THE STEVEDORE
Very early in the war it was found that there was a serious shortage
of common labor in the American army. France was unable to supply
her own needs, and therefore not at all able to assist her allies.
To supply the American need for common labor Negroes were suggested,
G. K. Little, assistant engineer at Mobile, Ala., writing to the
chief engineer that they were “loyal and willing to obey all orders
irrespective of weather conditions or other hardships” and generally
“peculiarly desirable.” It was the plan of these engineer service
battalions to work wherever they could help and to do whatever was
necessary. Forty-six such battalions were formed. The first four
consisted of white men and the others of Negroes.
The stevedores represent that part of an army about which little is
said because it does the rough, unskilled work; yet no group renders a
more valiant service or contributes more to the success of an army than
do these men.
This was especially true of the 150,000 Negro stevedores in the Great
War, who played an important part both at home and abroad. Included
in the term were the engineer regiments, the depot brigades, and the
service, labor, and development battalions. Some officials have said
that the Negro stevedore rendered the most magnificent service of any
Negro organizations in France. Their work was undoubtedly appreciated
by the War Department and by most citizens; yet honors were not
conferred upon them as upon the fighting men. No brass bands came out
to greet them on their return. Few had opportunities to win the Croix
de Guerre or the Distinguished Service Cross, although they often
performed deeds of bravery while working behind the lines in the range
of the big guns.
Unfortunately the term “stevedores” came to mean to many people those
who were physically or mentally unfit to be fighting men and they were
looked upon as inferior to other soldiers. Sometimes this was true, but
it is also true that there were thousands of stevedores who represented
the best of the young manhood of America. In the beginning of the draft
hundreds of Negro men who met all the physical qualifications could
not meet the educational tests. Such men were usually transferred
to stevedore organizations, and the rate of illiteracy in these ran
from 35 to 75 per cent. Sometimes also those who because of physical
unfitness were only partially able to serve their country when it
needed them, nevertheless rendered some valuable service in American
camps. Such a company was the 402nd Reserve Labor Battalion, stationed
at Camp Hancock, Augusta, Ga. This was located fifteen miles from the
camp in a wood, where it built roads and also kept in condition the
range for the officers and men being trained for the battle fronts in
France.
The question naturally arises how it happened that some of the best
of the Negro youth were placed in the stevedore regiments. In the
beginning there was great need for men to do the manual work connected
with supplying with food and equipment two million soldiers in France.
The Negro was regarded by many army officials as specially adapted
to this work because of his previous training and his cheerful
disposition; and for one reason or another some other officials
deemed it advisable to withhold from him regular military training.
Accordingly, in the fall of 1917, colored draftees and volunteers were
sent to various assembling camps and formed into stevedore and labor
units. Thousands from the Southern states, many of them students in the
schools and colleges, rushed to the colors with the hope of entering
combatant units, only to find, to their great disappointment, that they
had been assigned to service regiments.
The work in the United States varied with the different camps.
Sometimes it was the handling of supplies or ammunition. Then again
it was grading, ditching, digging stumps, cleaning up new ground for
building purposes, or draining camps. The men did every form of fatigue
work and sometimes built roads along with civilians who received $3.50
or $4.00 a day. Those who remained in the United States did not, as a
rule, experience as hard a life as their comrades in France. Living
conditions in the cantonments were usually very good, even in the tent
camps after the necessary improvements had been made. Sometimes it
happened that the stevedore was neglected in the beginning, especially
if he was placed in a camp apart from the other soldiers. Such was
the case at Camp Hill, Newport News, in the winter of 1917-18. In the
coldest weather experienced in this part of the country in a quarter of
a century, the stevedores lived in tents without floors or stoves. Most
of them could get only one blanket and some could not secure even that.
Twenty to thirty occupied one tent 16 feet square. Often men reaching
the camp in zero weather were compelled to stand around a fire outside
all night or sleep under trees for partial shelter from the wind, rain,
and snow. For four months no bathing facilities or changes of clothing
were provided. Food was served outdoors and often froze before it could
be eaten. After inspectors and other investigators constantly reported
these conditions they were changed. Comfortable barracks and mess halls
were built, a Y. M. C. A. building and a hostess house erected, and
the name of the camp was changed from Hill to Alexander in honor of
one of the three Negro lieutenants who had been graduated from West
Point. Not only in this camp, but in every other where unsatisfactory
conditions prevailed, improvements were gradually made until, at the
end of the war, most of the stevedores in American camps were living in
comfortable surroundings.
The stevedore units were commanded almost entirely by white
commissioned officers, with white sergeants and colored corporals. In
some engineer units all the non-commissioned officers were white,
though in rare cases they were all colored. The work of the Negro
stevedore in the American Expeditionary Force was considered of prime
importance. He was among the first to sail for France, and among the
very first was a group of one hundred men from New Orleans. They and
those who followed them were to be found at the base ports of Brest,
St. Nazaire, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Le Havre, and at such railheads
as Tours, Liffol-le-Grand, Gierve, St. Sulpice, Chaumont, and other
such centers. The largest of these ports was Brest, and here the men
did more work than anywhere else. They handled all kinds of supplies
at the docks, coaled ships, and helped to build piers and docks. They
labored night and day, sometimes continuously for sixteen hours.
Although they worked in the rain and snow, it was only after months
had passed that they were provided with oil-skin suits and gum boots.
One high officer said, “The men who worked on these docks have had the
hardest job of any men in France, but their spirit has been fine.” In
the “Race to Berlin” the Brest port won the championship, a company of
the 310th Service Battalion winning the honor of having done more work
than any similar outfit in France. As a reward it was sent back to the
States earlier than would otherwise have been the case.
The St. Nazaire base was the second largest port. Numerous camps were
located outside the city, extending as far as fifteen kilometers.
Twenty-eight miles of warehouses were constructed at Montois and
filled with supplies of every description, while outside there were
railroad engines, cars, and vast quantities of construction material.
St. Nazaire was also a huge embarkation port. At times more than
50,000 colored soldiers were stationed in this vicinity. The long pier
extending a mile out into the water was built almost exclusively by
the 317th Engineers. The task was very dangerous, as the men had to
work standing on slippery boards, but it was finally completed and
stood as a memorial to the Negro soldiers. Camp Guthrie was built
entirely by Negro men. They composed the personnel and ran the big
troop kitchens, the delousing plants, the officers’ mess halls, and
the infirmaries. Here, as at Brest, the hardest work on the docks
was done exclusively by Negro soldiers. This included coaling ships
and unloading supplies of all kinds, including railroad engines and
tractors. During the “Race to Berlin” new port records for unloading
ships were made weekly. The men sometimes “worked like mad men,”
having received the impression that they were going home as soon as
the armistice was signed. Badges were given to those who got the most
work done, and the base port winning the week’s competition flew a flag
for the next week. In addition to the work on the docks, the soldiers
built and repaired roads, built railroads, warehouses, a round house,
a water-filtering plant, and did general fatigue duty. In referring
to what they accomplished a major said, “It has been no hero service,
but has been hard, long, and faithful, and it is appreciated. These
men have handled 30,000 tons of material in one day.” Another officer
said, “Many colored soldiers are sleeping in the little graveyard on
the hill because they broke their heartstrings in the ‘Race to Berlin.’”
Bordeaux was the third of the large ports. In the camps outside the
city as many as fifty thousand soldiers were stationed at times. At St.
Sulpice in the Bordeaux area the American army built and filled with
provisions and munitions about one hundred warehouses. At two camps on
the outskirts of the city, Anconia and Bassens, twenty thousand Negro
soldiers were stationed for months, handling cargoes day and night.
Many of them worked sixteen hours a day and rarely ever saw the camp in
the daytime, as they went to and from work in the dark.
The work at the other base ports was similar, though on a smaller
scale. Sometimes hundreds of miles of railroad track had to be laid or
great steel warehouses erected. Gierve was outstanding as a center for
such work, as it was the largest supply depot in France. Warehouses
here covered an area seven miles long and three miles wide. There were
always some Negro units stationed at this place, along with white
units which did stevedore work. The two organizations which served at
Gierve for the longest period were the 313th and 328th Negro labor
battalions. At Liffol-le-Grand, near Chaumont, the headquarters of the
commander-in-chief of the American Army, there was another large supply
depot. Here the Negro engineers drained and cleared a swamp, laid miles
of railroad track, and helped to build a large round house and several
warehouses.
The stevedores were the great roadbuilders in France. Thousands
also worked in the great forests, cutting wood, peeling trees, and
laboring in the sawmills. In the Forestry Division at Jironde they
made an average of peeling 35 trees a day per man, while the average
of other engineers were only 15 trees. Nazareth Thaggard of the 323rd
Service Battalion made the highest record of any man in the A. E. F.
by cutting 30 steres of wood in one day. The task for his company was
five steres. For this notable achievement he was given a twenty-day
pass to travel over France and made a corporal in his organization. The
320th Engineers cut and carried wood for a mile and a half on their
backs. The men in the 332nd Labor Battalion, stationed at Brion, cut
six steres of wood as a daily task. They cut 1500 steres at Jerocho
and 5400 at Comercy. The woodcutters lived in floorless tents often
surrounded by mud. Many times the necessary clothing and boots could
not be secured, and sometimes they were obliged to eat in the rain and
snow. Dr. Hope, of whom we have spoken as at the head of Y. M. C. A.
work for Negro soldiers in France, said in speaking of a visit to the
woodcutters: “One night I went in a car fifteen miles out in a wood
with a chaplain who came to a small French town to buy ‘smokes’ for
the men. When we reached the camp it was dark. Lights were seen in
the narrow streets and mud deeper than I had ever seen before. In the
morning the men got up at 4.45. The sound they made walking through
the mud was unlike any noise that I had ever heard. Even at that early
hour some were joking, some singing.” The record of almost every
organization cutting wood shows that the men endured great suffering,
and the Negro’s sense of humor was a great asset to him. Said one
private who served with the 323rd service battalion: “We have come in
wet to the skin, with our boots half full of water. Some would go to a
stove and get warm, some would sing, some play cards. Others would walk
five miles for French bread and butter and eggs that they would cook
in their mess-kits. Some would laugh and be happy, while others beside
them would die.”
After peace was declared and the American army started home, there
remained still much work to be done “over there.” The heroes who fell
at Château-Thierry, Amiens, St. Mihiel, in Belleau Wood and the Argonne
Forest deserved a suitable resting-place. The work of reburying the
dead was done almost exclusively by the Negro stevedores. Daily convoys
of trucks went as far as a hundred kilometers, and men searched the
fields, forests, and shell holes for the dead, who were brought to the
cemeteries and reinterred. This was the most ghastly and gruesome task
in the A. E. F.; yet the way the Negroes worked may be judged from the
fact that at Romagne, where the largest American cemetery is located,
1038 and 1050 soldiers were reburied in two successive days. The nature
of the work required that much of it be done after midnight when most
of the men were asleep. One could hear the sound of the hammer and
the tread of feet, and the lonely minor chord of the Negroes’ song
as they drove nails into the coffins. The electric lights all over
the cemeteries at night showed these men moving about without the
traditional fear attributed to them. Theirs was no enviable task, but
no group of men ever displayed finer spirit in the performance of duty,
and no soldiers more loyally served the republic.
* * * * *
With all of their good service, however, the stevedore organizations
were not popular with the Negro soldiers. One reason for this was the
lack of opportunity in them for promotion. One incident will illustrate
the situation. A colonel who was organizing one of these regiments out
of recently drafted men, in an attempt to stir up enthusiasm, said,
“Men, we are going overseas in two weeks. We are going to see the
country and have some fun. You’ll probably never hear a gun fired.”
There was no applause, and the colonel seemed not to realize that
the lack of it was due to the fact that the men not only wanted to
hear guns fired but wanted to fire some themselves. Continuing, he
said, “This is the first opportunity Negroes ever had to serve as
engineers. It is all an experiment. It’s up to you men to make good.”
After concluding his remarks he asked if there were any questions.
“Sir, Colonel, what about promotions?” asked one man. This turn rather
surprised the officer, but he recovered and said, “The officers will
be white.” A moment later he added, “The non-commissioned officers
will also be white.” Then he paused, and the soldier repeated the
question. The colonel then said, “There will be twenty-five first class
privates, who will carry rifles, and you know they get three dollars
a month more pay. You know cooks are needed. A lot of men will want
that job, but it takes a ---- good man to be a cook.” The silence
which greeted this remark indicated great disappointment on the part
of the men. Seeing this, the colonel tried to hold out some hope by
saying that some non-commissioned officers would be made in France
when new organizations were formed. As a matter of fact, as the war
progressed, many appointments as non-commissioned officers were made,
the commanders of Negro soldiers ultimately realizing that they as well
as other soldiers were prompted to do better work when there were even
remote possibilities of securing promotions.
The kind of treatment accorded the men was due almost entirely to
the attitude of the officers who immediately commanded them. In some
organizations commanding officers were more like foremen and overseers
over railroad gangs and plantation workers than like officers in
command of American soldiers. Very frequently little interest was taken
in the personal appearance of the men, and military law was practically
disregarded in dealing with them. One commander did not hesitate to
say that if the men did not move as he thought they should, he helped
them with his foot, and the soldiers were placed in the guardhouse
on the most trivial pretense. “The spirit of St. Nazaire,” said one
officer, “is the spirit of the South,” and in the early days of this
great camp there were constant clashes caused by racial feeling and by
drinking. There were several colored French women at this base. White
officers and soldiers were frequently seen with them, but if a Negro
was seen with a white French woman a good deal was likely to be said,
and trouble was generally started by the marines. Discriminatory orders
were often issued, and stevedores experienced difficulties in visiting
cafés and other public places. Sometimes they were also forbidden to
enter French homes or to be seen in company with French civilians.
With the military police there was special trouble, as the men
received the impression that they made a special effort to use their
authority to abuse Negro soldiers. Sometimes they conducted an “era of
ruthlessness,” and many of the fights and “near riots” were due to such
efforts. In the railway terminal in one cantonment city, when large
numbers of soldiers were returning to camp, every Negro was required to
show his pass, but the passes of the white men were not required. This
sort of thing made for friction, as did also the manner in which the
soldiers were often approached by the M. P.’s.
On the other hand, the Negro soldiers themselves were not without
faults. Some of their difficulties were due to their own ignorance
and to customs that they brought into the army from civil life. On
plantations and public works some had been used to “ducking the boss”
and slipping away, and attempts to continue this practice in the army
sometimes resulted in their being placed in the guardhouse.
In such a situation it is pleasant to recall that two junior officers
in one organization were always working in the interest of the men
and heartily disapproved of the treatment they received. In their
camp discriminatory orders were not issued. While moreover some of
the roughest treatment given the stevedores was by Southern officers,
it is also true that some of the best and fairest officers commanding
Negro troops were Southern men. Such officers saw that their men
were well equipped, if it was possible to equip them, and provided
for their recreation by organizing athletic teams and by giving full
co-operation to the “Y” in its program. The 313th Labor Battalion was
commanded by such an officer in France and its fine record was largely
due to his impartial attitude. For the 542nd Engineers, one of whose
companies worked on the roads in the Remaucourt region in France, there
was built a little auditorium. This was wired by one of the officers,
and the scenery for the shows was painted by one of the men. There
were pictures every night and people from the village near by were
free to attend. One of the men, Frank Johnson, won the middleweight
championship of the S. O. S. and his only defeat was at the hands of
the French champion. That the stevedores appreciated their commanders
in such organizations was shown by the fact that when they sailed for
America they often presented to them gifts costing hundreds of francs.
The story of one camp will serve to illustrate both types of officers
that commanded Negro troops. Camp Williams, located at Issurtille,
was the second largest supply depot in France. During the last days
of the war 12,000 Negro soldiers, mainly engineers and stevedores,
were stationed there. They built warehouses and railroads and supplied
the combat troops with wood, food, clothing, medicine and shells and
ammunition of all kinds. The camp adjutant said that they did their
work without grumbling. The non-commissioned officers were both
white and colored, mainly white. Very often they were ignorant men.
Illiterate Negro men were often selected in preference to educated men
and sometimes were made to serve as “stool pigeons.” For nine months
at this camp there was in force a special order bearing date July 3,
1918, which said: “All colored enlisted men of this command are hereby
confined to the limits of the Camp and Depot until further advised.”
The enforcing of this order was a great cause of trouble. When white
troops were permitted to visit not only Issurtille but all the
surrounding towns, many of the colored men broke the rules and left the
camp without passes; this brought them into conflict with the M. P.’s,
and ended by their being placed in the guardhouse. On arresting the men
the M. P.’s frequently cursed them and on the slightest provocation
threatened to use revolvers. Conditions finally made necessary a change
in the camp commander. Colonel S. V. Ham, a regular army officer who
had been wounded twice at the front, assumed command. He found a
filthy camp with practically no morale. Segregation was everywhere
and prejudice was intense. At once he issued the following order:
“The restrictions against visiting towns in this district by colored
troops are hereby removed until further notice. It is the desire of
the Commanding Officer to place the colored troops on the same status
as the white troops.” This was dated March 26, 1919. Colonel Ham
also issued an order forbidding the use of the word “nigger” in the
camp. All officers attended officers’ meetings when they were held;
previously colored officers never went, for they did not know when the
meetings were to be held. Lectures were given on the treatment of the
soldiers; military discipline was enforced in the case of both officers
and men; and the Colonel himself pulled down some of the discriminatory
signs. The result was that within three weeks the number of men in the
guardhouse was reduced from three hundred to fifty; sometimes several
days would pass without a man’s being placed there. Complaints were
reduced 60 per cent within the first week. Interesting also is the fact
that the rate of venereal disease in the camp was also lowered. The
general attitude of Colonel Ham changed the spirit of both officers and
men, and before long the feeling of racial antagonism gave way to one
of comradeship.
PIONEER INFANTRY ORGANIZATIONS
There were fourteen other organizations in France, known as Pioneer
Infantry Regiments, which did mainly stevedore work. These were
composed largely of men who were drafted during the summer of 1918 and
who were given from one to three months of intensive military training
in American camps and then sent overseas. The commissioned officers
were white, and the enlisted personnel colored. In France a small
number of colored dental officers, chaplains, and band leaders were
assigned in some of the regiments. It appears that the idea of the
War Department in forming these organizations was to have men trained
to fight, if needed, and also to have sufficient men to do the work
necessary for the maintenance of a big army.
Most of the regiments reached France during the months of September and
October, 1918, and consequently did no actual fighting. They worked in
the S. O. S. and in the advanced section, sometimes in the back area
of shell fire, and in a few instances near the front lines. Their work
consisted of road building, assistance at the base ports, salvaging
the battlefields, demunition and demolition work, and the building
of ammunition dumps with material moved from the battlefields to the
roads and then to central stations. The removing of ammunition after
the Château-Thierry drive was so satisfactorily done that Lt. Col. Ord,
chief ammunition officer of the S. O. S., wrote a letter in which he
said: “These two depots were transformed from a heterogeneous pile to
this remarkable condition in seven days, and I desire to compliment the
officers and twenty-six men who went from these headquarters as well as
the 801st Pioneer Infantry for this remarkable achievement.”
Before the Armistice several regiments worked behind the front lines
in the Argonne Forest and at St. Mihiel, where they built narrow- and
wide-gauge railroads and macadam roads for the movement of light and
heavy artillery and supplies. It was also the task of some to bury the
dead, working under shell fire. Sometimes bombs dropped among them,
killing and wounding them; but because of their late arrival in France
they did not work long in such danger. After the Armistice some did
guard duty, looking after the German prisoners. Companies of the 806th
and 811th Pioneer Infantry regiments did a part of the concrete and
grading work for the Pershing Stadium, the $100,000 structure erected
by the Y. M. C. A. for the inter-allied games held in July, 1919.
While the Pioneer Infantry regiments and the stevedores did the
same kind of work for the most part, the former received the better
treatment, as their officers generally insisted on a square deal for
their men. In one battalion the major, an Alabamian, discouraged
segregation by removing all objectionable signs, and he made no effort
to prevent his men from associating with respectable French people.
The commander of the 815th Pioneer Infantry regiment gave wholesome
lectures to his men as a means of education and encouragement. These
organizations also, with few exceptions, were liberal in granting
leaves and in issuing week-end passes, and some of the men were sent
to the universities in France when the A. E. F. conducted its great
educational program.
Most of the regiments had good bands, minstrel shows, and baseball
teams. The 807th Pioneer Infantry Band of fifty-two pieces was removed
from its organization for several months and stationed with General
Liggett of the First Army Corps, being called the First Army Post
Band. The 806th Pioneer Infantry Band played at the Columbus Stadium
in Paris, giving daily concerts during the A. E. F. try-outs for the
inter-allied meet. The baseball team of the 809th was the most notable
Negro team in France. It won the championship of the St. Nazaire base
and finished third in the A. E. F. league. The umpires in the league
were fair in all the games.
The Pioneer Infantry organizations proved a disappointment to many of
the soldiers in them because, as one officer said, “they did everything
the infantry was too proud to do and the engineers too lazy to do.”
However, they did splendid work and returned to America with a record
of honorable achievement.