I don’t want no little $100 Bond. I want a $1000 and I am going to pay
cash for it.” She gave her lifetime’s savings to help the United States
carry on the war.”
“The Chicago Illinois Post, in an editorial headed: “The Widow’s Mite,”
among other things said: “We should like to tell the story of an old
Negro woman, who, with seamed face and knotted hands, lives on the
South Side and works for $7 a week. ‘Out of these meager wages,’ says
the Favorite Magazine, ‘this daughter of a race that has traveled the
road of trials and tribulations, has purchased three Liberty Bonds
and $25 worth of War Savings Stamps. She contributes $5 a month to
her church--before the war it was $10--belongs to the N. A. A. C.
P. and a Court of Calanthe, subscribed to three Negro periodicals
and contributes a dollar a month to the Home for the Aged. She does
not knit, but she sits sometimes in the sunset, dreaming of the two
stalwart sons that she has given the nation to fight its battles across
the sea’.””
“Warner Brown, of Brenham, Texas, an ex-slave, seventy-five years old,
had accumulated $50 by chopping wood and doing other jobs. He invested
this in a Liberty Bond.” “Gilbert Denman, an eighty-seven year old
Negro of Greenville, Alabama after listening to an appeal of speakers
from a war relic train, tendered his entire worldly wealth, fifteen
cents, to the cause of the United States Government.”